India, Poverty, and Western Eyes

While ancient Europe regarded India as a land of material wealth and proverbial wisdom, it also saw it as a land of man-like monkeys, banyan trees, and enormous elephants. Ancient Europeans perceived Indians as wearing bright colors, eating rice and meat, and lacking wine-drinking finesse. Today, portrayals of India in prose fiction, cinema, social media, and historiography have shifted from polarized images of Europe and India to narratives depicting a “Dark” and a “Shining” India. Characters in these texts strive to be part of an economically thriving “shining” India, even as they face social, cultural, and political challenges daily. These texts often depict a “victim” Indian who is denied freedom and livelihood due to a fundamentally corrupt Global South. Prominent authors from India or of Indian descent, such as Megha Majumdar (A Burning, 2020), Alka Joshi (The Henna Artist, 2020), and Thrity Umrigar (Honor, 2022), amplify these negative stories as authentic voices of Indian realities. They garner global validation by writing, circulating, and (mis)representing the “downtrodden” back home. In their works, India’s global image centres on its poverty and a morally compromised socio-political ecosystem that must be transparent to an international audience. These persistent negative cultural portrayals support colonial frameworks of Orientalism. Furthermore, these portrayals have a reductive understanding of the haves and the have-nots—recognised institutions and the common mass—that are not mutually exclusive but rather work together to influence the Indian economy. 

This panel thus explores how representations of poverty in contemporary texts confine modern India within orientalist frameworks. It examines “slum tourism,” “poverty porn,” “poverty chic,” and “poverty tours” as common tropes representing India and, by extension, a popular form of conscious consumption by the Global North regarding the Global South. We invite papers exploring the connections between poverty, consumerism, the Global South, literary capitalism, and recent oriental themes in literary narratives and other media forms related to India. The panel aims to challenge oversimplified views of poverty that sustain unequal global economies and perpetuate Western colonialism.