Why the Poor Don't Kill Us

This was a difficult book to read, and I’m finding it even harder to review. The premise of this book is to literally answer the question that’s the title. Naturally, this leads to some uncomfortable and disturbing truths. But that’s not all, it’s also the fact that I didn’t agree with a lot of ideas put across by the author.

The answer to that question, as you would expect, isn’t straightforward. For starters, understanding that treating its poor as poor is India’s fundamental flaw. How dismal the civic infrastructure of India is, in fact, kept that way so that the Indian poor feel at home. To live in cities like London or New York, you pay a premium for what the city has to offer. In India, it’s the opposite; the city is the problem, and you pay to shut it out, along with most other Indians that share the same socioeconomic background as you. If you’ve ever been to private societies in Gurgaon or Bangalore, the difference between the “city” and the “society” is jarring. I used to joke around with my friends about how a society I used to live in feels like stepping into a biosphere–an artificial ecosystem inside of another much more chaotic one, the city that is. Singapore has solved a similar problem in the past, so this is not a unique problem by any measure.

If you are part of the Indian middle class, a lot of the anecdotes in this book will hit too close to home. For instance, hiding your food delivery order before your househelp accepts it on your behalf, because it can come dangerously close to their monthly income? This is a weird kind of problem that I’ve personally suffered from, and I’m sure a lot of others have too. But this is the first time I’ve read about it, and it was extremely uncomfortable. According to the author, people look up to those directly above or close to their own social class, and so a person who’s dreaming about buying their first car wouldn’t compare themselves to the billionaires of the world. For the poor, the middle class is the most visible section of the rich, and that’s what social mobility means for them.

But then why don’t we work towards the upward mobility of those at the lower rung? The author put it quite bluntly–“All the exotic issues of Indian politics like religion and caste exist not because Indians love their culture so much. They exist because it’s easier to demolish a mosque or build a temple than it is to enforce standardized intelligent road design across the nation.” Or put more simply, “Development doesn’t get you votes.”

One of the things I found myself vehemently disagreeing with the author wabout as India’s early focus on education, or a lack thereof. He argues that we missed the boat on primary education and that higher education is more or less pointless in the modern world. I agree, however, it’s an opinion piece, and the author’s own experiences have shaped his opinion, but his scornful remarks against the higher Indian education system felt shallow and sometimes, even misdirected. There’s a lot more that I didn’t agree with, but overall, I feel the internal discourse I had while reading this book was phenomenal.

Articulation of the conscience is a beautiful invention of the intellectual class.

Finally, I came across the above quote in the book that I think is extremely insightful. I’ve written countless journal entries that convey this idea. I’ve gone so far as to even write a blogpost in my more pensive moments. The quote might come across to some as slightly accusatory, but I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with articulating your conscience. I think that as more people realize the implicit realities of our society, the better.