Alright, so before we get into this, let’s get some facts straight.
60% of India’s population, which means 812 million people, live below the poverty line. This means that 60% of Indians earn less than Rs 200 per day. 21% of them (250 million) survive on less than Rs 140 a day. The pandemic has made the situation even worse. With small businesses being massively hit due to the lockdown, 32 million middle-class people have been pushed into poverty in 2020.
Hence, when an Instagram influencer with over 90,000 followers shared a video saying how poverty is a state of mind, that people are “programmed” to believe in the concept of poverty, and those with a “limited mindset” believe in poverty, it became a bit hard to digest.
According to News18, the influencer has been identified as Nimisha Vermaa and a video of her has been going viral. In the video, she says:
“I feel so weird about it when someone says, ‘Oh that kid on the street doesn’t have enough clothes…underprivileged,’ and I’m like, How do you get to decide that someone is underprivileged? Just because you have more clothes?”
She goes on to add:
“Resources are unlimited. You have been programmed to believe that resources are limited and that people who have less of it are underprivileged and who have more of it are evil people or bad people.”
She ends her rant by saying:
“You’re just feeling miserable about yourself because of your own limitations. Your mindset is limited. Nobody is hoarding on anything.”
Have a look at the video here:
what pic.twitter.com/4qd6YvDaKj
— k (@krownnist) March 30, 2021
And of course, people online were flabbergasted by her take on poverty. Many called her “ignorant” and “too privileged” to even understand the concept of being underprivileged. Here is what some of them said:
UC rich desi influencers are a plague. How ignorant and idiotic do you have to be to spew such nonsense??? https://t.co/cuzt8cDfcw
— Sharanya Paulraj (@sharusays) March 31, 2021
When you are over privileged and don't understand what underprivileged means https://t.co/F41AyBHuZn
— Basit (@kiheenhasa) March 31, 2021
Ok guys if an accident happens I'm not saving anyone they might not need help. it's my own mindset that's limited 😔😔🤲 https://t.co/r6JsvcDMkZ
— Perry |exurbius stan acc| (@billebichud) March 31, 2021
this is the absolute worst take ive seen i could feel myself losing brain cells https://t.co/wT6lvLAIV8
— cat lady’s gf (@jenswtnr) March 30, 2021
Someone else's poverty is your mental limitation.
Is this how rich people are trying to somehow ignore obvious problems that they see? https://t.co/wVvFgt3WmA
— sad clikkie ||-// (@TheParchu) March 30, 2021
Poverty is a state of mind – Varma https://t.co/1JmBDOAjAz
— ☠NO ONE (@Punker_434) March 30, 2021
Same energy https://t.co/PPNcLRzFBq pic.twitter.com/4Xf70v7Q2X
— That Goan Guy (@schmmuck) March 30, 2021
NCERT books mein hona chaiyye ye https://t.co/CUF5nGxiNY
— tushar rishi (@dostoewhiskeyyy) March 30, 2021
How to be wrong AND confident at the same time: https://t.co/w7e6yTe0qN
— Light-Say-Burr (@gotzerochill) March 30, 2021
The richest 10% in India controls 80% of the nation’s wealth. So let’s just say that the wealth of 16 rich Indians is equal to the wealth of 600 million people.
So, there is not a thin line but a MASSIVE line that divides the privileged and the underprivileged. This line can be best seen in a place like Mumbai where on one side stands the posh buildings of the ultra-rich and on the other side is the cramped up slums of the poor.
To have the power to influence people online and then to invalidate a significant worldwide problem reeks of negligence. Don’t you think?