I have some new insight into the treatment and just plain disregard of the super poor by middle class Indians upon returning home to the US. Through talking with a woman at my work who has traveled to India and also through some Wikiinvestigations I've learned a few things.
Things are slowly changing in regard to this treatment of the ultra poor in India through government anti discrimination acts and a general change in social attitude, but these people, Dalits as they are called, are still beyond lower class citizens and not treated well by the Indian commoner. For reasons that relate back to the Indian caste system and the idea of karma that Hinduism is strongly based on, Dalits are viewed as impure. They work the undesirable jobs like street cleaning, waste removal or butchering animals. Dalits are also called the Untouchables and the general idea is that if you touch them or interact with them, their impurity will transfer over to you and this will affect your own purity when it comes time for you to be reincarnated. Touch an Untouchable and you risk becoming unclean and reincarnated as a dung beetle or something not great like that.
My earlier guess that the sheer number of the poor here makes the problem almost unsolvable and therefore disregarded is probably part of the reason for the treatment but the caste system and all of its paradigms add to the neglect. Also, due to the rigidness of the caste system it is very hard to remove yourself from the caste that you as well as all of your preceding ancestors have always been relegated to. It’s sad, hopefully things will improve, but for the time being living as a Dalit is far from a desirable caste to be permanently imprisoned in.
