Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Poverty & State Of The Blind

Wise man says: “unless and until the voice of the marginalised comes out from within, nothing can be done”. So the whole of yesterday I was trying to find out how to bring out this inner voice. No, I am not marginalised but wanted to check how this piece of advice can be taken forward and the poor and marginalised can be offered an action plan. We just got lucky, I found the exact solution. Here’s a pic of how one will look after the inner voice has woken up:

But hey, don’t rush or jump for joy. The pic shows you how one will feel only after the 10th step. The 10th step is: “Be optimistic. Go forth positively in your day. The light is with you. Be blessed”. Before that there are 9 other steps like Prepare, Stop thinking, Connect with the masters, Send light to the world and so on. Once all the steps are followed the voice of the marginalised can come from within and the poor will not be poor anymore. So when Rahul Gandhi says “poverty is a state of mind” he is not wrong at all. All that he and the Congress need to do is direct the poor and marginalised to sites like “How to meditate with your inner voice” and they will gain freedom from poverty. So people ridiculed Rahul Gandhi again and trended #YoRahulSoDumb for his statement. Naturally, NDTV is very upset. The channel thinks people have selectively outraged over RG’s “poverty is a state of mind” statement rather than trying to understand him and his philosophy. Towards the end of their report on the episode, NDTV concluded with this:

He frequently interacts with the poor in remote villages as he did on Monday too in and around Allahabad, assuring them that, "my one and only political aim is that I want to tune my ears to the voice of the poor and the marginalised." That statement has, however, failed to trend.

All you people who didn’t read NDTV’s report are guilty of trending the wrong hashtag. Maybe something like #YoRahulInnerVoice should have trended instead. That would have made the folks at NDTV happy. So it seems from ‘Garibi Hatao’ the Congress is now down to redefining poverty almost every single day. Not just redefining poverty but it seems we have failed to holistically assess why people are poor. This wasn’t the first time that RG has spoken about it. On June15 when addressing a group of women in Kashmir valley this is what he said:

"We are with you. The whole nation is with you," Rahul told a gathering of women. "I have been all along asking bureaucrats what poverty is. But a woman from Uttar Pradesh answered me. She said 'when you don't have self confidence, you are poor; when you get the self confidence you are no longer poor'. It is up to you. No government, no bureaucrat can give this to you. And the day you get it, development would be very easy."

So you see, RG has been asking bureaucrats all along what poverty is. It’s not just a ‘state of mind’ but you’re poor if you don’t have self-confidence. And from “Garibi Hatao” it now comes down to ‘no govt can give this to you’. It’s not about meals at Rs.12 or Rs.5, all you need is self-confidence. This is a new management concept. All those management experts who founded the principle that confidence follows performance need education. For instance, players like Sachin Tendulkar or Rahul Dravid were confident first and so their performance followed. It’s not as if their confidence got a boost after their performance. This is a new discovery for all of us. Every first-timer at a new job can perform only if he or she has confidence from day-1.

There is a secret though, about this self-confidence before getting out of poverty. Gandhi cited the example of a poor woman in Amethi, who redeemed her self-esteem by getting associated with self-help group Rajiv Gandhi Mahila Vikas Pariyojana. Aha! That’s the secret. All the poor people need to do is get associated with such Pariyojanas. Now that’s a hint for all States and all Districts in the country to start ‘Rajiv Gandhi Mahila Vikas Pariyojana’. May be also have a separate unit for the poor men too. To the second part of RG’s statement on poverty after stating it’s just a state of mind: “It does not mean the scarcity of food, money or material things. If one possesses self-confidence, then one can overcome poverty”.

There isn’t food shortage as we all know. There isn’t shortage of material things as we all know. RahulG knows it better than all of us. How one gets away with rubbish and our TV channels can ignore such extreme mockery of poverty is a lesson on how to cover-up. Poverty stems from the lack of opportunities to earn the “money” that lead to a productive economic and healthy life. If money wasn’t the starting point why then have NREGA? After all, NREGA was supposed to provide some opportunity for employment and money as well. Looks like that scheme failed. At least the rural areas must continue seeking “confidence” and not opportunities that will bring them out of poverty. That’s the message.

