New Delhi: A foreign travel blogger has triggered a debate on India’s wealth disparity by posting a video of ‘practically’ slums shot from a luxury hotel in Chennai, India Today reported.
Declan Rowlands shared the video of the modest looking housing structures captured from his ‘pristine 5-star hotel gym’ here recently.
The text on the video said that the view from the hotel gym might tell ‘everything about the insane wealth divide here’.
‘Those buildings you see are practically slums. I’ve never truly experienced contrast like it,’ read the text.
Further in the caption, the travel influencer said what he saw from the smith machine pointed to ‘India’s staggering wealth divide,’ adding that ‘I only use the phrase ‘practically slums’ to help emphasise the contrast.’
Many online responded to the post with some pointing to India’s urban scene where the wealthy and the working class often co-exist.
One user from Chennai said the concept of slums is about coexisting with ‘residential population living there’.
‘The area you’re shooting from is MRC Nagar, and I bet even the hotel would be employing a few from these humble dwellings,’ the user pointed out.
Another user said there was no shame being poor in India and they were not ‘hidden away’.
‘Unlike certain developed countries in the West, there are no specific areas where only the poor reside, and certain areas are meant only for the rich. Here we live together, rich and poor, 5-star and the slums next to each other,’ the user added.
One user asked ‘What are you expecting then? Kick them out to some remote area in the city, like they do in the West, so that the artificial aesthetics are maintained with an illusion that oh look, there are no poor in the West?’