“Why The Poor Don’t Kill Us: The Psychology of Indians” by Manu Joseph
In this diagnosis of contemporary Indian society, with a tinge of dark humour, acclaimed writer Manu Joseph explores why the poor don’t rise in revolt against the rich despite living in one of the most unequal regions of the world.
The poor know how much we spend in a single day, on a single meal, the price of Atlantic salmon and avocados. ‘Why,’ he asks, ‘do they tolerate it? Why don’t they crawl out from their catastrophes and finish us off? Why don’t little men emerge from manholes and attack the cars? Why don’t the maids, who squat like frogs beside kitchen sinks, pull out the hair of their conscientious madams who never give them a day off? Why is there peace?’
Why the Poor Don’t Kill Us shows in pitiless detail just how hypocritical and exploitative people of privilege are, and it also shows how and why they get away with it. It’s a sharp, at times searingly witty, but a very perceptive critique of the many faults of the India we live in.
Why The Poor Don’t Kill Us has also evolved into a stand-up act by Manu Joseph. He prefers to call it ‘stand-up anthropology’.
An extract from the book was published on Moneycontrol.
Manu Joseph is the author of the novels Serious Men, The Illicit Happiness of Other People, and Miss Laila, Armed and Dangerous. He is the winner of the Hindu Literary Prize and the PEN Open Book Award, whose jury described him as ‘…that rare bird who can wildly entertain the reader as forcefully as he moves them’. He has been nominated for several other prizes. He is also the creator of the Netflix series, Decoupled.
He was the editor of Open Magazine and a columnist for the New York Times. This is his first work of non-fiction.
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