Why doesn't the government of India do something about
the living condition of the people living in the slums?
jan.
the living condition of the people living in the slums?
jan.
The Indian Government
- Thread starter Jan Ardena
- Start date
I've asked the same question of many places in the world. But the reality is that it's not so simple. What do you do with the people while their "homes" are being razed, then rebuilt to better standards? And do you rebuild in the same location or a different location? What if the people don't like the new location? Even after it's all rebuilt, who pays the rent? Part of the reason they live in the slums is that many don't pay "rent", they barter, etc. Many of the people live several families in a single room!
After "studying" this situation in many areas of the world, I think the best answer isn't so much what to do about it NOW, as don't let it get started in the first place. Mexico City has a horrendous slum area and population, but it's been there for so long that other parts of the city have built up around it.
Slums, ghettos, etc in major cities is nothing less than a living cancer. If you don't cut it out or destroy it in some way, it'll destroy you. The cities are exactly the same. The cancer is slowly eating away at virtually all of the major cities of the world. And once cancer gets too far along, cutting it out or irradiating it will not only destroy the cancer, but it'll destroy the patient as well.
We should all watch anxiously as Rio de Janiero "does something" to their major slum areas for the coming Olympics. It's gonna' be damned interesting. But my guess is that they'll bulldoze it after "forcibly" relocating the residents.
Baron Max
I imagine because they have only a partial understanding of Vedic or "Indian" culture, or because they embrace only a part of it, but reject others. That is, they accept the doctrine about karma ("If someone lives in a slum, this is their karma"), but reject the one teaching that the king/government has to provide for the citizens spiritually and materially.
Perhaps they will relocate them into a better living condition other than the slums they are in now. Time will tell.
With all the other construction they have to do for the Olympics, I doubt if they'd have enough money left to build them anything of much value. But of course if they do build them SOMETHING, it would be better than what they had (until they get kicked out for not paying the rent and just go and rebuild their own slums again).
If only we knew that centuries ago?
A little late for that, isn't it?
Or, to be more specific, the problem has existed for a long time, and even if there was a reasonably proper science to have made the point centuries ago, it is doubtful the leaders would have listened. Oscar Wilde suggested that the solution is to create conditions under which poverty is impossible. A monumental undertaking in theory, if not downright impossible even at present. Even presuming there is such a solution, it will take quite a while to accomplish, and convincing the world to try a difficult proposition.
Baron Max said:
A little late for that, isn't it?
Or, to be more specific, the problem has existed for a long time, and even if there was a reasonably proper science to have made the point centuries ago, it is doubtful the leaders would have listened. Oscar Wilde suggested that the solution is to create conditions under which poverty is impossible. A monumental undertaking in theory, if not downright impossible even at present. Even presuming there is such a solution, it will take quite a while to accomplish, and convincing the world to try a difficult proposition.
Britain dug a pretty deep pit for India to dig out of.
And they are only a generation or two this side of a civil war.
India is sort of getting around to things, with major improvements here and there, but their caste problem is about where Jim Crow was in 1900 in the US, if not worse, and they don't have the luxury of a frontier or "homestead" land. My neighbor tells me the trees lining the road through his town had metal tags with numbers on them identifying the owner of their wood rights.
So they can paddle like mad and make only slow, incremental, invisible progress.
And they are only a generation or two this side of a civil war.
India is sort of getting around to things, with major improvements here and there, but their caste problem is about where Jim Crow was in 1900 in the US, if not worse, and they don't have the luxury of a frontier or "homestead" land. My neighbor tells me the trees lining the road through his town had metal tags with numbers on them identifying the owner of their wood rights.
So they can paddle like mad and make only slow, incremental, invisible progress.
Blame it on the British? Is it that easy to provide answers for ignoring the poverty? And yet, didn't India shoot a rocket into space with a com-satellite just this past year or so? Didn't India build or buy a nuclear submarine in just the past few years? What else has India spent money on that could have gone to help her poor?
While I understand the comnent about Britian, I can't help but see it as giving the Indians one more or many "excuses" to continue ignoring the poor. If we all blame the past for our mistakes and problems of the present, we'll have a damned difficult time getting to the "future".
Baron Max
Baron Max,
Their dwellings are not an issue with me, as I can understand that in such
a populated country, primarily based on western principles, you are going to
get a deep division between rich and poor.
My question relates to the condition these folks are forced to live in.
The lack of clean sanitation, the lack of basic education, and so on.
How can human beings with the power to excercise at least some level
of change, allow this to happen, worse still, in their own back yard.
