The faces of economic inequality in India

DW (English)

India remains one of the most unequal countries worldwide when it comes to economic and gender inequalities. We met two families to illustrate this gap.

Transcript

00:00Early morning in Varanasi in the north of India,

00:04Kismati Devi prepares tea still using firewood.

00:08She used to live in a mud house with her seven children and husband.

00:12Now they have a better house funded by the government.

00:15They're still poor, but nevertheless,

00:17her living conditions have improved a lot over the last 20 years.

00:25Things have changed now.

00:27Since my daughter's birth,

00:28we can even feed the cattle scraps of the bread we bake.

00:31We didn't even have basic amenities,

00:34so when it was hot, we used hand fans,

00:37and we weren't able to sleep because of the heat.

00:39Now we have electricity in the house,

00:42we have an electric fan, and we have light.

00:51Brush hour in Delhi, and in the barber business.

00:54Just the ones who can afford it come to him.

00:57Jawed Habib is a shooting star.

01:00He owns his own nationwide brand with more than 900 franchises.

01:05His idea has made him a rich man.

01:08The 60-year-old businessman first started working in his father's hair salon.

01:19I studied French because I never wanted to take over my father's business.

01:24I wanted to do hotel management,

01:26so I went to Jawaharlal Nehru University.

01:30And then I was sent to London to learn the barber business there.

01:34At that time, I was working in McDonald's as a student,

01:38and it was there that I realized

01:40that I wanted to become the McDonald's of hairstyling.

01:44That's why he started his franchise business.

01:47Back to Varanasi,

01:49which is also the constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

01:52Millions of people in India still live like this,

01:55the largest number of poor worldwide is in India.

01:58Experts say the subsidies these people get from the government are not enough.

02:02Indian society is divided.

02:0563 million Indians are pushed into poverty every year

02:09because they can't afford health care costs.

02:12It would take 941 years for a minimum wage worker in rural India

02:17to earn what a top executive at a leading Indian garment company earns in one year.

02:23At the same time, there are 119 billionaires in India.

02:27There were only nine in the year 2000.

02:31From 2018 to 2022,

02:33India was producing 70 new millionaires every single day.

02:38I think there's no doubt that inequality has increased dramatically in the last 20 years.

02:43And that is a function of the kind of economic growth that we've had.

02:47So earlier, we certainly had inequality of many different kinds.

02:51By class, caste, gender, location and so on.

02:54But now we've had an extreme accentuation of these.

02:58And particularly in the last decade,

03:00the incomes and assets of the top 10% of the country,

03:04the top 1% of the country have exploded.

03:08Back to the family in Varanasi.

03:10Mother and daughter are speaking to family members that moved to the city.

03:14Where do you go?

03:16Where do you go?

03:19Education here is key.

03:21It's also why the youngest daughter is so keen to empower the children in the village

03:26so that they'll have a better life later on.

03:28She started teaching the girls thanks to an NGO.

03:32Nevertheless, she continued her own studies and wants to make a difference in her family.

03:37When I wasn't working, my parents used to pressure me about marriage.

03:47But since I joined an NGO and began earning money,

03:52nobody asks me about marriage anymore.

03:55And I'm also not interested in it at the moment.

03:59That's the same in almost all the poor families.

04:02The family members have to contribute to the family income.

04:05In rich families, the parents don't depend on the children.

04:09They send them abroad for their studies.

04:12Like Jawed Habib in Delhi, for instance.

04:15He sent his kids to Europe to study abroad and has a decent life in Delhi.

04:20For the wealthy class in India, this is quite common.

04:24I've got a son. His name is Anosh.

04:27Anosh has learned to cut hair, but now he handles the corporate office in Mumbai.

04:33My wife shuttles between Dubai and India.

04:36When my kids used to study in London, she used to live with them.

04:40Then my daughter settled in Dubai.

04:43And because she is still very close to us, my wife keeps shuttling between India and Mumbai.

04:50But only a few people in India have these opportunities.

04:54And this is how the rich and middle class in India,

04:57which earn 500,000 rupees or even more per year,

05:01grew so fast over the last nine years.

05:04The ones that grew faster than average were the middle and rich classes,

05:08not the poor ones.

05:10And this is how the rich and middle class in India,

05:13which earn 500,000 rupees or even more per year,

05:16grew so fast over the last nine years.

05:19The ones that grew faster than average were the middle and rich classes,

05:23not the poor ones.

05:26So if you have growth and you pay no attention to redistribution,

05:31especially in a country like India,

05:34where we are also dealing with very serious social inequalities,

05:38so you have to do something so that they are all,

05:42Jawed knows about the inequality in society.

05:45He's teaching people on the margins, like this blind man.

05:50He runs seven academies and trains around 10,000 barbers per year.

05:56His mission?

05:58He wants to give something back to the country that made him a rich man.

06:05India was considered a poor country.

06:08Education has changed me a lot.

06:11Science taught me that in India, doctors and engineers are needed.

06:15However, even in this India, a barber could also become a successful brand.

06:21But what would the foundation of this success be?

06:24Education. Education and education.

06:30In the village, it's time for the harvest.

06:32The main problem?

06:34The family belongs to a lower caste,

06:36and that means they don't own their own land.

06:39That always leaves them dependent on others to grow grain for food,

06:43a big reason for the inequality.

06:46My daughter works outside and helps me with weeding, planting and harvesting.

06:51My husband, my son, everyone pitches in.

06:54My son works in the city, but he still helps us.

06:57By doing this, we produce grain for ourselves and also earn a little money.

07:02That's how we survive.

07:05So we've had wage suppression,

07:07and in fact, reliance on the unpaid labor of women and the lower castes and so on.

07:12But also we've had the exploitation of, let's say, those who don't have political voice.

07:17So, for example, the traditional dwellers,

07:20they are the Vasis whose lands have been appropriated for mining, for other kinds of things.

07:26At least some things in the village have changed for the better.

07:30The government provided gas cylinders for more than 100 million families.

07:34The problem is they can't always use them due to the infrastructure

07:38and the high cost of refilling the cylinders,

07:41so they often end up using firewood.

07:44Overcoming inequality will be one of the biggest challenges for the government

07:49and might even slow down economic growth.

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