The Issue of Economic Inequalities and Jealousy in Katherine Boo’s Behind The Beautiful Forevers

In the book “Behind the Beautiful Forevers” Katherine Boo argues that Indian societies are becoming corrupt because of capitalism’s prevalence in modern societies, therefore this capitalism in India is creating more range between the rich and the poor. This difference between the two main social classes between the poor and the rich, is called the ancient caste system. This ancient caste system is one of the main reasons that cause people who live in poverty to not develop just as the entire country of India which is stuck in poverty and underdevelopment.

People and governments are not aware of what is happening in India, in the slums of Mumbai and don’t care about knowing what the Indian population is going through, this is the main reason that pushed Katherine Boo to talk about real life events that happen everyday in Annawadi, stories of child labour, corruption, economic inequalities and jealousy between the rich and the poor.

As India progresses into the twenty-first century, its administration hopes and tries to present the story of continuous progression towards a fairer society for all Indian citizens. Even this ancient caste system, in which one person was born into a particular group that set their cultural position, continues to form who has power in Indian society and who remains poor and outcast. Given that the poor represent the huge number of India's population, drastic difference. Reason, she asks, when India claims to take a reasonable and Republican capitalist country, are those who sleep in poverty unable to change their lives regardless of how hard they work? And why since poverty is so established, do the bad not unite from general interests to make a difference? These are two of the main questions that I have, and many quotes that Katherine Boo included in the book that can tell us how hard it is for people in poverty to get better, and how jealousy affects everything, one of the main quotes that I could find in the book was this: “Everyone is jealous of us, fixing our house”, Kehkashan explained to an older cousin who’d just arrived from the countryside,”So let them be jealous”, Zehrunisa exclaimed, “Why shouldn’t we live in a better room that we are doing a little better” - Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, Hopes in a Mumbai Undercity.

Behind the Beautiful Forevers makes the marginalized residents of Annawadi visible to the public, and lets people interpret how hard the life of the people in the slums is. Through careful, compelling description of work, family life, and the failure of business, government, and private institutions, the journalist and author Katherine Boo uncovers the fragile “infrastructure of opportunity” which is a system that includes services and facilities necessary for the countries economy to function, which will help India develop and therefore to give hope to the people living there. India is still a non high developed country, many children such as Adbul have to work everyday to maintain their family, that means that child labour is a huge problem that is affecting India and its own development, because if children instead of going to school have to mantain their family, they won’t have enough knowledge to create their own business or either choose what they want to do in their life, they’re career can’t advance with no advanced education. Writing about real life people such as: Abdul, Manju, Rahul, and Asha, negotiating the margins of capitalism, Katherine Boo offers a different point of view of the interaction between the choices people make and broader social forces beyond their control. It is a delicate critique exposing the limits of explanations for poverty that influences only personal responsibility and personal beliefs.

Katherine Boo examines the social dynamics between the individuals and families in Annawadi, showing the complex relationships that come from such an extreme poverty living situation. Due to incredibly close quarters of life in the slums in Mumbai, all the inhabitants of Annawadi are highly personally involved in each other’s lives and businesses. The lack of space and the obligatory closeness between all the inhabitants creates strife. While all the families in Annawadi have a similar goal such as the one to get a better life and do better economically, their closeness and similarity seems not to inspire them to help each other out and band together to find solutions to all their problems and collectively improve their situation by all putting effort in helping each other, but rather it promotes a spirit of competition between families and residents over who can get ahead socially, economically and financially and this is one of the main causes of jealousy between the people in the slums. As an example of competition in the book the Husain family feel in many ways superior to Fatima and they try their hard to make her feel less important, though they are not renovating to dismiss her.

As a conclusion it is proven that Annawadi is facing social and economical inequalities between its inhabitants and that jealousy it is now more important than helping each other out. India is trying to create a more fairer society for its population, but it seems quite impossible with the ancient caste system that doesn’t let the country develop and the people to do better in life, if a certain person was born in poverty they couldn’t do better, they would just stay stuck in the same social status.

Because of the reason that India is still a non developed country mostly in the slums, many people face economic problems and social descrimination because of how much money they have, therefore many people work their hardest to do better but the caste system doesn’t let them improve much economically. One of the problems that India also faces is child labour and lack of education, many children these days do not get a proper education and have to go work day and night to mantain their family (such as Abdul that had to maintain his family of 11), and that does not help India to develop also in the next years, because children need a proper education to get a proper job and to be able to continue their creer and so to earn money, and all the inhabitants to get jealous of each other everytime that someone is doing a little better than them.

Katherine Boo wanted to make people and governments aware of what is happening in especially Annawadi but also in the entire country of India, corruption, economic inequalities, social inequalities and jealousy taking over.