World
Poverty and the Final Solution: Part 4 of Volunteering
in Calcutta, India.
By Paul Sinclair (One World One
People)
10 November 2000
Hello champions, how is everyone? Welcome
to the last of my emails from my trip to India. Yes, my
very good friends, I am now back in London and what a
week to end with! Special thanks to the kindness of all
my friends, who firstly turned my humble few beers and
pizza (Non Indian food) into a party, then a leaving party
and then a magnificent event, that only made Calcutta
even harder to say good-bye to. |
A
young girl in a Calcutta slum |
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Well, what can I say, the fire has been lit in me, doused with
kerosene and set to burn and it will hopefully do its tiny part
in helping World Poverty to come to a smouldering end. Once
again, I just can't describe most of my experiences this last
week, no matter how hard I try. One smile from some of these
destitute people, speaks a million words. This is something
that needs to be personally experienced.
Although, I will briefly share with you all, something that
is hopefully shaping to be special. It has always been agreed
by people who do station work, (tending to the Destitute and
the Dying who come off the trains or live at Howrah Station)
that when they come to leave, they will find someone to replace
them. Normally, they find their replacements amongst the foreign
volunteers. I was, however, lucky enough to find a young Indian
guy who can't hear or speak. He survives by making friends with
tourists on Sudder Street (where I was staying) and then asking
them for money: just another type of begging. He is very good
at it too, because he is very popular and as a result makes
enough to always be buying new clothes. I originally asked the
Sisters at the Mother Teresa House, if they could find him a
job, because I could sense a lot of good in this young bloke.
He has a lovely smile and uses it often and I felt that this
could be used to do much good amongst the needy. The Sisters
informed me, that he was well known to them and that he came
from a well off family and had a home. They also said that they
had already tried to give him a job, but it didn't work out
and that his integrity had been brought into question. So, I
decided to take him with me to Howrah Station (where I work)
to hopefully get him involved with my work.
The results of this have been promising, as he has really been
involving himself, even treating people's injuries unassisted
and helping out with the difficult work. My main reasons for
wanting him to replace me, rather than another foreign volunteer
are quite simple. Foreign volunteers come to Calcutta to work
usually for periods of days, weeks, one month, three months,
but very rarely longer than that. My Indian friend however,
was born and bred in Calcutta and is more than likely, to remain
in Calcutta for the rest of his life. This makes him potentially
a very, very, valuable servant to the poorest of the poor. Also,
I got the feeling that the local people regarded anyone with
a handicap or major disability, as worthless and useless. It
would be nice to know, that he might continue to be a living
example that teaches people otherwise. So far, so good, but
I know he was struggling to resist the lure of the Tourists
on Sudder Street. I can only hope in his future, that as he
will continue to get more and more involved in the work, the
result will be that his heart will grow and he will slowly lose
his interest in the tourists' money.
Anyway, as this is my final email from India, I wish to offer
to everyone what I have learnt about World Poverty and what
I think needs to be done, to effectively pull on the boots and
kick it off the planet.
Here in India, the causes of this poverty are numerous. The
main problem is over consumption or super consumption of resources
in the First World Countries. It is estimated that a person
in the First World consumes 30 times more resources, than an
average person in India. Some estimates even put the figure
much higher than 30. I personally have pledged to never waste
food, unless it will cause me illness. I have been very successful
with this for a long time now. This invariably means, I have
to be more and more careful about how much I cook or order in
the first place. I am also trying to simplify my life-style,
by only buying the things that I really need.
The second reason why India experiences such poverty is their
Caste System (The system that seeks to rank citizens in different
social classes depending on their birth). The highest classes
are the Brahmans (Priests).The lowest, considered to be even
outside the system, are the Untouchables (poorest of the poor).
Everyone else, fits somewhere between these groups.The Great
Gandhi, a Hindu, described the caste system as an abomination
and a disgrace to Hinduism. He spent his whole life attacking
it, at every opportunity. Unfortunately, it survived this Great
Man's efforts and is alive and well.
I see this when I tend the destitute people on the train platforms.
Normally, I get surrounded by great crowds of astonished spectators.
They are not blown away to see a poor person who is suffering
or dying. They are blown away, when they see that someone has
stopped and is doing something about it. To some of them it
is improper to even touch one of these people, but I happily
demonstrate how to break all the caste rules, by treating my
patients as humans and my equals. This helps to set a good example
and I am more than happy to explain to my co-workers, that at
any time, a future Indian Leader may stop, see our example,
become inspired and years later from a position of power, institute
social policies that will end this situation.
