Committing to Care

As this semester in India has progressed, a growing sense of frustration has grown in me. I have started to realize fully the hypocrisy of those of us in the world who consider ourselves sensitized toward the injustices of the world. We claim to want equality, yet commit actions every day that prevent it. The following is a portion of an essay I wrote as my final project. Please read, reflect, comment and critique.

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.” Too often, we content ourselves with doing or giving charity. We tell ourselves that we are good people because we dedicate two hours of our week to working with inner-city kids or because we give a portion of our salaries so small that we barely notice its absence to some organization working to eradicate AIDS in Africa. That is not enough. We convince ourselves that giving up a bit of time or money that we hardly even miss contributes to the eradication of inequality, allowing us to fool ourselves into believing that having a pyramid-like wealth structure is just so long as the people on the top of the pyramid are charitable to those on the bottom of it, but that simply is not true. The fact that the pyramid exists at all is indicative of the injustice and inequality that still exist in our world.

We cannot continue to fool ourselves into believing that half-hearted attempts at charity are doing anything to eradicate inequality. It is not okay that a child born in a slum in India might never get the chance to go to school while another child born across the world or even just in another neighborhood in that same Indian city will lead an excessively comfortable lifestyle without ever having to work for it. That is not equality. It is not okay that while cows in America are getting fed tons of grain each day so that Americans can eat more than twice the protein they need, millions of children around the world do not get enough calories in a day to maintain their body weight. That is not equality. It is not okay that I can buy a shirt for two dollars in America when a child is getting paid just cents a day to make that shirt. That is not equality. It is not okay that, while I drive my car from home to school every day, farmers in India are losing their livelihoods due to the increasing irregularity of the monsoon season. That is not equality. It is not okay for me to drive to the store to buy that shirt, then go eat meat that contributes to the starvation of millions of children across the world then spend a few hours a week volunteering and call myself a good person. That is not equality. It is not okay to make poverty more bearable if that means being content with the continuation of poverty itself. That is not equality. That is not justice.

If I truly believe in equality, in freedom, in justice, I will not be content until these values are a reality, not just for myself and people in my country, but for people everywhere. In order for there to be true equality around the world, in order for the children we’ve seen in villages to be free from the hard labor that keeps them from school, in order for every child to have equal opportunities to be what they want to be when they grow up regardless of where they were born, I can’t be content with committing small acts of charity; I must commit to sacrificing my own comforts and conveniences. In order for people across the world working in fields and factories to make a fair wage, I can’t be content with buying one or two fair trade shirts. I must commit to paying for a shirt what it is worth. I cannot expect to ever pay two dollars for a shirt. In fact, I must demand through my purchasing power that people involved at every line of production of a t-shirt be paid fairly and that t-shirts not be sold for two dollars at all. In order for there not be hunger in the world, I can’t be content with sending money to organizations that work to eradicate world hunger. I must commit to not wasting the world’s food by eating meat. In order for the villagers of Putsil village in the Indian state of Orissa to be able to count on the rainy season coming at the same time each year again, I can’t be content with recycling my plastic bottles. I must commit to not buying plastic bottles in the first place. In order for farmers in the villages of Koppal to be able to make enough money off of their food crops to live, I can’t be content with just saying that small farmers deserve more compensation. I must demand of my policymakers that they not unfairly subsidize large-scale farmers in the United States. Knowing all of the inputs – both labor and capital – that go into making food, I cannot expect it to cost so little.

Are these changes and actions easy? Are they convenient? Of course they're not. Change is not easy, and if those of us with the privilege to effect change are not willing to do so because it is ‘too hard’ or ‘too inconvenient’, then we must content ourselves with life in a world full of injustice and inequality. More than that, we must resign ourselves to the truth that by accepting injustice, we are creating it; by being content with living comfortably we are forcing others to live in poverty. We must realize that by choosing not to change our own lifestyles we are also deciding for millions of others around the world that their lifestyles cannot improve. I am not willing to accept the gross injustice of that truth as my reality. Change is possible if we care enough to make it happen, and today, I am making a commitment to care.

Back in Bangalore

Phew...we arrived back in Bangalore an hour ago after our month-long journey to the North of the country. I had expected to be tired at this point, but I really wasn't; the month was phenomemal!

At the time of my last update, we were in Delhi. We finished off our time in Delhi with a three-day unit on Islam. Unfortunately, the person who was supposed to be leading the unit cancelled on us, so David had to throw together some last-minute things for us to do. Although the program was great considering how last-minute it was, we didn't learn much and we had a LOT of free time. But hey - who's complaining? I love free time.

On Wednesday the 25th, we took a 14 hour overnight train to Varanasi. We spent our first day in Varanasi studying Buddhism. We talked to a very nice monk for a few hours and visited a lot of temples. That day (Thursday) was also Thanksgiving.

In the United States, Friday was Eid el Adha, one of the two large Muslim holidays of the year. In India, Eid was on Saturday. I wasn't sure which day I was planning to celebrate on since I really didn't have anything to do for Eid anyway, but my classmates decided for me. They "woke me up" on Friday morning with a bunch of little gifts and a beautiful rendition of "Eid Mobarek to you." Kimberly and Katie had everyone sign an Eid card for me as well. I have never received an actual Eid card before! Their surprise made me so remarkably happy... Later in the day I got some chocolates to share with everyone, and Caitlin and Allie bought an "Eid Cake". I was so touched by the thoughtfulness of my classmates...definitely the best Eid ever! Also on Thursday, we were studying Jainism, another religion that emerged in response to Hinduism.

On Saturday, we woke up early to go see the sunrise from on a boat on the Ganges! Itwas amazing. The Ganges is a holy river and it is seen as most holy in Varanasi, so we saw many people bathing in the river. Doing so is supposed to wash people of all of their sins. After our boat ride, we were free for the rest of the day. I walked around for a few hours with Katie, Kimberly, Allie and Britta before heading back to St. Mary's Cathedral, where we were staying, to relax for a few hours. At night, I went out with a few people who were getting ice cream. I hadn't been planning to get ice cream anyway, but while we were there, Kimberly and I decided not to eat any sort of junk food for the rest of our time in India, meaning no sweets, no soda, no nasty, oily, fried stuff (unless not taking something would be rude). It has only been a few days, but it hasn't been too hard. Depending on how things go, I might continue this once I get home. Also on the subject of eating habits, I really want to become vegetarian. I will definitely be eating vegetarian for the rest of my time in India and hopefully I can continue to do so at home. I have learned of so many reasons why vegetarian is better this semester (I might post about them soon), and I feel like that's a change that I can easily make.

On Sunday and Monday, we studied Hinduism and a bit of the history and spiritual significance of Varanasi. We left Varanasi yesterday right after lunch. Before lunch, I went back into the central area of Varanasi with Allie, Caitlin and Kimberly to walk around a little bit more and do a bit of shopping. Our train ride was all of 18 hours long from Varanasi to Delhi. Then we had a two and a half hour plane ride from Delhi to Bangalore and now we're back at Visthar!

It's great to be back at a place so familiar, but in some ways I'm sad that we're back. The past month was by far the best of our trip. Mostly, I think, because the members of our group spent a lot more time with each other. We had a lot of great conversations and all bonded so much. It is sad to think that in these last two weeks in India, we'll probably be attached to our computers again and then we'll go home and never get this awesome environment to just hang out with each other again. Looking back to September and how long the semester seemed then, it is truly hard to believe that I will be leaving India in just over two weeks. Crazy!