The symbiotic relation between the rich and the poor


The 2004 tsunami is a one that made headlines in almost each and every regional newspaper for many days. So high was the death toll which ever kept increasing due to bad rehabilitation facilities due to lack of or rather ineffecient utilisation of the money. Although millions of dollars were sanctioned as relief measures to the affected countries, only a part of it , a very small fraction reached the intended people.This too was possible only because the Indian Government refused to allow foreign relief agencies who would have looted more money under the pretext of helping the people. Hence many more had to lead a life of misery while certain people fed on the money that should have reached them.
A very key point pointed out by Mr P.Sainath illustrating the title was the behaviour of the stock market when the tsunami struck.
It can be seen that within two days , the Stock markets of the countries worst affected by the tsunami reached the highest Sensitive index.The more the country was affected,the greater the deathtoll , the higher the SI was .This is no coincidence. Though the majority affected were fisher folk, the fact that drove the stock markets was reconstruction and rehabilitation, which the companies took advantage of.Thus greater the devastation, greater was the money flow which made the stock markets soar .Throughout the process it is not the rehabilitation part that makes them to invest in these places but on how to gain more profit through these that drives them.This is a typical example of how the rich live at the expense and misery of poor. The stock market being the yardstick to show the economical status of the country soars when the poor are in misery .
At the same time ,where in one place nature destroyed houses, in another many more houses of the poor were destroyed ,many people were thrown from their houses forcefully by the elite rich of the Bombay who were on a quest to remove slums there by striping the residents of the only livelyhood they had.
When the stock market collapsed in May 2004, it created a big hype,made front page of many news papers.The finance minister abandoned the first day of the parliament after one of the most historic elections, to come to bombay and console the millionares .
However in the state of Andhra Pradesh, where in many farmer suicide cases were reported, It took a very long time and many more lives for the Prime minister to come to visit and sort the situation.
This shows the treatment that the rich get and how different it is for the poor .
Hence it basically shows that the rich keep becomming richer by pushing the poor further and further down.
Yes,it is true that a world in which the rich and poor are treated equally is an ideal one .At the same time the poor cannot be illtreated like this.Its is inhuman for one to earn a living through the misery of other.This must change!.