There’s another reason for poverty apart from lack of self-confidence. Medical facilities! This is something that most people seem to have missed due to the overwhelming attention to ‘self-confidence’. This was when RG opened up another branch of the Kamala Nehru hospital and he said: “biggest cause of poverty in India is costly medical facilities which eat into a common man's savings leaving him penniless". So apart from lack of self-confidence, medical bills destroy people. Of course, there is no scarcity of money as he said. I remember the PM saying “money doesn’t grow on trees”. And RG goes on to narrate Arun Nehru’s death. Here’s the report from TOI:

In his bid to justify the statement, Rahul also drew a comparison between the level of treatment which his relative (Arun Nehru), who died few days back, received at a multi-speciality hospital in New Delhi which boasts of five star facilities charging astronomical sums running into several lakhs as room rent per day. The rooms are sparkling while the equipments used are state of art. However, a common man cannot even dream of availing such facilities”. Well, who should know this better than Sonia Gandhi? Who rushes abroad for treatment despite such five-star facilities and state-of-the-art equipment in India?

It’s getting more and more difficult to understand the cause of poverty and poor people. Sometimes they don’t know meals are available at 12/- and 5/- Sometimes they lack self-confidence. And if at all they manage the meals and self-confidence, the medical bills will kill them. There’s no escape. I’m not so sure about the “state of mind” but I can definitely be sure some people are in a “State of the blind”. 


  1. Hats off to you sir. I am also not able to understand what poverty is. I hope one day we may come to conclusion that breathing is the real cause of poverty. WHAT KIND OF POLITICIANS INDIA HAVE.

  2. I would like to second this opinion of Pappu from my personal experience. Go to any slum ,where people live without even the means for two square meals a day.What cannot be missed by anyone is, that the head of the family saves most part of his daily earnings for illicit hooch.Alcohol has a higher priority and the housewife as well the grown up children take to it like fish to water.Food takes a back seat. It is the state of mind that they want to change first. Once that is done, they go to bed and may not even need food.On any day they fail to earn enough to drink, they will take to pilferage or cheating and the earnings first go for buying alcohol.All these are means to overcome the state of mind called poverty.With his vast experience of having lived with slum dwellers for vote bank, he would certainly have spoken this from his mind.Sometimes one has to give in without egoism.But the irony is that they are going ahead with a Food security bill instead of Hooch security bill. This is where one must condemn their double speak.

    1. Nicely have taken off from where MC left off. Our urban slums are a wonderful example of poverty of the mind and who promotes these slums? Our esteemed policy makers.

  3. They are on the "I" hatao spree.
    First they hatao-ed I from Congress-I to make Congress i.e. Bogus INC.
    Now they are busy hatao-ing "I" from the Slogan "Garib-I Hatao" to make it more manageable "Garib Hatao"
    Poverty is a state of mind? True; just remove "I" as in above mentioned slogan to make it "Garib Hatao"
    Its more EASY to make people Vanish than CREATE opportunities for earning.
    The mystery behind jugglery with Figures, Words,Phrases ,Semantics ,Syntax & other Mental Calisthenics of various people from Ministers,Ord Netas,Bureaucrats & Planning Commission will be better understood if we understand the above.

    GOD SAVE INDIA from this types of Politicians.

  4. This guy is definitely illiterate... He can't analyse simple things in life.. To hell with his philosophy... Has he ever seen beggars who want food to eat n he is preaching them about self confidence?? Bullshit ! Do kaudi ka insaan...saala apne dum par khaana bhi ni afford kar sakta chala hai gyaan dene... pardon my language.... After reading this I HATE RAHUL GANDHI.... karma will take care of him and everyone else who r making fun of poor one day..sooner or later that I cant say but for sure that I know....

  5. One thing what is very clear that Congress Voters or let it be Voters of so called secular parties are more concerned about Right Wings coming to power rather than worrying about corruption.

    Please check this comment which I took from Outlook Forum:-

    Aug 03, 2013
    06:52 PM

    communalist is more criminal than the corrupt
    V.N.K.Murti Pattambi, PATTAMBI

    God only can save this country....

  6. "my one and only political aim is that I want to tune my ears to the voice of the poor and the marginalised." dumbest poverty industry promoter, the one and only clown prince RG

  7. This is the "chalta hai" attitude from the prince. He is surely influenced by Sanjay Jha. Most of the non-sense he speaks I guess is coming from Dale-Carnegie institute that Jha runs. Prince assumes that by using words that no one understands, he is connecting with the common man making ass out of himself.

  8. Ravinar, Please avoid using G for Gandhi when you describe Rahul Gandhi. While reading I end up reading it as Rahulji and get irritated because it reminds me of his chamchas like Diggy, Mani and all who never fail to add the suffix ji when they refer to that clown prince.

    1. What about using RahulN (Nehru) or RahulK (Khan) or RahulGay!!!

  9. When Rajnath Singh was misquoted about angreziyat the same NDTV guys ran a prime time debate on their channel (We the Peepli).Even after Rajnath himself clarified that he was misquoted, no NDTV anchor ever put his speech in context.

