When you think of India, what comes to mind? Are they Indians squeezing trains? Or curry-flavored Indian English? Or an Indian movie that sings and dances? I believe this is the label that many people have put on India, with the spread of the new crown virus, now when it comes to India, there is one more word in my mind: purgatory on earth!
Since last year, the new wave of the new crown epidemic has made the Indian people miserable. The virus has no borders, the epidemic has no race, but the chances of survival in the face of the epidemic are very different, especially in India, a country that has a large gap between rich and poor.
(Indian slums on the left, rich Indians on the right)
The pandemic has made the poor even poorer
The most developed city? More than 2,000 slums!
According to the relevant data, more than 1 billion of India's 1.3 billion people are poor, and 500 million Indians are not living as well as the poorest parts of Africa. Mumbai is the most developed city in India and is the "Shanghai" in the hearts of Indians.
Just as there are urban villages in first-tier cities in China, there are also urban villages in India's big cities, and unlike that, India's urban villages are recognized as slums. Mumbai is India's most populous city, but half live in slums, which are home to more than 2,000.
The largest slum, Dharavi, is less than two square kilometers and is home to nearly 1 million poor people all year round. There are no decent houses in the slums, only shacks built side by side with various waste materials, each with an area of only a few square meters, but it is inhabited by a family of several people.
Rats weaving through the dark and smelly ditches on the side of the road, scavengers in waist-high garbage heaps, middle-aged and elderly people with bare chests on the dirty ground, women washing and cooking in narrow ditches and alleys, and children running around naked and playing are all street scenes that can be seen everywhere in India's slums.
Art comes from life, and many Indian films have actually shown us such pictures. For example, in the movie "Slum Millionaire", everyone in the slum lives hard and bitter, and the male protagonist who "won the lottery" suffered in order to live. Fortunately, there are many hopeful and hard-working people in india's slums.
(Slums of India)
Resigned? No, dare to die and dare not live!
Due to the large and dense population, the backward infrastructure, the government's ineffective prevention and control, since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the epidemic in India has become increasingly serious, and the number of confirmed cases has soared day by day.
But in slums, only a very small number of people can wear masks, and those who have a sense of protection can only simply cover their mouths and noses with cloth such as turbans, and people lack basic protective materials. In some places, there has never even been sterilization and sterilization, and vaccination is even more "extravagant".
What is more frightening than the threat of the epidemic is the new survival pressure added to the already embarrassing life. Most of the people living in slums work in low-income jobs with little to no social protection, and the restrictive measures brought about by the new round of the epidemic have brought most industries to a standstill, directly cutting off these people's meager sources of income.
However, expenditures have not been reduced as a result. Hundreds of millions of people in India have returned to poverty, and many people cannot solve even the most basic problem of food and clothing. The most frightening thing is that due to restrictive measures, people in the slums are short of water, lack of food, lack of medicines, lack of basic daily necessities ... A large number of residents make a living by grabbing "food" from garbage trucks.
It is better to die than to live, but in this cruel environment, many poor people dare to die and dare not live, and finally they are overwhelmed and choose to "self-judge". In the face of disaster, the poor have no choice but to resign themselves to fate and worry day after day.
(Dharavi under the epidemic)
The pandemic has made the rich richer
1. Are Indians poor? NO！ The richest man, Mukesh, knows!
In 2020, India's GDP ranks sixth in the world, however, 58% of gdp belongs to 1% of the population, India has a door, known as the world's most "cruel" door, one side of the door is a miserable slum, "dirty, chaotic, poor, crowded" is synonymous with it, on the other side is a rich area of elegant and popular appreciation, "rich, hedonistic, prosperous, extravagant" is synonymous with it.
Mukesh Ambani was India's richest man for 12 consecutive years, and for a time he was even worth more than Bill Gates, the world's richest man of the time. In 2008, the world's most expensive house, Andelia, was built, with 27 floors and 173 meters, with a total cost of up to $1 billion, which is larger than the Palace of Versailles in France.
He was reluctant to move in on the grounds of bad feng shui, until 2011, when a family of 6 happily moved into this mansion, the family was not much, but there were many servants, and Muksh hired more than 600 servants and technicians. In 2018, Hao threw 700 million yuan to organize a wedding for his daughter, and 100 chartered planes were used to transport guests. Sure enough, poverty limited my imagination.
