Lets get to the facts quick. I was exploring a popular site which allows fellow Indians to share their blog posts with one another, and I randomly clicked on the 'Lifestyle' genre. At that, my eyes went involuntarily to the most popular blog in the category, which had received over a thousand promotions, the equivalent of 'Like' in Facebook. As I opened it curiously, a picture of a disheveled young girl from rural India in a dirty frock stared shyly back at me. Her button like black eyes were totally oblivious that she was standing on a virtual stage in front of thousands of people, who were gawking at her like she was some exotic exhibit in a local zoo. Yes, we get it, she sure is beautiful, and her eyes are innocence at its purest, and 'your heart goes out to her' and so on and so forth, but did you wonder that maybe she did not want to be seen by so many people in the first place?
She might not have ever seen a computer, she wouldn't be hearing about Google and the Internet for a long, long time to come, but did it mean that it warranted some stranger a ticket to make her an object of admiration (would you rather be her, oh, do you, really?) /pity ('I wonder what her future is going to be like?' )/ Intrigue ('How can she possibly live that way?' Oh what a surprise, she really does!) But there is no point being indignant about the pictorial violation of this little girl's privacy, because there are hordes and tons of other little girls, boys, men, women, old men, old women of a similar impoverished background who have made it, mostly unknowingly on the platform which fuels the growing trade of 'Poverty Porn' every year.
'Poverty Porn'. Sounds familiar? You may have heard it being used rampantly by critics of the 10 Oscar nominations of 'Slumdog Millionaire'. The movie which made a million bucks without doing anything to repay the place which they used as a prop to become rich and famous -Dharavi, Mumbai- In a 'Guiness Book Recordish' pompous tone - 'Asia's largest slum'. The direct evidence to point to the lack of gratitude on the part of the producers of the film is that the child actors are still continuing to live in the slums in the same condition as they had been, before Danny Boyle entered their lives. They probably just had the privilege of being branded the 'Oscar Kids'. Not very helpful. There were stories of the father of one of the kids trying to sell her off for money. Ouch!
I am not saying that it is the fundamental duty of every human being to contribute to the needy. It is a personal choice and I do not want to add to the hypocrisy as I know I may not have done my best to donate to the poor, yet. I just think that it is wrong to pervade the privacy of any other human being for one's own entertainment, monetary profit or popularity. Imagine some stranger makes a page about you on facebook, and uses photos he/she might have captured of you in a public place. Then one fine day you happen to chance upon your own pictures, in varying degrees of uncaring casual behaviour, people you don't know passing comments of varying nature- lewd, rude, so called 'admiration' maybe. Unless one is an attention craving maniac, one will be furious and indignant at the gross violation of privacy and will immeditely, 'report abuse'. A pity that the girl in the dirty tattered frock can't do the same. An undercurrent, sick thought may have passed in the minds of people who put her picture and the people basking in their own comfort while publicly pitying her, that they are safe. She will never be able to access the picture, never access the Internet. How do you know, my friend... How do you know...?
Some might say that I have taken the case too far. It's just photography, you might say. Even if a compilation of a few photos of poor people of India in hardbound and slick glossy pages costs around a thousand rupees. Photographs of people who can't afford to buy their own photographs. Ethical, huh. I am sure if you are untouched by this, at least the concept of 'Slum tourism' will tug at your heartstrings, even if just a bit. The idea of going to a place just to get the voyeuristic pleasure of seeing the extent of human impoverishment and degradation is plain immoral (hasn't that crossed your mind already?). People, especially foreigners are amazed at how people can possibly live in that much filth and so less space. It makes them feel good about themselves, as an extreme form of 'schadenfreude'- a loan word from German which describes the pleasure obtained from the misfortunes of others.
There may be some non-evil sides to slum tourism too. Yes, it does spread more awareness about the residents of the slums and there may be some genuinely concerned people who may want to help. They may interact with the people and help uplift their conditions even if in the simplest ways- imparting some knowledge to them, maybe some financial help, maybe just to give them some attention and love. But this number of true philanthropists is embarrassingly tiny. Taking the case of Dharavi again, even though it is a slum, it is a hotbed of entrepreneurs who who want to make it big in life but have little resources and publicity. Interacting with such tourists can help spread the word about them.
I am not saying that it is the fundamental duty of every human being to contribute to the needy. It is a personal choice and I do not want to add to the hypocrisy as I know I may not have done my best to donate to the poor, yet. I just think that it is wrong to pervade the privacy of any other human being for one's own entertainment, monetary profit or popularity. Imagine some stranger makes a page about you on facebook, and uses photos he/she might have captured of you in a public place. Then one fine day you happen to chance upon your own pictures, in varying degrees of uncaring casual behaviour, people you don't know passing comments of varying nature- lewd, rude, so called 'admiration' maybe. Unless one is an attention craving maniac, one will be furious and indignant at the gross violation of privacy and will immeditely, 'report abuse'. A pity that the girl in the dirty tattered frock can't do the same. An undercurrent, sick thought may have passed in the minds of people who put her picture and the people basking in their own comfort while publicly pitying her, that they are safe. She will never be able to access the picture, never access the Internet. How do you know, my friend... How do you know...?
Some might say that I have taken the case too far. It's just photography, you might say. Even if a compilation of a few photos of poor people of India in hardbound and slick glossy pages costs around a thousand rupees. Photographs of people who can't afford to buy their own photographs. Ethical, huh. I am sure if you are untouched by this, at least the concept of 'Slum tourism' will tug at your heartstrings, even if just a bit. The idea of going to a place just to get the voyeuristic pleasure of seeing the extent of human impoverishment and degradation is plain immoral (hasn't that crossed your mind already?). People, especially foreigners are amazed at how people can possibly live in that much filth and so less space. It makes them feel good about themselves, as an extreme form of 'schadenfreude'- a loan word from German which describes the pleasure obtained from the misfortunes of others.
Only if one is truly concerned, they should venture into areas of extreme poverty. And it should never involve any behaviour which lessens the people's dignity in any way- no photographs to show off one's 'social work' later, no entering houses to get a peep (Imagine journalists barging into your house and taking a photo or two of your face and your kids in half naked state. Pleasant? ) Leave back something to give them rather than just the plain old image of one more weird curious face. They have had enough of it. The excuse of 'Wanting to see the Real India' doesn't work here. India has a lot of beautiful things to see and experience on its other streets. Keep yourself satisfied with those and move on. No one is telling you to do a Bill Gates or Warren Buffet and donate your whole property to someone else. But don't be a thief and steal someone's dignity. It is theirs to keep even if they have nothing else.
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