The bane of Poverty

Himanshu Shekhar

The Father of the Nation Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi has aptly remarked, “Poverty is the worst form of violence”. The world’s highest body United Nations observes World Poverty Eradication Day on Oct 17. It’s not poverty, which is shameful, but it’s the callous approach of men in power to deal with the issue, which is shameful.Poverty today is a challenge not just for a nation but for the entire humanity. It’s no secret that the growing population is throwing a rising challenge on the limited resources. Though governments across the globe have made tall claims about eradicating the menace, ground realities tell a different story.

Is poverty just an economic issue? Mother Teresa once said, “We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our homes to remedy this kind of poverty.”

Economists have often classified poverty into Rural Poverty and Urban Poverty. The question, which arises in one’s mind, is that do the cities and villages have different problems? Whom to categorize as poor? An industrialist who mortgaged his entire property, or a landless farmer who is jobless because of capital-intensive agriculture. Former Secretary General to the United Nations Kofi Annan once said in his speech to the General Assembly, “The campaign to make poverty history is a central moral challenge of our age—cannot remain a task for the few, it must become a calling for the many. On this International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, I urge everyone to join this struggle. Together, we can make real and sufficient progress towards the end of poverty."

The plans exist and results are visibly sporadic but are we still working together?

Poverty often culminates in suicides or deaths forced due to hunger. While politicians are busy categorizing suicides as eligible suicides, society as a whole has done little to end the problem.

It’s an age where the World Fashion Week gets more media coverage in comparison to International Poverty Eradication Day. Who are to be blamed? Certainly not just politicians who are the elected representatives of people comprising society. Poverty-Terrorism link
Terror is one word, which is talked and discussed across the globe today on a high priority basis. World bodies should understand that the two problems of poverty and terrorism are interlinked. Who is a suicide bomber? Not a person studying in the Oxford or Harward University. Often youth struggling for jobs and food for their families are lured into doing such heinous acts. We spend plenty of time on combative and pro-active defence mechanism but we neglect the root cause of the problem. Martin Luther King had remarked, “It is a tragic mix up when the US spends USD 500,000 for every enemy soldier killed and only USD 53 annually on the victims of poverty.”

The story is not very different in India as well. The insensitive attitude of the ministers today puts democracy in bad taste. We will do ourselves a lot of good by starting a dialogue on how to fight this menace in togetherness.

A world free of hunger and poverty is the need of the hour so it will be interesting to see whether this year would be any different. Or will the government as usual do its routine token announcement of a few schemes, which fade from public memory before they start.