Aren't they at least embarassed by this, and the fact that there are
people with hardly anything themselves try and make some kind of difference?
I think the best answer is child education, but the circumstances of these
people mean their childrens education is a last priority.
Why can't the government step in?
Cancer can be treated.
jan.
Their dwellings are not an issue with me, as I can understand that in such
a populated country, primarily based on western principles, you are going to
get a deep division between rich and poor.
My question relates to the condition these folks are forced to live in.
The lack of clean sanitation, the lack of basic education, and so on.
How can human beings with the power to excercise at least some level
of change, allow this to happen, worse still, in their own back yard.
Aren't they at least embarassed by this, and the fact that there are
people with hardly anything themselves try and make some kind of difference?
I think the best answer is child education, but the circumstances of these
people mean their childrens education is a last priority.
Why can't the government step in?
Cancer can be treated.
jan.
If they accept the principles of karma, then what of their own?
I'm not advocating they provide material comfort, only the basic needs
which are required for human beings to develop.
Is that too much to ask?
jan.
Well, Jan, I thought I kinda' answered that in my earlier post, tho' it wasn't completely specific. The problem, Jan, is that slums begin with only a few people, a few hovels, that draw little or no attention from anyone. Before the dust settles on the first few hovels, the whole area has become a huge slum. Hovels are built where there's no sewers, no water, no electricity, no ...., no anything. See? Before anyone can figure out what the hell has happened, there's millions of people living in the area ....and it's growing in leaps and bounds. Just like cancer!
Yes, governments are embarrassed by it, the people are embarrassed by it, but the slums are also a gathering of humans. If you chase them out of that place, they have no where to go, so they simply start another slum somewhere else.
Educating a child of the slum, yet allowing the child to live in the slum, is sorta' like educating criminals in prison who have little or no hope of ever seeing the light of day! Yes, education is a nice thing, but it's the standard, stock answer from the liberals of the world.
Education won't work ...UNLESS... it's backed up with social services as well as repairing the social conditions and giving the people at least some hope for the future. See? But doing all that is as I said earlier: Relocating the people, razing the slum, and giving the people a place to live with utilities and a bright future. Education alone is useless in curing the slums and poverty. You'll spend tons of money and time, and save 1 or 2 kids ...while all the rest of the millions of kids remain in the slum. It's happened over and over in such "doo-gooder" projects.
And with that ideal of razing, etc, we're right back to what I said earlier ...by the time the slum gets to be a major slum, it's already too late.
No, Jan, "some" cancers can NOT be treated. And worse, even some of the "treatable" cancers are only treated in a superficial way, the cancer ultimately killing the patient.
Cancer? It's interesting if we view slums as a cancer in/on a society or a major city. We could take the same approach as the medical profession ...kill the cancer with radiation! Or we could take a more surgical approach and use machine guns and rifles and hand grenades to kill the cancer. But, ...well, it's just my guess, but I'm thinkin' that none of y'all would approve such a complete and certain cure. Y'all prefer to play around on the fringes of things, never fully attacking the issue face-on. If there's a problem, get rid of what's causing the problem ...don't just keep talking about it or to it.
Baron Max
Baron Max,
That kind of attitude creates the hopelessness you speak of.
It only takes one or a few good and intelligent people to make a change.
In an ideal situation, you may be right.
But this is not an ideal situation.
It's not entirely useless.
People can come up with ideas. Not to get the people out of the slum
but to create a better situation for the human conditions.
What is the alternative?
jan.
That kind of attitude creates the hopelessness you speak of.
It only takes one or a few good and intelligent people to make a change.
In an ideal situation, you may be right.
But this is not an ideal situation.
It's not entirely useless.
People can come up with ideas. Not to get the people out of the slum
but to create a better situation for the human conditions.
What is the alternative?
jan.
In the same manner they forget about God and kill cows?
The karma for killing cows in India, the holy land, is probably far worse than in some less auspicious place.
Take your pick:
Mind and sense control, tolerance, discrimination, sticking to one's prescribed duty, truthfulness, mercy, careful study of the past and future, satisfaction in any condition, generosity, renunciation of sense gratification, faith in the spiritual master, being embarrassed at improper action, charity, simplicity, humbleness and satisfaction within oneself are qualities of the mode of goodness.
Material desire, great endeavor, audacity, dissatisfaction even in gain, false pride, praying for material advancement, considering oneself different and better than others, sense gratification, rash eagerness to fight, a fondness for hearing oneself praised, the tendency to ridicule others, advertising one's own prowess and justifying one's actions by one's strength are qualities of the mode of passion.
