The Reality of Living in Deprivation Without a Safety Net
What it means to grow up under a leaking roof and be branded as 'privileged' by the state
I did not learn about affirmative action in a sociology lecture or a political rally. I learned about it in a single room with a leaking tin roof in eastern Uttar Pradesh, where the monsoon rain poured through rusted seams and soaked the only mattress we owned.
My father earned irregular wages as an unorganized shop assistant; my mother stitched garments for local neighbors until her eyesight deteriorated. We had no ancestral agricultural land, no family members in public service, and no bank savings to pay for coaching institutes.
Yet, when I filled out the admission forms for central university entrance examinations and polytechnic institutes, the computer software automatically checked a single box: 'General / Unreserved'. In the eyes of the Republic of India, because my grandfather's birth surname did not match a schedule drawn up in 1950, my family was classified as 'forward' and 'privileged'.
Poverty is physical: it is the cold draft through mud walls in January, the humiliation of borrowing money from local shopkeepers at 5% monthly interest to pay school exam fees, and the absolute absence of an emergency cushion. Surnames do not pay utility bills. An affirmative action policy that closes its eyes to physical deprivation while extending lifetime dynastic privileges to affluent urban bureaucrats' children is not social justice - it is hereditary patronage.
“Poverty has no caste, no religion, and no scriptural sanction. It is purely physical: empty stomachs, leaking roofs, and unheated rooms. When the state distributes lifelines by surname instead of suffering, it abandons the truly needy.”- Citizen Deprivation Testimony (Dossier Field Entry)