> But the homeless person in Delhi will still commisserate with the homeless person in Toronto
Perhaps, but it's worth pointing out that these experiences are qualitatively different.
In India, being poor (especially if you're a certain caste) is tantamount to being non-human. You can be jailed, raped, mistreated, killed without consequence. Even the middle class is afforded little human dignity, the underclass have no real hope. The homeless in Toronto can still get some government services without bribery.
On top of that, there's the whole matter of caste which won't go away even if you win the lottery.
Someone else here is saying that dating poor in Switzerland is the same as in Delhi...that comes across as unbelievably tone deaf. Perhaps they missed the part in TFA where this couple has to date far away from the home. You can get beaten up or killed for being seen with the "wrong person" (in this case same gotra), and it does happen - quite often.
So it's not as simple as absolute and relative poverty in my opinion (though that is a good thought and is definitely part of it).
Risking another bad analogy, I would perhaps compare it to being the lowest class of worker in a Walmart versus being at the bottom of the org chart in Netflix. You can both commiserate on how bad your managers are, but your lived experiences are not remotely the same.
I feel like that's conflating yet a third kind of poverty: having no societal respectability. Having no social "credit." No https://en.bitcoinwiki.org/wiki/Whuffie .
Being in poverty but of a high caste in India, is pretty-standard "absolute poverty."
Meanwhile, being well-off but of a low caste in India, is more like being a recently-freed black slave in the ante-bellum southern US.
That experience is really nothing like absolute or relative poverty. It's its own kind of horrible. (It's an orthogonal poverty, one could say.)
It does lead to a vicious cycle that connects it to absolute/relative poverty, though, since having no societal respectability means people aren't willing to offer you any opportunities to better your situation, because they think badly of you and expect you to squander them.
But I would say it is nevertheless best to think of a low-caste homeless person in Delhi as having three distinct problems: relative poverty, absolute poverty, and poverty of societal-respectability.
I would note that, while a regular homeless person in Toronto might not know anything about the sheer inhumanity of being of a low caste in India, a drug-addicted homeless person working as a prostitute to feed their addiction would actually understand it somewhat. In both cases, for example, if someone in these groups gets murdered or otherwise wronged, the police don't even bother to investigate — so they have no access to justice. The low-caste homeless in Delhi and the crack-addicted streetwalker in Toronto would see the same looks on people's faces, and understand them to mean the same thing.
I agree that the caste issues are orthogonal to the others and that these three kinds of poverty come close to encompassing the problem being discussed.
And if this were to be the complete picture, why can't it express the sheer inhumanity of being of a low caste in India?
Take the case of a "drug-addicted homeless person working as a prostitute to feed their addiction" in Toronto - this person arrived here by their own choices (some amount of agency), but you can be born into that situation (with the awareness that your children will follow the same path) in India. [0]
You can't worry about societal respectability when you have no basic human dignity. Perhaps that is a fourth kind of poverty.
> You can both commiserate on how bad your managers are
And that's all the person you were replying to was saying. You can have things in common to talk about, and also have things that are so different you can't even comprehend them.
I do agree with the broader point that they are not comparable, but one interesting caveat with Toronto is that come winter time, you're dead due to extreme cold and being homeless.
I grew up in Delhi (as may or may not be obvious from this thread), and once witnessed the aftermath of a home having been burgled.
The policeman on the scene summoned the watchman of the gated community and physically assaulted him (drawing blood), accusing him of having been negligent.
You can bet there was not a single consequence of this. The watchman was one of the underclass, and this is just what's expected.
I can't claim to know why things are like this, but there's rarely any justice for anyone in India, unless you're one of the elite or ultrarich. The judicial system is in shambles and the poor are just not afforded much humanity.
What do you think these people could do? Here is an example of what happens when the people try to change things in a "democracy" [0].
As a bonus, here are some choice videos of Indian politics (the second one is relevant to the story in footnote):
I'm just wondering, if things are so bad, why are there no riots? Doesn't seem like there's much to lose tbh.
In my home country, they stormed the parliament and burned parts of it because the wrong party gained power (by fraudulent votes). If they were killing low class people, there would be riots, bombings and murders all around.
I live in Bangladesh, now, and I don't think we're much improvement over India (except the caste problem). I once witnessed the aftermath of a policeman beaten by public because he assaulted a shopkeeper. So while people doesn't have much legal recourse, they aren't exactly powerless either.
Similarly rich & powerful evade justice, but I wouldn't go as far as saying "there's rarely any justice for anyone". The state may fail to provide justice, but people find their ways, and that sort of keeps the worst impulses of the powerful in check.
Perhaps, but it's worth pointing out that these experiences are qualitatively different.
In India, being poor (especially if you're a certain caste) is tantamount to being non-human. You can be jailed, raped, mistreated, killed without consequence. Even the middle class is afforded little human dignity, the underclass have no real hope. The homeless in Toronto can still get some government services without bribery.
On top of that, there's the whole matter of caste which won't go away even if you win the lottery.
Someone else here is saying that dating poor in Switzerland is the same as in Delhi...that comes across as unbelievably tone deaf. Perhaps they missed the part in TFA where this couple has to date far away from the home. You can get beaten up or killed for being seen with the "wrong person" (in this case same gotra), and it does happen - quite often.
So it's not as simple as absolute and relative poverty in my opinion (though that is a good thought and is definitely part of it).
Risking another bad analogy, I would perhaps compare it to being the lowest class of worker in a Walmart versus being at the bottom of the org chart in Netflix. You can both commiserate on how bad your managers are, but your lived experiences are not remotely the same.