The famous economist Abraham Maslow states that unless a person’s physical and protective needs are met, it is extremely difficult to meet his high quality of life needs. The World Bank sums it up as something that poverty is nothing but the absence of a happy life. To explain it more, it is low income and inability to meet their basic needs.
Amartya Sen says that there is no one fixed definition of poverty, but it is a multidimensional concept. According to him, absolute poor can be said to be those whose income is less than a certain amount and relative poor refers to the earning of another human being more than what is earned by one person. That is why their emphasis is on making humans capable.
Mahatma Gandhi says that poverty is the worst form of violence. Just as the standard of living of the violence-prone society goes into a trough, similarly the socio-economic condition of the poverty-stricken society gets worse day by day. Nearly a third of the population of our country is still poor.
What is the reason behind this poverty?
There are mainly three reasons for poverty on such a large scale in India – social, political and economic.
The social reasons are mainly due to the rapid growth of population. The problem of poverty arises because of the increasing population. This increases unemployment. Rising unemployment leads to low economic growth.
Because rural areas are poorer than urban areas. Therefore, the problem of low productivity of agriculture also arises here due to poverty. This also creates the problem of social isolation. Child marriages in villages are also the result of illiteracy due to poverty.
Poverty also brings health problems. It also affects access to economic resources. Apart from this, the problems of low holding of farmers and landless also contribute their major to poverty. Martin Luther King said that in today’s era no justice can be given in relation to poverty.