Who are the Poor?

In every locality and neighbourhood, both rural and urban, some people are poor and some are rich, with many stages in between. The story of Anu and Sudha (Box 4.1) shows the two extremes.

Box 4.1: Anu and Sudha

Anu and Sudha were born on the same day. Anu's parents were construction labourers; Sudha's father was a businessman and her mother a designer. Anu's mother carried head-loads of bricks until she went into labour, delivered her baby alone behind a tool shed on the construction site, wrapped her in an old sari, made a cradle from a gunny sack and hurried back to work for fear of losing her job. Sudha was born in one of the best nursing homes in the city, checked by doctors, bathed, dressed in soft clothes and placed in a crib beside her mother. Anu learnt to look after herself very early — she knew hunger and deprivation, picked food from dustbins, and could not go to school because her parents were migrant workers. She loved to dance and dreamed of the stage, but had to begin work at the age of 12, building houses for the rich that she would never live in. Sudha went to a good play school and then a good school, took private painting lessons from a famous artist, joined a design school and became a well-known painter.

In urban areas, examples of poor and vulnerable groups include push-cart vendors, street cobblers, women who string flowers, rag pickers, vendors and beggars. The poor possess few assets and live in kutcha hutments with walls of baked mud and roofs of grass, thatch, bamboo and wood; the poorest do not even have such dwellings. In rural areas many of them are landless, and even those who own land often have only dry or waste land. Many do not get even two meals a day — starvation and hunger are key features of the poorest households.

The poor lack basic literacy and skills and so have very limited economic opportunities and unstable employment. Malnutrition is alarmingly high among them. Ill health, disability or serious illness makes them physically weak. They borrow from moneylenders who charge high rates of interest, leading to chronic indebtedness. Being highly vulnerable, they are unable to negotiate their legal wages and are exploited. Most poor households have no access to electricity; their primary cooking fuel is firewood and cow-dung cake, and a large section lacks safe drinking water. There is extreme gender inequality in participation in gainful employment, education and family decision-making: poor women receive less care on their way to motherhood, and their children are less likely to survive or be born healthy. …