Author: Mohammed Sadeque

Publisher: Northern Book Centre

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9788185119823

This book, based on empirical data collected through census, interview-cum-observations including the case studies from a Bangladesh village, seeks to explore the survival characteristics of the poor. A multiple deprivations approach to poverty provides the study's conceptual framework. An uncertain as well as a very low income forced the poor day labourers, petty traders, artisans, small farmers, to adopt a variety of improvising mechanisms, viz., irregular carbohydrate diet, substandard housing and total neglect of health and education needs. Such a precarious living eroded the traditional family and kinship norms making certain categories of people particularly vulnerable. A perpetual dependence on neighbours and patrons, and alienation from the socio-political affairs of the community relegated them to a low social status. The poor, by and large, had low self-perception and aspiration, and were overwhelmingly religious and fatalistic in outlook; yet many did not resign to fate and endeavoured to take all possible measures to adust to multifarious depriving situations, thus negating the culture of poverty concept. The study outlines the policy implications at the end. An unequal social structure is identified as a basic malaise that thwarts any attempt at social development. Land and other asset redistribution is suggested as a first planned measure towards alleviation of mass poverty.