Political Science
2014
Essay
Man is a social animal and needs basic needs for his survival. The basic needs include food, shelter and clothes. Also, he needs love, care, and interaction with other people. Broadly speaking, he needs to communicate with others In order to live effectively. Human beings live in groups, form communities and colonies. The consistent interaction of the people with each other and the environment, for their survival and living, defines the society. However, the society is more or less concerned social interactions. The driving force for such interactions is the division or class in the individuals constituting a society. For instance, people can be rich or poor, and strong or weak etcetera. These divisions cause separation in the form of profession or daily living. Perhaps a man wearing a suit is treated as a gentleman. Does a man with a meagre dress get similar treatment? How do we perceive people? Do we judge them because of their poverty? These questions need an objective approach.
Maslow (1943) describes the pattern through which the human motivation generally moves. He introduced the terms like physiological needs (basic needs), Safety, Belongingness and Love, Esteem, Self-Actualization to explain the working of human spur. Every individual needs basic physiological needs and holds a right to attain them. Also certain institutions hold that good health, good food, and shelter are the basic rights of every person whether rich or poor.
Honestly speaking, rich people get these basic needs very easily. The question is how do the poor people manage such things? What is the source of income for a poor person? Surely, they do one thing or the other to get the basic needs. However, they struggle hard and more or less manage bread for the living. According to Maslow 1943, physiological needs are most important for the proper functioning of the body, and they should be met first. Air, water and food are the metabolic requirements for the human survival. However, the attainment of such needs sometimes lead to criminal activities of the poor people.
Many crimes are related to the poor people in a manner that these people try to attain their needs through illegal means. However, many cases have been reported that marginalised people steal or murder someone for the money. Poor or marginalized people who live in a city do certain illegal things for their daily needs. Pick pocketing, stealing and other minor crimes are consistent on daily basis in both big and small cities. For example, the rate of crime increases in Delhi city of India. This is due to the jobless and unskilled marginalized people who take the alternative to become rich or to earn their living.
There is image associated with the marginalised people and that image is not a good one. Even the media of the world also portrays them as the people with criminal instincts. In movies, we can see a poor child becoming a hero and gains sympathy from the audience. These factors can directly or indirectly enhance the behaviour of the marginalised people, as also try to be heroes in their lives. Such display of the poor people is surely unfair to the specific community. The elite and upper middle-class also sees them as they have been represented to the world. Such stereotypical image of such people is definitely of much concern. Crime is not just confined only to the poor population of a country. The behaviour and attitude of the people matters as there are rich people and poor people, so there are good people and bad people.
Poor people do not have many resources to earn money. They are mostly illiterate. They have less health education. Consequently, they do not have regular jobs. So, they employ an alternative mode of earning their needs, including illegal operations. For instance, they steal or sell fake goods and items.
This issue need to be addressed very objectively. For instance, it is the government of a country that should take the responsibility for its poor population. They should not be deprived of their basic health rights. They should be given proper jobs, at least for a given time period in a month or a week. They should be provided free education.
Such implementations can reduce the rate of crime in a country in. Stating the above recommendations, again India comes in my mind. In India a big portion of its population lives below poverty line. However, the government have undertaken certain steps to enhance the quality of its poor population. The government provides them with guaranteed job of hundred days of work in a year to the people above fourteen years of age. It also provides the free education and even free day meals to the students. Such steps can be beneficial to the marginalized community in particular and to the world in general.
Asef Bayat (2013) in his book, Life as politics, provides an alternative outlook to check the marginalization and poverty. He called it Quiet encroachment. The term refers to non-collective but prolonged direct actions of dispersed individuals and families to acquire the basic necessities of their lives (land for shelter, urban collective consumption or urban services, informal work, business opportunities, and public space) in a quiet and unassuming illegal fashion.
The poor and marginalized person does not mean that these are criminals. But, it means that they need to expose to their basic rights. Perhaps the image that has been created may compel us to think that such people are not trust worthy and they cannot do well. But, the truth is that they also contribute to the progress of a nation, may be at small level. It cannot be forgotten that most creative people come from such communities. It may be because they utilize their efficiency more than the elite population of a nation. If they are provided with basic facilities, they would be beneficial to the overall development of the world. They can lead the world to prosper, and enlighten their future also. It would be totally an immaturity to judge any person through his economic status. Marginalized and poor people do not support cruelty rather they fight for their survival. However, they may sometimes take the illegal route.
The most important perception about poverty is struggle, the continuous fight for the survival. In fact, it tries to draw the attention of the world towards their sufferings. It is morally illegal and unjustified to judge a person even before one knows him/her. It is not always true that poor people are unfaithful. A rich or an elite person can be a rapist, a thief or a murderer. Why do we always associate such terms with poor people only? Also, the poor people also need to enjoy the rights like freedom of speech and expression. At the end of the day, these people are also accountable towards the social, political and economic aspects of a nation. They need to be approached respectfully and they must be given the right to exercise their basic rights. A person is a person no matter how rich or poor he/she is or no matter how big or small he/she is, the important thing is that he is person and he needs to be treated as a person.
References
Bayat, A. (2013) Life as Politics. ISIM series on contemporary muslim societies. Amsterdam University press.
Maslow, A.H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370–96. Retrieved from http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Maslow/motivation.htm
