Non-Fiction
Read It
Sorry for the long absence, I have been in the middle of a house-shifting and had a small surgery. It's been a long, stressful month and I'm ready to just run away to Bermuda permanently. I haven't had tons of time to read, but I have finished quite a few books recently.
This is another one of those books that starts out with "I wasn't expecting it to be this....but I liked it anyways." I was expecting this to be stories, but they turned out to be articles.
In the US, the poverty in India is seen as a caricature and is often stared at with morbid fascination and used to make people feel better about themselves. If they're aware of anything about India at all that is.
Unfortunately, the tribal people of India are marginalized to a degree that is horrifying. Most people cannot fathom the actual level of poverty and government oversight and social disregard for people whom have no resources.
As I mentioned, one of the reasons that the very poor here are disenfranchised, is that the very laws put into place to protect them are mostly ignored and or utilized to further take advantage of helpless people. The author has traveled to some of the poorest districts and investigates some of the reasons why certain marginalized populations will probably never come out of their current situation. India, due to size, population, and chaos level, takes an extraordinary amount of time to change.
It's a depressing book once you realize that all of the factors mentioned in the book will probably never change, and even the worthwhile, good initiatives by government or NGO's probably will not change anything. That being said, being aware of the human condition of different people is crucial.
It's not easy to read or understand, but read it anyhow.
~Becky~
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