Poverty And Crime: A Special Reference To India

Introduction:

I don’t think that anyone who has been poor knows what poverty really is. If one enjoys three square meals every day he can’t understand the phenomenon of poverty. One can grasp the real meaning of poverty only if he has to struggle hard to have even a single and miserable meal in twenty four hour of a day.

A person starts understanding the true meaning of poverty when he has only torn rags instead of a complete shirt on his body to keep away the cold at night. He looks hopeless and his children look like cartoons. He has nothing to eat for the time being and no good shelter over his head. He repeatedly utters what the hopeless life he lives in poverty. Most of such paupers are unable to afford a meal a day and are victims of sickness and high mortality. They don’t have money for treatment in hospital. This often leads to making them immoral whereby they starts doing anything to achieve their aim in life either getting into armed robbery or prostitution.

The relationship between poverty and crime has been a controversial subject over the years. Though, in America and South Africa it is well proved that there is a relationship between crime and poverty since poor people make up there an overwhelming majority of those behind bars. But, a number of scholars argue that poverty does not have a causal relationship to crime because there are countries in which poverty is very high but the crime rate is quite low.

Moreover, poverty itself has been an issue of long discussion and debate since long back. Poverty eradication has been always an important objective of the persons at their individual level in all societies of the world. The credit of making it a national objective goes to the emergence of welfare governments. Today, if we let aside a few exceptions of non-welfare governments (if they exist somewhere in the world), all countries of the world are doing efforts at priority to eradicate poverty through planned economic development. Although millions of poor people have escaped poverty as a result of planned economic development in the world, a large majority of the people still continue to suffer from persistent poverty. In the developing countries and some formerly communist societies, rural mass comprise a substantial majority of the population and is living in acute privation. Over 3.5 billion people live in the Asia and Pacific region and some 63% of them in rural areas where there is widespread poverty. It has been observed that the socio-economic disparities between poor and rich people are widening and creating tremendous pressure on the social and economic fabric of developing Asian economies. Thereby, poverty eradication has become the key issue and prime objective of planned economic development in the Asian countries.  

According to the common definition of poverty, when a person finds it difficult to meet the minimum requirement of acceptable living standards, he or she is considered as poor.

In economic terms, poverty is an economic condition in which people lack sufficient income to obtain certain minimal and generally recognized as necessary levels of health services, food, housing, clothing, and education to ensure an average standard of living in a particular society. Poverty may be either relative or absolute. Relative poverty refers to the condition where income of the people falls considerably below the average income of their particular society. Absolute poverty, on the other hand, reflects the condition in which the people have not even enough food to remain healthy. However, the people though having adequate food are also considered as poor if they do not have access to education or health services.

Causes:

Poverty is created on account of the disparity in the division of resources, as well as wealth. Different levels of the disparity or inequality in this division of resource and wealth is responsible for the difference in the ratio of poverty in different areas. Among the main causes of the creation of poverty, the first is the lower-than-average ability of Individuals to earn income, for the reasons like old age, physical disability, unmarried motherhood, large family with either relatively small number of wage earners or low wage earners. About one-third of the poor mass in the Western world is on account of the unmarried motherhood. The second cause creating poverty is either the inferior education or the lack of education opportunity. A larger percentage of the blacks in the developed countries is poor today due to a heritage of inferior education and the rural mass in the developing (especially Asian) countries are poor today because of the lack of education opportunity. Both of these situations mean reduced employment opportunities. The third and the most responsible cause of much of the world’s poverty is the low level of economic development. The developing countries are still suffering from wide spread poverty due to under utilisation of resource on account of their low economic development. Low economic development implies lack of capital, old technology, high production cost and low national income etc. The fourth cause of poverty is the inequality in the distribution of national income. It is equally related to the developed and the developing counties with only the difference of extent. The developing countries are characterised with high income distribution inequality but the developed economies too are not completely devoid of this inequality. Despite covering a long distance on the development path in the form of heavy recent industrialisation, India could not make a considerable dent on rampant poverty. Though heavy population is referred to as the strongest barrier in the way of poverty eradication in India, but, severe inequality in income distribution has contributed a lot to curb poverty eradication.      

Poverty in India:

As regards to India, the poverty is divided into two types: urban and rural. Specific reasons for poverty vary in the urban and rural settings. According to government estimates, in 2007 there were nearly 220.1 million people living below the poverty line. Nearly 21.1% of the entire rural population and 15.1% of the urban population of India exists in this difficult physical and financial predicament. However, the concept of poverty line has always been a matter of controversy among the economists especially in case of measuring poverty in different areas of India. The concept of poverty line is though helpful to some extent in measuring the absolute poverty, but it loses its trustworthiness in measuring the relative poverty especially in different Indian areas which have big economic, political, social and cultural diversities.      

Rural Poverty:

Rural poverty refers to the poverty found in rural areas, but more importantly, it refers to the socio-economic and political factors that give rise to the poverty found there. The main factors responsible for poverty in the rural areas, especially of India, are low productivity in agriculture, combined family system (large family units) and cast system.

