Poverty figures can't hide India's shameful squalor
Amrit Dhillon says political contempt and lack of compassion has left poorest people in gutter
Poverty forces Indians to live in sewer-like hovels, eat horrible food, cope without running water, defecate in the open, and endure a squalor that haunts them from birth to death.
Glance in any direction and it's painfully obvious that this immense and degrading poverty is still the norm for millions.
But the Indian government was patting itself on the back recently, delighted to be able to announce that the latest poverty statistics show that the number of people who live below the poverty line has fallen from 37.2 per cent of the population in 2005 to 21.9 per cent in 2012. That's a fall of 138 million.
The figure is all the more striking for being much sharper than the previous fall in the poverty figures between 1994 and 2005 when a niggardly decline from 45.3 per cent to 37.2 per cent was recorded.
That morning my coffee tasted better and my spirits lifted, but the euphoria was ruined by two things: some hard-hearted comments made by Congress politicians on the cost of food that betrayed their contempt for the poor, and the realisation that the definition of poverty used in India is scandalously low.
But first the Marie Antoinette remarks. Congress legislator Raj Babbar said you could get a meal in Mumbai for 12 rupees (HK$1.50). His colleague, Rasheed Masood, said five rupees was enough to buy a meal in Delhi.