Poverty in India

Out of every 100 children born in India today:

63 births are not even registered
25 are not immunized against any disease
16 will have no access to clean drinking water
47 will suffer from malnutrition
15 will never go to school

This is something we will never have to live with, we can never really imagine and we can see all around us in New Delhi. Poverty is not something being suffered by the population only in the poor agricultural areas (60% of the labour force work in agriculture) but right here in the capital city. From what I have learnt from those who have been out into the rural areas, they may not be rich but they don't live in sewers and by the side of polluted roads.

Personally I find visiting in this kind of environment a challenging and distressing thing to do. It raises so many questions for me and my life. Why do we have and why do they have not. In europe we never really have to address this sort of issue in our daily lives but here you aren't able to ignore it. Every car journey will give rise to at least 2 or 3 encounters with road side (car side) beggars, tapping on your window, pointing at their tummies or mouths. Most of these beggars are children. It is estimated that 2.3 million children live in the slums or streets of Mumbai alone.

Do we ignore these taps on the window? Expatriates who have suffered it longer than us have various philosophies to come to terms with the phenomenon, most of them eventually reaching the decision just not to give at all. This is also the case for many Indians, some of whom have scolded us for donating. Some of the arguements are:

1. It just encourages them.
2. It's actually illegal to give to them.
3. Any money that you give them gets given to their "controller".
4. They have been dressed up to look dirty and distressed but it's only a facade.
5 . Some have been mutilated so they attract more sympathy.
6. The are all of a lower caste and should really be moved on.

Whichever of the above arguements is used or is true, doesn't detract from the fact that they have to be better off if you give them something than if you don't. So we do as much as we can or as is acceptable to the company we are with. This can be difficult as even my sister's driver (who has to drive us everywhere) does not approve (he doesn't want them near his car) and although he is in no position to dictate, we do not want to upset the status quo in his relationship with my sister, his employer. So we give out 2 or 3 rupees here and there (4 or 5 pence) which basically costs us nothing but means that they can probably get something to eat. We have found a good bowl of foods for 20 rupees here so a street kid could probably survive on 10 or 20 rupees a day and be reasonably well fed.

Julie just wanted to take them all home but now as we acclimatise to the situation we become more realistic (read: dulled) about what is possible and what we can contribute.