Reaching India

Post-liberalized India has grown richer, but the gap between the rich and the poor also seems to be widening. For instance, while Mumbai boasts of the world’s most expensive home ($2 billion) built by one of India’s foremost industrialist, it is also host to Asia’s largest slum in Dharavi. Amartya Sen, Indian economist and Nobel laureate, writes that the 20-year span (1991-2011) of economic liberalization and globalization has seen the GDP grow, but many of the benefits have not reached the poor. While the number of billionaires has dramatically increased, there is also the tragic fact that in the last 15 years, 250,000 farmers have committed suicide in India, due to various reasons. This has also facilitated the rise of violent Maoists movements. The Church needs to courageously and compassionately stand in this gap.

They teach from the ancient Vedas that there is a spark of divinity in man, and hence to call a man a sinner is blasphemous; there is, then, no need for a saviour.