Any literary work must first entertain its readers. It is something Manu Joseph has often believed and repeated: a story must also be interesting. But in his work of non-fiction, Why the Poor Don’t Kill Us: The Psychology of Indians, Joseph appears to betray his writerly beliefs.
The book repeatedly returns to hypotheses Joseph has already aired, ad nauseam, at literature festivals and in interviews. If, like me, you have enjoyed his brilliant works of fiction, you may find yourself bored or disappointed. Divided into 18 chapters, the book is a clumsy potpourri of ideas that attempts to understand the state of the nation, the disparity between the rich and the poor, and what prevents an uprising against the rich. The easy answer, of course, is an age-old one: societies are seldom equal. As long as there are rich, there will be poor. Can the gap between them be reduced? Joseph appears content to leave that question to what he calls “career humanitarians”.
From leopards encroaching into housing societies to how higher education deceives the poor, and why “strongmen” keep winning even when “good guys” compete against them, Joseph takes on a range of subjects in this slim volume. Yet the book lacks cohesion, both within individual chapters and across the work as a whole. Often, the issues he raises are insufficiently contextualised, leading him to premature conclusions.
Consider this example. Joseph notes the “disdain that Arundhati Roy has for Mukesh Ambani’s giant home—wouldn’t a malnourished tribal feel the same about Roy’s affluent home in Delhi’s prime Jor Bagh?” One might ask: wouldn’t such a tribal person feel the same about Joseph, who lives in Gurugram? Joseph may respond that he lacks the “moral compass” he attributes to Roy and others. He claims he is no “Empathy Uncle” and does not believe in passing off “righteousness as anthropology”. Yet in comparing Roy with Ambani, Joseph overlooks a crucial difference: who gets to run the nation and decide for the poor. There is little ambiguity about who bears greater responsibility for the structures that keep the poor poor. “Envy is a thing between equals,” Joseph writes.
Identity, meanwhile, is something Joseph describes as one of the country’s “esoteric and sensational issues”. He wonders why the poor do not fight for things that might transform their lives—say, “the condition of a public school”. Yet earlier chapters discussing India’s education system, especially higher education, are confusing and unresolved. Later, in the chapter on Aadhaar, Joseph returns to the question of identity once again. For someone who writes with such apparent conviction, much in this book fails to hold together. At times, Joseph seems to do what any larger bully does—choose sides conveniently.
Perhaps, for Joseph, being “interesting” means offering no clarity at all: leaving arguments incomplete. As he himself writes, “misunderstanding is a pleasurable massage of prejudice.” Readers are free to bask in this attempt at diagnosing what ails India.
At best, Joseph might be credited with the instincts of a lapsed stand-up comic, someone who occasionally thrives in adjacent professions such as politics. But stand-up comedy has a rule: jokes must punch up. Audiences in a stand-up show are often less forgiving.