Student Name: Bedansh Pandey – Finalist (High School Cohort)

Grade During 2019-2020 Academic Year: 10th grade

Hometown: Johns Creek, GA

You Can Solve the Puzzle of Poverty in India

Imagine you have $100 to spend on anything: shirts, belts, furniture. You decide to spend it on a pair of name-brand shoes. To you, there is more value to these shoes than anything else you could’ve bought. This seems like a given. The more interesting result is that you believe there is more value to those shoes than, say, $100 worth of meals for malnourished children in the Bhalswa slum of New Delhi. Since the minimum cost of a warm and fulfilling meal in India is roughly $1 (₹80), and because 3 meals a day is the standard for adequate nourishment, you’ve effectively starved 33 children just to buy that pair of Nike running shoes you so desperately need. And, ironically, that pair of running shoes was likely made from the hands of one of the children you just starved, with global corporations relying on child labor to make millions off people like you, leaving those children with virtually no money and no food.

This subconscious decision you’ve made is an idea that philosopher Peter Singer grapples with in his novel The Life You Can Save, in which Singer essentially argues that anyone with the means to help another should be compelled to do so, and that those who choose not to have failed to realize the importance of even the slightest penny, just like you with that pair of shoes. And this is an objective reality–––donations are a pretty tidy linear relationship in which the more money you give, the more lives you potentially save. But these donations can only do so much. Consider again the kids in the Bhalswa slum. Your donation might buy them meals, but what about the clean water for after they’ve finished eating? Or malaria nets for when they go to sleep? Simple donations, although well-intentioned, can never truly end poverty. They’re nothing more than a band-aid for a bullet wound that has been bleeding out for far too long. In order to produce a permanent solution, we must look to what actually causes poverty itself, an issue that is thereby India’s most severe problem: a lack of quality education. 

I say a  “quality education” and not simply “education” because India has painted a rosy façade of an “educated” population with unprecedented school enrollment rates of children in rural areas and urbanization skyrocketing. But make no mistake. The number of kids going to school may be high, but are they really learning anything? More than 50% of the 5th standard students attending rural schools can’t even read texts from the 2nd standard. The number of people shifting to urban areas in search of job opportunities might be high, but are they actually finding those jobs? More than 100,000,000 people in urban areas still remain unemployed. Simply put, a quality education isn’t getting the emphasis it deserves. Instead, a fog of complacency blocks any near sight of ending poverty in India. 

Ultimately, this begs the question––why aren’t the affluent families (such as those in the Indian American community) donating as much as they potentially can? There are actually two answers to that question: the trust deficit and a lack of awareness. A study by Dalberg and Indiaspora found that Indian Americans are hesitant to donate to philanthropic organizations because they are weary of the organization’s authenticity due to how imbued with corruption India is. To remedy this deficit, we needn’t look very far. You see, the Jewish diaspora in America has already solved this problem by allowing donors to channel their donations through several central organizations whose credibility is undisputed. The first step to intensifying the philanthropic flame is to do exactly that, centralize these organizations into three main groups that have already made significant strides in the field of education in India: Pratham, Asha for Education, and the American India Foundation (whom I’ll refer to as the Big 3). 

The next problem is a lack of awareness. To fully understand what I mean by true awareness (no pun intended), I must explain why I’m writing this about education and not any other social issue. I recently watched Super 30, a film about benevolent mathematician Anand Kumar who helps 30 smart but underprivileged students prepare for their IIT examinations. It’s worth noting that prior to this film, I’d known of the struggles of Indian education for rural students but I hadn’t really witnessed it first-hand. Seeing the systemic malice against these children juxtaposed by how intellectually talented they were was both awe-inspiring and eye-opening. I’d been hiding behind a smokescreen of statistics; I was informed about the lack of quality education, but I wasn’t really aware. And it isn’t just me. Indian Americans suffer from a “passion donation gap” in which they don’t necessarily donate to the causes that they claim they’re most passionate about. That’s because they’re in the same situation that I was––informed, not aware. 

To make Indian Americans more aware, we must target their most prized pastime: cinema. That’s right. A study by Lakshmi N. Tirumala found that second generation Indian Americans allow Bollywood movies significant cultural influence on their perception and connection with India. Thus, the Big 3 should  work to finance the films, like Super 30, that tell the stories and actually show the realities of what it’s like to be living in rural India without education, as opposed to merely thrusting a flurry of nameless, faceless statistics. The Big 3 should also target platforms such as TikTok and Instagram that are rife with younger users by working with Indian Americans (that already have a large following base) to create posts or TikToks that tell the stories and show the pictures of children such as those living in the Bhalswa slum. 

So, these are the first two steps: eradicate the wall of mistrust and make the general population more aware. What’s next? We need to translate that built-up angst from awareness into tangible action. This means partnering the Big 3 with other youth organizations such as the Hindu American Student Council and South Asian Youth Action to send student volunteers to work directly with  children in poverty-stricken areas. Of course, expecting a large percentage of young Indian American students to travel all the way to a remote corner of India is too altruistic, though there are certainly other ways we can help. Organizations such as the Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation have created fundraising  programs that leverage the talents of the Indian American community by staging charity concerts featuring Bollywood music. This concept can also cater to younger Indians, by having the Big 3 create a youth commission to organize community fundraisers. This could mean dance performances, 5K races, art competitions––any kind of fundraiser that draws upon the skills of young Indian Americans.

Looking to the future, I’m hopeful. With over half of India’s population under 25, we could be looking at a remarkable educational upheaval. If not, though, poverty could become an inevitable calamity, a cliff from which many will fall. But if we can save even one child from that fate, we save their children, grandchildren, and generations that follow. We’ve been anointed with that power. And with such great power, there comes with it a great responsibility. 

Bedansh submitted a related 2-minute video which can be viewed here.