The shame of indifference

The notion that the rich must be happy is complemented by the delusion that the poor must be miserable. Our society is so constituted that most people remain all their lives in the condition in which they were born, and have to depend on their imagination for their notions of what it is like to be in the opposite condition. The rich, it is said, do not know how the poor live; but nobody insists on the more mischievous fact that the poor do not know how the rich live. The rich are a minority. But the poor are a huge majority and they are so demoralized by the notion that they would be happy if only they were rich. And, they wouldn't mind buying sweepstakes on the chance of realizing their daydreams of unearned fortunes.

The slowing Indian economy is just more of a nuisance to the rich and middle class people. But what about the fate of the population that hovers close to the acute poverty line? If they thought washing the floors, driving the cars and cleaning the windows of the rich/middle class would open the doors to a better life, they know now that they were wrong. With prices rising, their savings are being eaten away. Higher food and fuel prices are being driven by big changes in the global economy that look set to continue. Even the most cheerful optimist in the past decade has seen the huge divide between the haves and have-nots, but the hope has persisted that it would somehow go away. Inflation has set like asphalt into that divide, solidifying the gap between the two Indias. The future for the country is two futures: rosy and grim. Indian companies will buy more foreign businesses and more Indian children will starve. In economic terms, India has become neither the U.S. nor Sudan, but something in between — a Latin American republic with an entrenched class chasm. Higher levels of crime and social unrest are almost certain to follow. For years or decades to come, we will not be able to talk of one destiny for all the people of the country. India is still just a Sudan - with a little icing on the top.