The gap between the upper and lower classes in India grows by the
minute. India’s burgeoning “middle class” accounts for the top earners in
the country as half of its population still lives on less than two dollars per
day. The increasing economic disparity between the top and the bottom
classes means an increasing disparity in quality of life. The
expectations of the upper classes increase as their purchasing power
increases. They begin to demand better hospitals, schools, cars, and
homes. The economically irrelevant lower classes do not have the
influence that disposable income brings. The conspicuous consumption of
the upper classes serves as a daily reminder of their poverty. To give my
first-hand observations about the contrast between the lives of the upper class
and lower class in India, I have four stories to share.
Chennai Mall Life: I have frequented the glossy Express Avenue
mall in Chennai a number of times now. The structure rises six stories into the
sky, filling the air with its frantic consumerism. Bright lights shine on
sparkling saris, trendy Nike shoes, and a bustling KFC. India's middle and
upper classes mill in and out of shops. Their expanding waistlines push them to
shop at newly opened plus sized stores. From this enclave, India's social and
economic problems seem far away. However, just across from the mall, tucked
away behind stores, lie the corrugated roofs of a sprawling slum.
Hotel Opulence: In Pondicherry we stayed in a hotel in which
surfaces gleamed with polished granite, glittered with crystal chandeliers, and
shone with burnished ceilings. Every night the hotel hosted glamorous weddings.
The guests chatted while wearing their best silk saris and sipping champagne.
Outside the high gates of the hotel, however, a cloud of dirt and noise
replaced the cool, clean air conditioning. Maneuvering around the buckling
sidewalk and piles of trash outside, I was overwhelmed by the contrast between
the hotel's spotless opulence and the unabashedly grimy poverty of the
surrounding neighborhood.
The Privileged College Student: Every time I leave the sylvan
enclave of MCC's middle class campus for the city I pass beggars who plead for
money. They sit in piles of rags with festering wounds, amputated limbs, and
raggedy hair, curled up against the battering flow of the passing foot traffic.
Instinctually I want to help, but I have been told that any money I give will
only attract unwanted attention. My fellow classmates have remarked in guilty
tones how easy it is to ignore beggars. Even in Tamil Nadu, one of the most
affluent of India's 28 states, abject poverty is normal. For every day we
spend here, Davidson's wide brick sidewalks and innocuously friendly
townspeople fade from my mind as a new normal, the Indian normal, replaces them.
Beautification Projects: Sitting in my taxi on the way to a posh
department store, a gypsy woman with a small baby approached my window. She
made silent gestures from her mouth, to her baby, to me. Her watery eyes
bore into my own. She is used to being ignored. Her newly affluent
middle class counterparts view her as an unsavory reminder of their former
economic hardships. I have even seen many signs on hotels and restaurants
telling passerbys that the establishment "reserves the rights of admission.”
I take these signs to mean establishments will allow in only
"appropriate" well-to-do customers and exclude the dirt-covered lower
classes.
Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) petition the government to
eliminate slums from the neighborhood. Since the slums are technically
squatters, they should not legally live on the land. However these
largely selfish beautification campaigns have no intention of bettering the
conditions of the poor. They move the poor to crowded tenements on the edge of
the city or demolish the slum without advance notice. The upper class would
rather beautify its city than solve any of its problems. In the way that
India's upper class wants to keep poverty out of site, India is very much like
America. America does a fantastic job of hiding its poverty. Out of
sight, out of mind, right? In my hometown in Ohio I drove to school every
day through a disaffected area of town, but the streets were always wide and
clean with out a single homeless person in sight.
The gap between India's rich and poor is growing. The rich buy
their fancy cars in air conditioned mega-malls and eat western food with
abandon, while the poor live without clean water or toilets. India’s
prosperous accept this lifestyle gap as normal. I must admit that I
accept poverty as normal both in India and at home. I cannot apportion
blame upon others without recognizing my own faults. I ignore poverty in my own
city and spend wildly while many of my countrymen have no disposable incomes,
homes, or even clothes of their own. Just because poverty is normal for
America and India does not mean that the poor should continue to live in
squalor. In spite of their historical love of socialism, Indians today do
not make much effort to redistribute wealth so that everyone might benefit from
the country’s prosperity. As long as pure capitalist morals (i.e.
amorality) grip the growing middle class, the gap between the rich and the poor
will continue to grow. The gypsy woman will continue to beg. The
hotel in Pondicherry will host elaborate weddings. The waistlines of the
middle class will keep expanding, and India will continue along the same
economic path for the foreseeable future.