In 2020, he successfully surpassed Jack Ma and Buffett to become the richest man in Asia and the ninth richest man in the world. In 2021, it ranked 8th in the 2021 Global Rich List and 10th in the 2021 Forbes Global Rich List.
in Muksh Mansion and Andelia
2. Sharing happiness and suffering? impossible!
In 2020, more than half of the increase in global poverty will come from India. By the end of 2020, india's 1% wealthy population had risen to 40.5%. Mukesh Ambani's fortune has increased by $15 billion from a year ago, and his net worth is as high as 84.5 billion.
The virus does not care about the rich areas and poor areas, but the rich have the ability to not only obtain the fastest and best anti-epidemic resources, prioritize vaccinations, but also desperately leave the dangerous zone to choose a safe living environment when the epidemic is out of control, and stage a "great escape". In May 2021, Fumuksh abandoned 1 billion mansions and fled India with 84.5 billion.
(Mukesh and his wife)
And the poor may face the call of death at any time and can only resign themselves to fate. When the civilians struggling at the bottom fell to the ground in pain because of the epidemic and waited to die, how desperate and desolate should they be when they looked up and saw the planes of the rich fleeing flying rapidly?
Why is the gap between rich and poor so big?
What is the fate? Look at caste!
The caste system in India divides Hindus from noble to lowly into brahmins, shaktis, Vedas, Sudras, and Dalits. Brahmins, who make up only about 4 percent of the population, hold more than half of the executive power and own 60 percent of India's property.
Sudras are mainly oppressed, enslaved, discriminated against, and untouchables who are expelled from "humanity" without adhering to the caste system. These two types of people have the lowest status in India, accounting for nearly 60% of the Indian population.
As the movie "Article 15" reveals, although since india's independence, article 15 of the Constitution stipulates that "no one shall be discriminated against on the basis of caste, religion, or place of birth"; article 17 expressly provides for the abolition of the "no-touch system".
(Article 15)
But it seems that this system is deeply rooted in the hearts of the Indian people for generations, and the people of the higher castes have priority everywhere, even the priority of life, and the unscrupulous rape and plundering of the lower castes, while the lower castes have also developed learned helplessness, and can only be slaughtered and humiliated, and everything is entrusted to the rebirth of Brahmins in the next life.
2. What should I do if there are natural and man-made disasters? O God of Even Drops!
India is known as the "religious museum", the main religions are: Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism, many religions are enough to see the Indian people hope that the gods can protect their own line of people, but the sincerity of religious belief varies from person to person, some people are devout, some people take the sword to the side, and take religion as the way to promote officials and get rich.
As played in the movie "O God of Even Drops", religious leaders are no longer the embodiment of gods, the spiritual pillar of believers, they use the minds of believers to spend money for peace of mind, turn religious activities into tools to accumulate wealth, and further exploit the thin pockets of believers.
3. How hot is the money? Non-existent, robbing the rich and the poor!
The biggest corruption scandal in India's history - the "2G" scam of the telecommunications case; indian officers withholding salaries and shoddy military food, resulting in the overall morale of the Indian army is low and the combat effectiveness is very poor; india will have train crashes and crashes every year, and the reason is also because the relevant expenses are deducted layer by layer and cut corners.
In India, with money in hand, there is no threshold that cannot be crossed. Corruption in India is so severe that corruption of power can easily concentrate the wealth of ordinary people in the hands of a privileged few. For some powerful people, more money may not really be hot, what humanitarianism, community of destiny, robbing the poor and helping the rich, it is over.
The movies "The Colors of Basati", "Blows", and "Novices in the Legal World" all point directly to state corruption. The ending of film and television is always good, and it is difficult for people in real life to rebel against the powerful and seek justice! In a country like India, where the national conditions are complex and the people are ignorant and ignorant, it is even more difficult to "fight the tigers." This means that the poor people turn over and sing, and it is difficult to go to the sky.
(Supporters of Indian anti-corruption activist Anna Hasare)
"The sadness of life is not that it has gone through ups and downs, but that after working hard, I find that my fate has long been predestined." Although as a materialist in a harmonious society, we believe that "my fate is up to me", for people such as the slums of India, the shackles that cannot be broken for generations are undoubtedly reinforcing "fatalism" over and over again.
If you think you're the one standing in the corner of God's eye, if you think life has deceived you, if you're worried about money, if you're fretting about all sorts of things, go see Indian movies, feel the life in the slums, feel what it's like to be alive!" It's good to live in China! ”
bibliography
1. "India's corpses are full of adult purgatory, the richest man Muksh abandons 1 billion mansions and flees with 84.5 billion"
2. "To what extent is the gap between rich and poor in India, and why is there a serious gap between rich and poor in India"
3. "The Slums of Mumbai under the Epidemic in India: Hunger is Worse Than the Epidemic"