Who gets to romanticize rain and who must survive it?
Notes from a rainy Kathmandu on class, shelter, and complicity
It’s been raining and windy all day yesterday and today in Kathmandu, and I write to you cozied up in the comfort of my bed.
I’m privileged enough to not worry about shelter and not have rain bother me. But it’s not the same for the several landless families evicted with strong force and zero preparation by the government, who were living the squatter life on the riverbanks.
The irony of wealth hoarders becoming the very system meant to serve the systemically wronged is not lost on me.
Our prime minister is doing what he did when he was a mayor, but this time with overwhelming power. It is as if his lack of empathy has opened a whole new portal of class inequality.
This is the same government that the majority of the nation decided to vote for, thinking it would be better than the previous ones. I guess by “better”… it will serve the class elites while stomping its boots on the neck of the working class.
Recently, the ministry of the current government disclosed their net worth to the public. And well, I thought they were all rich, but I was actually gobsmacked to see how much wealth each of them had.
And ridiculous would be an understatement to think that this government somehow will work for the working class. Forget the working class, this government won’t even flinch for the middle class.
But here’s something interesting… us middle-class folks too have been enablers of this inhumane situation… us middle-class folks too have been hellbent on creating distance from those in poverty because, whether psychologically or otherwise, we do not aspire to be like them.
The livelihoods of landless squatters would be the worst-case scenario for us.
We decided to side with the elites - the mere mortals hailed as gods and saviors - because supporting them perhaps would make us feel better about ourselves. Well, why side with the poor when you can side with the rich?
As if wealth was handed to all of us equally and we all had choices to make good financial decisions.
Financial decisions are a luxury…. you cannot expect someone who has to struggle to fetch a meal to be financially responsible.
Us middle-class folks who voted for this government love to side with them because we think, “Oh, it’s not happening to us,” and “If it’s already happened to you, then you must have had it coming.”
The wealth gap between the working class and the upper class was already terrifying. The class gap has never been more apparent.
Us middle-class folks — with our aestheticization of the wealthy and aspirations to be like them — too have been complicit in the way the government is treating the landless.
The least us middle-class folks can do is accept that we too have been part of the problem. We have neglected those who are far more economically underprivileged than us. We too have looked at them as if being poor or landless is a choice.
There are one too many factors that contribute to somebody’s economic status - class, caste, geography - to name some of the prominent ones. Not everybody is born with the same access and resources. Not to mention the systemic injustices and intersectionality that can push someone to the brink of being without a home.
As I close my window and fetch a blanket to warm myself, many families will only have the sky as their roof… and rain and cold seeping through for them to survive.
And as I end this edition of my monthly newsletter, I will leave you with these questions.
The irony of wealth hoarders becoming the very system meant to serve the systemically wronged is not lost on you too, right?
Why do we make it an individual’s fault when it’s systemic injustice?
How, as a society, have we collectively decided to be desensitized to the working class?
When did we become this shockingly indifferent to the landless?
Who made the rules that it must be your fault if you die poor?