World | India
India's poor: victims of fashionistas
Vogue magazine's juxtaposition of images of wealth and poverty has highlighted a growing insensitivity to the destitute.
- By Amrit Dhillon, Correspondent
- Published: 23:25 September 9, 2008
- Image Credit: Supplied Picture
- Fashion spreads from the August issue of Indian Vogue show images of destitute villagers modelling designer labels such as Burberry and Etro.
Bangalore: An edition of Vogue showing thin, impoverished, wizened villagers modelling luxury handbags and umbrellas is yet another demonstration, for many Indians, of a disturbing callousness towards the poor in a newly prosperous India.
In the August edition of Vogue India, one photograph among several shot in Rajasthan, shows an old couple outside a mud hut with the turbaned man holding a Burberry umbrella and his smiling wife sporting an Etro handbag.
In a country where over 500 million people (over half the population) live on $1.25 (Dh4.60) a day - the latest World Bank figures - this juxtaposition of poverty and wealth has aroused horror for being in "bad taste" and "mocking" the poor.
"Putting expensive necklaces around the poor women is like spitting in the face of the poor. Some Indians now live in bubbles, celebrating their wealth and totally de-sensitised to the poor," said Kanika Gahlaut, a columnist with the Mail on Sunday newspaper.
Wealth on display
Poverty and wealth have always co-existed in India but the proximity is now eyelash-to-eyelash. Earlier, the maharajas kept their wealth inside their palaces and the rich used to shop abroad for their luxury goods.
In the new India where the middle class is enjoying disposable income for the first time, emaciated rickshaw wallahs sit on their bicycles outside gleaming shopping malls knowing they can never buy anything inside, assuming they ever have the courage to enter.
For some servants, intimate awareness of the lifestyles of their rich "sahibs" - ordering takeaways that cost as much as their monthly salaries - the disparity can be hard to take. The newspapers are full of stories of maids, cooks or drivers murdering their 'masters' and running off with cash and jewellery.
Middle class families go out for a meal and make the "ayah" (nanny), taken to look after the children, stand by their table. She is not allowed to sit.
"A friend of mine saw an ayah sitting in the toilet of a five star hotel in Bangalore. The family were dining in the hotel and told her to wait in the toilet," said film director Raja Menon who has just made a film, Short Changed about the indifference of Bombay's rich to the sorrows of the poor.
Vogue Editor Priya Tanna defended the photo shoot. "As with any other creative pursuit, fashion feeds and thrives on fantasy, aspirations and above all fun," she said, adding that it was a shoot "that we are extremely proud of and consider it to be one of our most beautiful editorial executions".
The world's luxury brands have solved the delicate issue of how to sell their luxury goods in a country where every traffic intersection has malnourished children begging for a few rupees by moving into a new luxury mall in south Delhi.
DLF Emporio, opening this month, is dedicated exclusively to brands such as Cartier, Tod's, Dolce & Gabbana, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Tiffany's, Zegna, Paul Smith, Versace and Jimmy Choo. Earlier, they could be found only in outlets in five star hotels. Now they will have their own special mall where the rich can shop without being bothered by the sights and smells of the 'other' India.
Social comment
The photo shoot has angered social commentators who see it as another example of a blithe insouciance towards the poor.
"What shocks me is that the people in the photographs are not named. It's as if their names don't matter. That's typical. The rich call any poor little boy who works for them 'Chothu' instead of using his real name. It's as though the poor have no identities," said social commentator, Bhaichand Patel.
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