The current Government has virtually no social policies that
will help the poorest of the poor. I read in a Calcutta newspaper,
that the Howrah Station was suffering from an image problem
and needed much improvement. As a result, the Transport Minister
announced a plan to improve this problem: they are going to
spend millions of rupees on putting in a new musical fountain
near the taxi rank. Clearly, it would be a wonderful thing if
India was to revisit the teachings of its Great Spiritual Leader;
Gandhi, to help its people break the chains of its Caste System.
There can be no spiritual or religious justification, for treating
people as if they are less than animals.
One of the most common solutions people offer, to help end World
Poverty, is education. They maintain that if they educate everybody,
just like in the West, then that will help the impoverished
to rise from poverty. I think people need to be very careful
with such an approach. Literary education, on its own, does
far more harm than good, unless it also builds sound character.
An educated greedy person, for instance, can do far more damage
to the world, than an uneducated greedy person. In India, Westerners
as well as wealthy local Indians are known to buy up commodities,
such as rice, from poor farmers for next to nothing during prosperous
times. They then store it all in huge warehouses and silos until
it's in short supply, such as when rice is out of season. Then,
they sell it back to these poor farmers at much higher prices.
This they call Capitalism and good business, but in reality,
it is a serious misuse of resources. Education must encompass
morality.
Another problem, that we people in the West like to pick up
on, are the huge populations and growth rates, common with Third
World Countries. I am convinced, that the reasons for these
population problems are clearly caused by poverty. For example,
if you live in the Third World, then you are most likely forced
to work very hard, very long hours and long weeks, just to put
food on the table, clothes on your back and a roof over your
head. Very little, if anything, of what you earn may be left
over after this, which may be fine, until you start to age.
As you get older and older and your job seems to get harder
and harder, you might start to think about how you might survive
in old age, when you are just too old to work. The common solution
in the Third World is to have children. One child however, will
struggle to look after his or herself, let alone another person.
So, they have many children, so that the little amount each
can put aside, can be collected together, so that it is enough
for the parents. Add to that the high rates of infant and child
mortality and it becomes clear why they don't hold back on having
large families in the Third World.
We need to understand the underlying causes of population problems
in the poverty-stricken countries. By doing so, we can then
understand that implementing measures to control their populations
through family planning or contraception or whatever, will have
little or no effect, unless those measures directly help the
true nature of poverty.
Really, the main cause of poverty in the World is selfishness,
in the form of greed. Therefore, the only way to properly solve
it once and for all, is to remove World selfishness. What we
need is a World Wide Spiritual Revolution that will see people
replace materialism with spirituality, as the most important
thing in life. We need to reconstruct society and change its
values, so that character and not possession of wealth, title
or birth, will be the true test of merit. We need a Spiritual
Revolution that shall define itself as 'Unselfishness with aspiration
toward total selflessness'.
A few months ago, I saw a World News Report in which some Indian
Farmers were suffering a severe drought. They were suffering
this drought because they had cut down most of the trees in
their area. They were so desperate to feed themselves, that
they cut down the remainder of the trees and sold them to the
Pulp Mills, to buy food. Meanwhile, in the West, we had millions
of tonnes of surplus food just sitting in Silos and in factories.
You see, if the people in the Third World Countries continue
to cut down the trees, then we will all be finished because
the planet needs lungs.
Currently four billion people, out of the six billion people
who live in this world, are impoverished. There is nothing,
more certain in the future of humanity, than that these people
will continue to try to improve their situation. They will do
this the only way they know how; by taking from and destroying
the natural environment. If they are not stopped, then humanity
will face extinction.
So, the need for change in the form of a Spiritual Revolution
is already knocking on the door, whether we like it or not.
The only choice we have in this matter, is the degree we each
want to become personally involved. So, there we have it champions!
Thank you all for sharing in my adventures and I hope I have
done a satisfactory job in sharing the lessons I have learnt,
with you all.
Take care, bye now.
Click here to view images from Calcutta
Other articles in the series:
Volunteering for Mother Teresa's
Missionaries of Charity, Calcutta Part 1, 16 October 2000
Volunteering for Mother Teresa's Missionaries
of Charity, Calcutta Part 2, 23 October 2000
Volunteering in
Calcutta, India Part 3, For the Benefit of all My Brothers &
Sisters Who Survive by Begging, 31 October 2000
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If
you are interested in volunteering in Calcutta, one very worthwhile
option is:
Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity
54A Lower Circular Rd Calcutta, India.
(Within walking distance from Sudder Street,
the main tourist area)
All are welcome. Please register on arrival with the Sister
in charge of Volunteers. The best time to catch her is between
7am and 8am most days with the exception of Thursdays. (The
Mother House is closed Thursdays). Accommodation is not provided
but can be found at Sudder Street and is quite cheap.
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An elderly
lady watchs on as two volunteers
prepare for their work. |
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