Calvin Klein and the tea pickers: what exactly is poverty? Mari Marcel Thekaekara travels from south India to … Germany in pursuit of an answer

New Internationalist, March, 1999 by Mari Marcel Thekaekara

Most of us fall into the trap of working towards alleviating physical poverty thinking this is the solution to all ills. Economic prosperity, wealth, better incomes are put forward as ideals to aspire to. Yet paradoxically, at a totally different level, we attack the wave of consumerism which seems to engulf everyone, rich and poor.

In 1995, the adivasis took the challenge further. At a meeting to look critically at the last ten years, the adivasis were clear about their own notions of wealth: `Our community, our children, our unity, our culture, the forest.' Money was not mentioned at all. We, the non-adivasis in the team, were stunned.

As we discussed concepts of poverty further, we realized that the adivasis didn't see themselves as poor. They saw themselves as people without money. It took a little bit of concentrated thinking for me to absorb that this was not necessarily the same thing.

Some other things happened to turn our stereotypical concepts on their heads. Community Aid Abroad approached us to invite a group of Aboriginal Australians to visit. Our people were shocked beyond words by the Australian stories, of children wrenched from their families, of the treatment meted out to them. Some of the visitors had personal experiences to recount. They themselves had been torn from their parents as kids and sent to white people's homes or institutions. For months afterwards, the adivasis talked about the visitors. `Poor people, how they've suffered,' they said. `Our problems are nothing compared to what they've been through.'

A poverty-stricken Indian saying `poor thing' to an Australian might strike an outsider as slightly ironic, but the experience was even more surreal when we visited Germany. There had been a six-year ongoing link between a group of German students and our project. So in 1997, when six adivasis were invited to Germany, the visit generated excitement along with a great deal of trepidation. For the adivasis, this was a very big first. A pretty big plunge from their forest, mountain, village world into super-developed Germany. We wondered how they'd cope with the sudden exposure to great material wealth straight after stark poverty.

Their reactions amazed me. I realized later that what made their observations different was the fact that they did not look at the West as a kind of Mecca where you would find everything material you seek. This is in complete contrast to most other visitors who go there either as immigrants or tourists but always with shopping lists. The adivasis didn't hanker after German goodies. `It's very nice to be here,' Chathi, one of the six, told me. `But I couldn't live here. It's not my place. A man needs his family, his community, his own people around him. Just money can't give you a life. You'd shrivel up and die.'

They were speechless when they saw an old people's home. The concept was totally alien to them. `How can children send their old parents to live alone?' they eventually asked in wonder. And later, in a meeting, Radhakrishnan, another of the six, solemnly resolved: `We must ensure that such things never happen in our society, no matter how much we progress.'