India
Much of the world’s poverty today is an
apparent result of low levels of economic and human development. In such situation, many
suffer from malnutrition, epidemic disease, and vulnerability to extreme weather and
natural disasters. Unemployment is high and the poverty incidence is almost half if not
more. Such setting paints a picture of a third-world country like India.
 Social problems are common among the
poor. Though poverty is often linked to crime, the causal connections are rarely
simple or direct. In some cases, the root is mental illness. While for others, it's
alcholism or drug addiction.
These scernarios coincide with poverty in such a way that their
repurcutions either serve as the cause or as the result of poverty. The poor who succumb
to dangerous vices often use drugs/alcohol as an escape from the harsh treatment of
reality. This can also further degrade their capacity to progress since most of their
finances are diverted away. As for the rest, depression can also sink in, especially when
the future seems hopeless.
 Poverty tends to perpetuate itself in a never
ending cycle. In many cases, the children of poor parents will themselves turn out to be
poor as well. These children suffer a lack limited access to resources, including
education and financial support. They may also inherit a mindset of poverty. In other
cases, notably in India’s Hindu caste system and among historically demeaned minority
groups in many countries, the inheritance of low social position, and therefore poverty,
may be reinforced by religion and culture.
The characteristics of an Indian caste include rigid, hereditary
membership in the caste into which one is born. There is the practice of marrying only
members of the same caste, restricting the choice of occupation, selected personal contact
with members of other castes and the acceptance by each individual of a fixed place in
society.
The caste system has been perpetuated by the
Hindu ideas of samsara (reincarnation) and karma (quality of action).
According to these religious beliefs, all people are reincarnated on earth, at which time
they have a chance to be born into another, higher caste, but only if they have been
obedient to the rules of their caste in their previous life on earth. In this way karma
has discouraged people from attempting to rise to a higher caste or to cross caste lines
for social relations of any kind in their lifetime.
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