Indian agriculture in most areas is largely rain dependent. Inadequacy or incompatible pattern of rain and improper irrigation facilities often cause low, or in some cases, no production of crops. Moreover, on account of being enticed and allured by the surprisingly fascinating fruits of industrialization, the planned economic development in India was started but having longed for being developed and grabbing fruits thereof in a haste. Thus the sequence was lost in Indian development path. The development became urban oriented and agriculture, the spine of Indian economy, was ignored. Thereby, agricultural development or rural development lagged far behind. Agriculture based small and cottage industries, rural artistry or handicraft and traditional transport etc. became shattered and the villages became ruined. This raised a huge bulk of unemployed people in the widely spread rural sector. Additionally, the large family size and not only the low access but even the inadequate effectiveness of family planning programme in remote rural areas also amplified the effects of poverty. Also, the caste system, still prevailing in Indian rural areas, is a major reason for rural poverty. The people from the lower casts are often deprived of a number of facilities and opportunities. The government has though planned and implemented poverty eradication programs, but the benefits of all these programs have not reached the core on account of  being often grabbed by the rural elites. Despite all hardships, scarcities and deprivations in their life the poor people, in the remote rural areas where there is widespread poverty, are all the same simple, straightforward, complacent and cooperative. Moral and spiritual wealth is taken by them as the only wealth. The rural society does not tolerate or accept criminals in the most parts of India. It is instilled in their heart that by becoming involved in something illegal they will be giving up their only possession that they do treasure. They believe in changing their fortune, but through hard working and not by crime. Whatever found crime in rare traces there, too, is committed mostly by the prosperous rural elites who are though in a small minority there. I don’t agree with the way in which it is tried to prove the Indian poor people dishonest, untrustworthy and robber at the first instance. I may agree to this but to a small extent and that too in case of urban poor people of India. For more than two decades after independence the rural towns or villages were safer. If someone living in city wanted his kids to be safe, he better moved to a suburb — or even better, he moves to a rural town. It was safe there for even a young woman to walk anywhere alone at any time of day or night. There the doors were locked only at night. During the day, doors were left unlocked even if the dwellers were not home. Nowadays, the rural towns generally have become suburbs of rapidly growing cities and the crime has reached there. Moreover, the rural villages having easy access to the suburb towns also have now come in grip of crime. Although the situation still is nowhere near as dangerous as that in cities. But, the rural villages in remote Rajasthan, interior of Haryana, middle hilly north and countryside of southern states are still free from general crime despite the widespread poverty prevails there. The reason being that these villages have very low access to the cities, urban towns, suburbs or the villages having access to suburbs. However there are found traces of caste conflict, feudalistic and exploitation crime but these too are committed by rural prosperous elites.

I would like to quote the words of an esteemed actuary and living in Hyderabad, India. He writes on his blog, “Is there a link between poverty and crime? This topic surfaces regularly in South Africa. Everyone has an opinion on the matter, but I would like to share my perspective on how this applies to India. I have a completely different perception and after living in India for more than a year now, completely different experiences as well. There are exceptions to every rule, but if I had to capture my view on people in India (especially the poor) in a few words – I would say they are friendly, honest people. They will invite you into their homes and share the little food they have without expecting anything in return. I have always felt save, even (/especially) when walking through poor areas with an expensive camera and a full wallet”.

Urban Poverty:

The ignorance of agriculture and rural development in the urban oriented planned economic development of India raised a huge bulk of unemployed people in the widely spread rural sector. The unemployed persons started migrating to the urban areas in search of job. The urban development and industrialisation there had not sufficient level to absorb the whole migrating mass and to provide them jobs and proper urban life facilities. As a result thereof a mushroom growth of slums came about fast which eventually turned into big slum spots in cities and towns within a no longer period of 20 or 25 years after independence. The phenomenal increase in population on account of the so emerged slums in the cities and towns became the main reason for poverty in the urban areas of India. The so created urban poverty was but class based and quite different from the caste based rural poverty. These slum dwellers came in touch with the culture, the luxury and the sophistication of urban life and thereby became so enticed and allured that they started breaking the harnesses pertaining to the simplicity of their rural life background. The importance of moral and spiritual wealth became replaced by the importance of monetary wealth in their life. Therefore, they started turning stones to resemble and even to become part and partial of the urban rich and prosperous majority. Due to the unbalanced urban growth and big gulf in the income of the urban poor minority and the urban prosperous majority, it was a difficult and long time consuming task on the basis of slowly increasing income by way of hard working. Therefore, they started thinking of the ways of rapid and high earnings. Thus the urban poor minority became money minded and started looking towards shortcuts involving illegal acts. This brought them in contact with the prosperous white collar criminal urban community whereby they got involved firstly in the activities of white collar crime as hired labour. Later on, some of them formed their own groups by hiring others and started other criminal activities too.

  Moreover, police to people ratio in India is about 1:1000 while that in UK it is 1:400 approximately. The police density ratio in urban areas is much lower. It is really wonderful that the country is working with such a low ratio of police to people even when more than a half of the policemen are on security duty. I even wonder why the crime, especially in urban cities and towns, has not taken a big swing above the prevailing level of crime. I feel it is in fact something to do with our belief in morality, spirituality. after-birth, destiny, karma and all that sort of things. ‘It is my destiny’ is heard as a common thing from Indian people. It keeps them more peaceful and makes them laid-back.

Conclusion:

The whole length of the above discussion reveals that in Indian reference crime level is high in urban areas, that is, the areas of poor minority and prosperous majority. On the other hand, crime level is quite low in rural areas, that is, the areas of poor majority and prosperous minority. It implies that unlike the countries like Western Africa and America poverty is not the causal factor for crime in India. Had poverty been the causal factor in India, there should have been widespread crime in remote Rajasthan, interior of Haryana, middle hilly north and countryside of Southern States. However, there has never been any community or society in the world absolutely devoid of crime. There remains always a certain level of crime present everywhere in the human society. The lowest level of crime that can’t further be lessened can be regarded as the tolerable crime level and any society bearing only this tolerable level of crime, can frankly be regarded as crimeless society. On this very ground, we should desist from holding the Indian rural poor people liable for crime. Moreover, the involvement of the Indian urban poor people too starts initially from their being involved in white collar crime the actual source of which is the urban white collar prosperous criminal community. Hence the positive correlation between crime and poverty is a myth in reference to India.

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