The latest data on the Multidimensional Poverty Index published by the UNDP reveal that, among the 1.1 billion people in the most extreme situation, 1 in 5 live in India. Rural areas present the most extreme situations. Fr. Nithiya Sagayam to : «Data that also challenges us as a Church. When will there be a true social synodality?
Mumbai () – India is among the five countries in the world with the highest number of people living in poverty. This has been revealed by the latest update of the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), published in recent days by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI). According to this report, 1.1 billion people, more than half of them children, live in severe poverty around the world; Of them, 40% live in countries at war or in fragile or precarious peace conditions.
India has as many as 234 million people living in poverty, followed by Pakistan (93 million), Ethiopia (86 million), Nigeria (74 million) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (66 million). Together, these five countries account for almost half (48.1%) of the 1.1 billion poor people.
In South Asia, 272 million poor people live in households with at least one undernourished person, even more than the 256 million in sub-Saharan Africa. Globally, about 83.7% of the poor live in rural areas. In all regions of the world, people in rural areas are poorer than those in urban areas. Overall, 28% of the world’s rural population is poor, compared to 6.6% of the urban population.
“These figures are a great shock,” comments Father Nithiya Sagayam, Capuchin friar, secretary of the Commission for the Most Marginalized Social Groups of the Episcopal Conference of Tamil Nadu and former executive secretary of the Conference’s Justice, Peace and Development Commission. Episcopal India (CBCI). «We have neglected the social and economic development of the population. Many resources have shifted to the corporate sectors. We have not raised our voice against this phenomenon. The Pope has said very clearly that the Church must be the Church of the poor.
And it is a specific challenge of the Indian Church: «In all our institutions, where is the policy for the poor? – continues Fr. Sagayam -. In schools, it does not exist; where are the tribals and dalits? What is needed is a social synodality, linked to oppression, the caste system, divisions, discrimination, rights, rituals… Inequality, the low status of women in society, illiteracy, Unemployment, the stagnation of rural wages: these are issues that do not concern us. “India needs an economic-social synodality if we want to provide answers to the people and their needs.”
Photo: Flickr/ILRI
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