    But when it come to Gandhi's its not NDTV's bias but it is just spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion.

  10. Rahul Gandhi's statement “poverty is a state of mind” must have come as a result of AMWAY session he may have attended. Speakers there tell how they changed their mentality and converted it to earn money to eradicate their poverty. RG is probably trying to emulate those speakers.

  11. I don't blame him for that....he is born rich and doesn't have any idea on what poverty is!!!!1

  12. Rahul's spin doctors must be a worried lot these days.Anything he speaks is quickly turned in to a joke by opponents of Congress.And this is done through social media.SO NDTV or any other TV can't help.
    Spin doctors and Rahul himself should worry on the reasons why he is made butt of jokes rather than reaching for the next "words of wisdom".
    Reasons are [a] People don't believe in this govt or Congress party or the " family" [b] People don't believe in what those TV channels talk about Congress and the Family.[c]People prefer to rely on independent social media and the facts as they see around them [ eg prices,law & order,corruption,inaction....]
    Days of the dynasts and other such non performers like Maya,Mamata,Mulayam will be over very soon.

  13. Is it possible that RG can't read at all? Or maybe he is 'too rich' to go online. How else is it possible that despite making one absolutely idiotic comment after another, he still carries on doing the same and keeping a straight face. Any chance he is a robot disguising as a human?

  14. Super Brilliant!!. Will Rahul Gandhi understand? Does he have anyone having the brains to read it out to him and explain it (for afterall he is blind!!)

  15. Extrapolating from this
    Inflation , corruption ,mismanagement of Indian economy is all fictional. Fictional from their point of view ( the rulers , congress, moron of a prince , media et al ) and thence there is nothing wrong with india per se. The honest Indian is an idiot . If he does not know how to cheat , loot, rig, manipulate , outsmart others - he deserves his fate .

    So they will continue to do what they are doing , If Indians cannot outdo them , unsettle them - they would need to tolerate them , endure them

  16. Rahul ko garibi ka ahesas nahi kyoki in logo ne garibi kabhi dekhi hi nahi hai mere father ki income monthly 3000 hai es liye muze pata hai garibi kya hoti hai

  17. Antoni said attack on bordar is by militants not by pak army is it said from pak forain ambasy

  18. Rahul Gandhi's 'profound' comment stating that poverty is a state of mind gives a whole new way of looking at Marie Antoinette's alleged :), 'If they do not have bread, give them cake!' speech. So if you are poor, change the state of your mind, in a bug report that is progressing towards resolution changes states. Foot in mouth disease is also scaling new heights! It would be hilarious if it wasn't so pathetic.

  19. Why this NEWS never got highlighted in MSM -

  20. Do you have to say anything about unholy alliance of Congress and BJP related to ganging up together to absolve themselves from RTI and to absolve themselves from recent SC judgement of disqualifying convicted legistatore/parliamentarians?

  21. Is he a politician or a comedian? Whenever he gives speech, he says lot of funny things.

  22. I pity congress leaders trying to sell this baby as future CM. Of course scared too that it may become true!

  23. Lesser known facts about Arnab Goswami


    Once he was inducted by the CBSE board in a panel to draft questions for the class X board exams. Was dropped after he added a 'nation needs to know' suffix to each question


    Arnab's wife never argues with him as she is afraid of losing

    Most of the self proclaimed evidence papers he waves on his showNewshour are grocery lists written by his wife

    Goswami's neighbors avoid him during their morning walk in order to prevent being asked 36 questions

    Arnab Goswami's maid once fainted due to low BP after Goswami questioned her absence from duty


    Pakistan's former dictator and clown Parvez Musharraf had 5 military interrogators question him non-stop for 34 hours in preparation for his first appearance on Newshour

    He starts his day with 36 questions to self

    Once a service manager at a prominent 5-star hotel asked Arnab for feeback on his stay. The manager was released only after Goswami asked him 74 questions

    Panel-Panel was Arnab's favorite game as a 6-year old. He used to gang up with 4 neighborhood kids and grill random kids on random

    His autobiography 'The nation needs to know' is written in a QnA format

    Pranoy Roy 93 questions in under one hour

  24. People are not only in a state of being BLIND but also in a state of DEAF and DUMB. Otherwise one can never see this vast democracy crumbling o fast!!

    Thanks for at least keeping some eyes, ears and mouths open and active!!

  25. I dont understand what he means by "state of mind ".
    I think he cant get any better enjoying luxurious , he doesnt even know what poverty means .He has not been into situation of a poor man , who eats once in a day.Raoul Gandhi can never understand.

