The film Slumdog Millionaire provoked someone to comment: Maybe this will attract tourists to the slums and those people will also earn something from it. It is also said: There are enough rich people in India, let them help their own poor. Why are there no social services for the workers? The rapid transition from rural society to an urbanized global economy has also finally taken place in India. However, without the social equality that resulted in Europe. The labor rights and social services fought for by Mahatma Gandhi were thrown into the trash after his death. India’s major problem is the disastrous combination of a rigid caste system and market fundamentalism.
Frustratingly
The majority of the population in India is Hindu (80%), 13% is Muslim and 2% is Christian. The thin super-rich upper layer and the rich castes below have no social feelings for their poor countrymen; the lower castes and the untouchables at the very bottom of the ladder. The caste system is detrimental to poor people who want to work their way out of poverty. And when surplus farmers move to the cities, they too remain stuck in the ever-expanding slums. Disaster tourism, no matter how terrible, obviously cannot save these poor people from poverty. There are too many and they are too poor.
Mahatma Gandhi
Already in the last quarter of the 19th century, the textile industry emerged in Ahmedabad, the largest city in Western India next to Mumbai. More and more large-scale textile companies were established, employing two to three thousand people. Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) was one of the founders of the modern state of India and an advocate of active non-violence as a means of revolution. Thanks to him, the textile workers received a labor contract, more rights, were trained and reduced their working hours (from 14 to 16 to 10 to 12 hours per day and finally) to 8 hours per day (with three shifts). Overtime was paid and there were social benefits such as health insurance for the entire family.
Market fundamentalism
Industrial society also developed in the West, but for India, because of their caste system, it was special and unfortunately short-lived. On January 30, 1948, on his way to a prayer service, Gandhi was assassinated. Shortly afterwards, market fundamentalism took over, which preaches that your needs determine whether you employ or discard labor. Trade unions were dissolved and social rights were thrown into the trash. Factories closed and work continued, often by the same employers, in the informal sector. Workers were dismissed without any compensation or had to work much longer days for less than the old wage. If the employer heard that someone had belonged to a union, that was enough not to hire him.
Gap
We live in a unique time in which a predominantly farming society has definitively come to an end. A century and a half after Europe, a rapid transition from rural society to an urbanized world economy is also taking place elsewhere. However, without following our social history. Although there is a transformation towards industrialization, urbanization and economic growth in India, this only benefits the rich and that is only a modest part of the total population. 30 to 40 percent do not improve at all or only slightly. The gap between rich and poor has increased sharply due to economic progress.
Social problem
At the time, people in Europe were well aware that surplus agricultural workers should not pose a social problem to society. Because if they were to rebel against the inhumane conditions, it would endanger the social order. And so the owning class was convinced that it had to keep the underclass on board. Only in this way could she lift the entire society to a higher level.
Caste system
In India, upper caste children migrate to the US or UK and the middle classes seek employment in the cities. There is not only a decline there, there are explosions of mutual hatred fueled by frustrations. There is fierce competition for scarce labor between the working population and the other low castes: the untouchable and backward castes. Out of desperation, people cling to their identity, which is partly determined by their religion. In 2001, there was a progrom (violent excesses against a part of the population (often a minority or a part of the population excluded by the group) against Muslims in Ahmedabad. At the end of 2008, violence flared up in Mumbai, a city of 20 million people.
Migrants
India, Indonesia and China, these three societies are what this century is about. How will they develop? In terms of population size alone, we are talking about more than half of the world’s population. Three out of four migrants end up in slums and stay there. The idea that they ascend slowly is incorrect. But the largest migration of people ever is taking place in China. These migrants are doing better than migrants elsewhere in the third world. If there is hope, perhaps we should look to China. Although that country is struggling with other problems. Communism does not in any way assure the workers of fair treatment. But that’s another story.