Intolerant anger, stinginess, speaking without scriptural authority, violent hatred, living as a parasite, hypocrisy, chronic fatigue, quarrel, lamentation, delusion, unhappiness, depression, sleeping too much, false expectations, fear and laziness constitute the major qualities of the mode of ignorance.
SB 11. 25.2-5
They're picky and forgetful ... And proud ... Hindu supremacism - I've been the target of it myself. It seems that at least some of them have let the fact that they are born in the holy land go into their heads, and now they think they are better than everyone else and "above the fray". It is extremely difficult to deal with such supremacists.
For the same reason why any other country doesn't do it. It costs money paid by the rich or middle class and the benefits would be returned to the poor who are most likely non-voters, thus no representation.
Also a point could be made that with better living standards they might muliply even more returning to the same level, thus this is a never ending cycle that feeds itself...
You can certainly blame the British for a good share of the motive for buying submarines and missiles and the like. The whole colonial reaction mess that ended up generating Pakistan was at least partly British creation.baron said:
As far as relief of caste poverty's ills via infrastructure - it remains to be seen whether the gains in the US from its Jim Crow days and massive public works era will be maintained. The major sewer, water, and road systems in the US are mostly disintegrating, major components decades past their design lifespans, and no replacement seems likely any time soon - even with the golden opportunity of an economic depression upon us.
And that neglected job is a much smaller task than installing such systems in dozens of major cities that lack them completely, amid the social inertia of a people accustomed for hundreds of years to doing without, with a tenth of the available money.
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Sorry, Jan, but the attitude of hopelessness was built right into the very fact of the slums in the first place. Ignoring that fact is... foolish.
In a liberal, doo-gooder's idealistic dreams, perhaps.
But in the real world, you and I both know that there are numerous examples of kids from slums, all over the world, that have "climbed" up out of the slums to make something of themselves. There's your "...one or a few good...." and they didn't make one single, solitary "change" to any part of the slums.
Jan, don't hate me for saying this, but ....I believe that some people simply exist, are born, to live in the slums and to exist in poverty and dire, horrid conditions. I know, I could hear your gasp of disbelief that anyone would say such a thing. But think about it ...humans run the measure from one end of the spectrum to the other ...always have, probably always will.
I know, personally, several people who are perfectly happy living in homes and in conditions that most people would gag and puke and stare in disbelief. And they offer me a cold beer, ask me to sit a spell ...sit on a old, dirty, broken, wood crate!! He and his family seem quite content ...as I sit there and wonder what horrid diseases might be crawling up my leg!!
Please don't hate me, Jan, but some people are just....... Well, I don't know, but it's what I've come to believe after living in this world for over 65 years.
Baron Max
Baron Max,
The slums come out of hope, hope for a better life style.
In a place like Mumbai, the city with the most billionaires, it is understandable.
History is littered with individuals who make great changes.
It has nothing to do with "do-gooding" or being a liberal, but, is the
fabric of great societies.
What "real world" would this be?
It is impossible for me to hate you, as I don't know you.
People are people, they are made of the same stuff. We are destined
to be born into a certain situation from which we can develop, or fall.
You could well find yourself, and/or people you love, in that situation one day. Would you still have that attitude?
No gasp.
That is a common response from people who think they are purely responsible
for their comfortable situation. Who think they would never allow themselves
to fall to such depths. :rolleyes.
But they are happy.
Most people who live in slum conditions, don't have time to be happy.
Why would you wonder such a thing, from sitting on a beer crate?
I don't hate you BM, I'm just a bit saddened by your attitude. :bawl:
jan.
The slums come out of hope, hope for a better life style.
In a place like Mumbai, the city with the most billionaires, it is understandable.
History is littered with individuals who make great changes.
It has nothing to do with "do-gooding" or being a liberal, but, is the
fabric of great societies.
What "real world" would this be?
It is impossible for me to hate you, as I don't know you.
People are people, they are made of the same stuff. We are destined
to be born into a certain situation from which we can develop, or fall.
You could well find yourself, and/or people you love, in that situation one day. Would you still have that attitude?
No gasp.
That is a common response from people who think they are purely responsible
for their comfortable situation. Who think they would never allow themselves
to fall to such depths. :rolleyes.
But they are happy.
Most people who live in slum conditions, don't have time to be happy.
Why would you wonder such a thing, from sitting on a beer crate?
I don't hate you BM, I'm just a bit saddened by your attitude. :bawl:
jan.