Behind The Beautiful Forevers Analysis

Thomas Friedman and Katherine Boo:
The Effects of Globalization and India’s Economic Growth
By: Gabriela Roque

PSC 100 Understanding Politics
Professor Genevieve Kehoe
13 November 204 Globalization and India’s economic growth has constructed two seemingly contradictory narratives of the effects of this phenomenon. Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat and Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers, both exemplify the disparity between these two realities. Friedman frames globalization as a “world flattener” that will create new possibilities, opportunities, and equalize people across the globe. He uses India as an example of a nation that has successfully adapted to the new needs of globalization and thus experienced an
explosive economic growth. Boo, on the other hand, illustrates a different tale of human suffering and abject poverty in India, where desperation leads people to consume fried rats and frogs for survival. Boo is searching for hope in this despairing situation. What does it take to overcome poverty; “[In] an increasing affluent and powerful nation that stilled housed one third of the poverty, and a quarter of the hunger, on the planet?” (Boo 245). Both Friedman and Boo see education as a means to access new opportunities, but as Boo’s novel demonstrates, the access to education and opportunity is limited and eroded by corruption. Thus, as the world flattens, as Friedman claims, disparities continue to escalate. Education, Friedman argues, is what prepared India for outsourced work from the United States during the Y2K crisis. India was able to create a new labor force by investing in STEM education, “…India mined the brains of its own people, educating a relatively large slice of its elite in the sciences, engineering, and medicine” (Friedman 127). Indians were educated, cheap, and efficient which made them ideal for handling the large computer task correcting the Y2K crisis. This successful partnership led to more collaboration between the United States and India. “ [The relationship] became a huge flattner, because it demonstrated to so many businesses that the combination of the PC, the Internet, and fiber-optic cable had created the possibility of a whole new form of collaboration and horizontal value creation: outsourcing” (Friedman 131). The United States would continue to outsource digital work to India, establish call centers, and business support operations. Although globalization has led to new job opportunities in India, they are still very limited and competitive among the educated elite. In Behind the Beautiful Forevers, the characters view education as a possible solution to escaping poverty. Manju is a young woman who dreams of becoming the first female college graduate from her slum, Annawadi. Manju is only one of two college students in Annawadi; the other children typically drop out or cannot afford to attend. Although, Manju is fortunate enough to attend college, the only education available to her is a mediocre, all girls college that teaches by memorization. Quality education is reserved for the elite class, “Except in the best colleges, dominated by high-caste, affluent students, Indian liberal arts education was taught by rote” (Boo 59). Manju is also aware of the effects of globalization has had on her education, “To Manju, the new importance of English was a by-product of something she generally welcomed: a more globalized, meritocratic India…Competence in English—a credential bespeaking worldliness and superior education—was a potential springboard out of the slums” (Boo 60). Although, Manju’s education is mediocre she is able to learn English and that opens her to new job opportunities. Other children, like Sunil, give up on their education because simply surviving is a more immediate concern; “He’d sat in on Manju’s class for a few days in January, mastering the English twinkle-star song, before deciding that his time was better spent working for food” (Boo 67). Without access to quality education, the dreams and potential of children like Sunil are wasted collecting garbage; “Sunil did want to be something, but it didn’t seem to him that municipal school education gave older Annawadi boys better opportunities…Only boys who went to private schools had a chance to go to college” (Boo 158). Although the world is more globalized, and India has become more meritocratic, the majority of the population living in poverty lacks access to a quality education that will lead to new opportunities. In the Author’s Note, Boo emphasizes the volatility of an age in which capital moves quickly around the planet as economies become more interdependent. Temporary work proliferates as foreign funded projects leave as quickly as they come, creating tense competitions for these limited opportunities. Despite India’s new wealth, the weak government is unable to support its large population, which leads to government assistance being exploited and more corrupted. When all these factors come together it creates instability that stagnant the hopes of individuals like Sunil; “…the unpredictability of daily life has a way of grinding down individual promise”(Boo 251). The instability of economic security leads to an enormous amount of corruption and selfishness; “Ideally, the government eases some of the instability. Too often, weak government intensifies it, and proves better at nourishing corruption than human capability”(Boo 251). The consequences of this instability leads to violence, apathy, and envy between the neighbors in Annawadi. One day, Sunil passes a fellow scavenger, an older man, who has been hit by a car on the side of the road. His leg had been severely injured and he was crying out for help, but Sunil did not want to risk being responsible for this man’s death. Knowing that the corrupt police could accuse him of murder, he decides it is safer to walk away. Thinking about the other hundreds of people that walk pass this road, someone else must be in better position to help him. A couple hours pass and another schoolboy, Rahul, sees the scavenger and although he was not afraid of the police, he thought it was more important to catch his bus than to help some lowly scavenger. Later, Zehrunisa walks by the dying man on her way to bring food and medicine to her imprisoned husband who was also not looking so well, so she continued on her way. Finally, Kambleji looking for contributions for his heart valve passes the man, consumed by his own grief, he does not even notice the dying man. The residents in Annawadi are so consumed with their own misfortune that a fellow neighbor dying on the street does not distract them from their own survival. Boo claims that it is this volatility that keep a sense of community from forming in the poorest communities. “In places where government priorities and market imperatives create a world so capricious that to help a neighbor is to risk your ability feed your family, and sometimes even your own liberty, the idea of the mutually supportive community is demolished” (Boo 252). The culture in Annawadi is to isolate themselves from the mutual needs of the community.
The worst effect of this vitality is best illustrated in the character of Abdul who from a young age began working to support his family. Abdul lost his humanity, as the only concern to his parents was his ability to support and provide, “To his family, Abdul’s physical capability had been the mattering thing. He was the work horse, his moral judgments irrelevant” (Boo 132). Abdul was able to pull his family to a higher standard of living by his guiding principle of avoiding trouble, “Avoid trouble. This was the operating principle of Abdul Hakim Husain, an idea so fiercely held that it seemed imprinted on his physical form” (Boo xiii). In order to avoid trouble Abdul isolated himself to the point where he began to question if he even had a heart. The other residents considered him quiet and Sunil thought of him as having an old man’s broken soul. It is not until he is incarcerated and separated from his own hardships that he begins to feel sympathy. “He had seen worst at Annawadi but hadn’t felt it, overwhelmed as he had been by his own work and worry” (Boo 129). This is the reality of impoverished communities like Annawadi. People are surrounded by hundreds of others equally struggling to get ahead, yet feel completely isolated within their own
hardships.
Bibliography

Boo, Katherine. Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in Mumbai Undercity. Penguin, 2012. Print.
Friedman, Thomas L. The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty First Century. New York:Picador, 2007. Print.