How to make poverty disappear: Never mind trickle-down effect, or the rising tide that'll lift all boats

One of the best ways to remove poverty is to make poor people disappear. In fact, it's a foolproof, 100% way to deal with a problem that's been Piketty-ing me no end of late. Now, making poor people disappear uses the same methodology that can be used to make rich people disappear. Except that in this case, making the poor vanish has more tangible, immediate benefits than bringing about rapid, bolshie poshlessness.

For one, poor people generally go about their business looking poorly - literally. The generic shabbiness, mustiness, especially in the summer months in a tropical climate like ours, makes for a poor, sweaty display of citizenry, especially when there seems to be far less well-off people in most neighbourhoods out and about on the streets than those less well-off. This can be especially irksome for middle-class sensibilities possessed by those who are well-off, but not rich. Or, at least, don't consider themselves to be rich, which is pretty much every member of the middle-classes.

Now, I am more than familiar with regularly walking along footpaths that not only make a lunar landscape look like Champs-Elysees, but also, by dint of these strips of concrete being bracketed by ramshackle shacks, stalls and encroaching enterprises, make me engage in the Walk of Shame that Cersei Lannister had to go through as penance for her sins of fornication and treason.


In addition, I have to negotiate these varicose veined paths crowded with overwhelmingly non-rich people who don't seem to know how to walk in a civil/civic manner. So, having these ramshackle shacks, stalls, and encroaching enterprises dematerialise would, indeed, provide me great relief.

And yet, remember that wanting Jama Masjid to be clearly visible from Turkman Gate in the mid-1970s was a tricky ask - if you didn't have the right family connections - and could catch you bulldozing. But be that as it may, when I was recently scrolling through some photos of the German city of Erfurt (population: 2,18,793, as in Dec 2024) a friend of mine had posted, I kept imagining how those cobbled stones under those medieval spires and gables with courtyard cafes would look if they were lined up with - you guessed it - ramshackle shacks, stalls, and encroaching enterprises.

For those of you who may, at this point, point out that not wanting illegal encroachments set up by poor people removed is a sign of terrible entitlement, this line of argument may be a bit confusing. Being entitled would, I'd reckon, make you all the more want to ensure that all signs of poverty (read: poor people) are removed 'for their own good'. After all, Marie Antoinette didn't say, 'Let them eat sattu.'

Erasing the poor - by brushing them under the durrie, or by pushing them back to 'where they came from', or, if they happen to be where they came from, sent off to a faraway land (where you don't plan to ever visit or resettle) - has a certain appeal to it, if you're made of sterner stuff. It could satisfy that near-sexual desire of yours to have your city look like 'abroad' - even though you can do Farah Kaul about its weather and air quality.

There may be some Left loonies who'll wag their fingers and tell you that development is not just about turning cities into a hot Antwerp, but also about providing dignity to every citizen. But would you really put the cart of rehabilitation of displaced encroachers before the horse of removing their eyesores? Especially since these aren't those wonderfully presentable encroachments like Delhi Gymkhana or other clubs standing on 'public commons'.

In the (post-Emergency) late-70s, my grandfather, exasperated by the ways of the world, told me a sure way of solving its many Malthusian problems: 'Drop an atom bomb on this city and everything will be all right.' The reboot idea appealed to me. But I had one genuine question that I asked him: 'But what will happen to us if that happens?'

His reply was as immediate as it was perfect: 'The bomb should leave our area intact, of course.' Yes, of course.