The Poverty of Philosophy

Garbage and two-hour toilet lines are a way of life for many in Dharavi.
© Dante Montella

By Arjun Maniyar

People talk about the close-knit society in Dharavi but in reality, Dharavi represents this community out of necessity. This is to say that there may not actually be a desire for these residents of Dharavi to live in such a collectivist manner. People marvel at the “beauty” of the bonds that exist today amongst the residents in Dharavi. The trouble I see with this approach is that most of the Dharavi residents would give an arm and an ear for social independence. We declare that it is “wondrous” and “spectacular” that Dharavi functions as a collective, yet our own lives are beacons of a lifestyle centered around the person, not the family, and definitely not the community. It is unfair for us to pretend that residents of Dharavi are satisfied with “the scraps that are kicked them”. We have the ability to choose our lifestyle. The residents of Dharavi do not; this is the Poverty of Philosophy.
The term “poverty of philosophy” is a phrase I encountered in the lyrical verses of Felipe Andres Coronel, a Columbian who grew up in Harlem. He says that black and Latino people in American ghettos are exposed to forces in their environment which prevent them from being able to see how they are being used by the government. He decrees that if they are properly educated-both in and out of school, they would not allow themselves to be so grossly mishandled by the government. They lack the ability to be truly intellectual, and this is borne out of the environment in which they live. To elaborate, I cite Malcolm Gladwell’s new novel Outliers in which Gladwell writes about education and the relationship each social class has with it. He says, “These numbers come from research led by John Hopkins University sociologist Karl Alexander. Alexander tracked the progress of 650 first graders from the Baltimore Public School system, looking at how they scored on a widely used math-and reading-skills exam called the California Achievement Test.” Over 5 years, Alexander compiled data by retesting them each year. Gladwell continues, “The first graders from the wealthiest homes have a 32-point advantage over the first graders from the poorest homes…four years later, the initially modest gap between rich and poor has more than doubled.” Interestingly, this test was taken by the students at both the beginning and end of the year. Alexander noticed that the poor students were not learning anything over the summer whereas the wealthy students would come back scoring on average 52.49 points better than at the end of the previous year. The key is simple; alter the environment in which the poor children grow up, surround them with books, provide them with intellectually stimulating opportunities, and the student will have a much better chance of going to college and escaping the lower class. Although Dharavi is not plagued by the same dangerous environment that exists in Baltimore, they are surrounded by poverty so extreme that they cannot afford books to help them advance the way privileged kids advance. To advance in the same way a privileged student advances, the student in Dharavi would have to be a miraculously smart person, one who, given the opportunities which are provided to students with money, could have the capacity to potentially change the world. In essence, the rich only get richer, and the poor, poorer. My point is this: the government is holding the people of Dharavi back by providing them with substandard education; Dharavi and smaller slum communities like it are the only areas in all of Mumbai with students still attending municipal schools.

I was told by a community organizer named Bhau Korde that at these municipal schools, there are 12 year old children who cannot even spell their own name. And instead of being 100% critical of the system, we are declaring Dharavi to be “unique” and “special”, or the most grievous or which, the description, “beautiful”. We are copping out when we say that the community of Dharavi is vital because the truth is that I would rather see Dharavi riddled with broken relationships than infested with disease. People say that it would be fantastic if Dharavi could retain the community it has now, as it advances into the future, but I say no, what would be wonderful is if we allowed Dharavi to choose whether they want individuality or collectivity. Of course, now, they do not have a choice; they do not have the financial means to support an individualistic society. If we want to really liberate the people of Dharavi we must give them the same opportunity to move up in society as middle and upper class students. With that said, I doubt that those are the interests of the government, or anybody with a shred of power. This is what hinders the poor of both USA and India, and it is this poverty, the poverty of philosophy, of capital, of compassionate politicians, that we need to fix in order to prevent a revolution.