Ever since I arrived in India I've been watching an army of labourers working to complete a series of shopping malls in South Delhi that none of them will ever step inside. Now, the first of these vast shopping halls is completed and the first crowds of India's richest people are flocking to peruse the wares.
The mall, Emporio, is home to a checklist of the world's luxury brands, including Cartier, Tod's, Dolce & Gabbana, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Tiffany's, Zegna, Paul Smith, Versace, Jimmy Choo, Burberry, La Perla, Hugo Boss and Escada. It also hosts a number of Indian designers for good measure, all of whose products sit in the upper bracket of affordability and exclusive appeal.
It's nothing remarkable, perhaps, that those who built the mall will never be able to afford to buy anything sold there. But the contrast between those who worked 12-hour shifts on scaffolds of bamboo frames to erect this shopping wonderland and the people buying the products could barely be more stark.
The workers have spent the last year living in a shanty of cardboard and plastic homes, established on waste-ground at the rear of the mall site. They have laboured in all weathers, through the blistering suns of May and June and the cold fog of January. At the end of each day I'd watch them trudging home through the dust to their wretched shacks.
The average wage of a labourer - though I do not know specifically about the wages paid at this site - is around 150 IR a day, or about £1.80. There are three other malls next to Emporio that are approaching completion. When they are done, this city of nomadic workers, will pack-up their blow-away homes and move on. To the next luxury emporio waiting to be built.
Surely the labourers will leave, and there is no doubt the wages they are paid will never be enough to buy from Emporio. Do the labourers who renovate the Ralph Lauren store in Mayfair, or who refurbished Westbourne House in Notting Hill which houses Paul Smith, buy shoes for 500 pounds? Do they buy a suits for 5000 pounds? No, no they do not.
India did not invent class, class exists everywhere. The difference between wealth differentials in India and the West is of degree not of kind.
Posted by: Rajeev Vinaik | Tuesday, 09 September 2008 at 09:25 PM
It looks like Andrew wants India to return to its socialist roots. Because, labourers can't buy designer shoes, then social justine dictates that no one else should either.
Revoke the 'Government licence' for the mall. No mall, no where for the rich to shop, no jobs for the labourers - everyone wins!
Posted by: Punit Shah | Tuesday, 09 September 2008 at 10:33 PM
Punit Shah and Rajeev Vinaik did you actually read the bog before posting. Andrew clearly states that there is NOTHING remarkable in the fact that construction workers are unable to afford the goods within the malls that they are building and that is the case in India or in Mayfair of anywhere else. Andrew is merely doffing his cap, so to speak, to the workers to show a little respect for their hard work and difficult living conditions and commenting that soon they will move on from his life to start work on yet another project in booming India.
It wouldn't do any harm for people all over the world to be a little more respectful and appreciative of the human labour invested in constructing our modern way of life.
You people must barely be able to walk with the sheer weight of that chip on you shoulder!
Posted by: MSB | Wednesday, 10 September 2008 at 09:59 AM
MSB
I am yet to read a piece about 'Mall and the hapless labourers' in UK in any of the news columns of british dailies or blogs....so when someone (read western correspondents)grieves for the 'poor' in the developing world there is every reason for feeling irritated by their sob stories.These dispatches have a very familiar ...sarcastic ,patronising, moralising, tone to it. I remember the noise made about the Nano car ... afew months ago ...where the Independant had taken a 'we are so worried about the environment' stance ..
What punit and Rajeev were perhaps pointing out is this bit of that hypocrisy in this blog ..I dont think (hope so) they had meant any disrespect to the labourers.nobody would be careless to the extent of sounding so callous
Posted by: ems | Wednesday, 10 September 2008 at 11:00 PM
I can almost guaranty that labourers in the UK probably make more (on average) then the correspondents that write for many a British daily.
Posted by: Christian Jacobson | Monday, 15 September 2008 at 07:28 PM
According to Rajeev and Punit, it is justified that Indian workers live in cardboard and plastic homes, because, hey!, workers in London can't afford 500 pound shoes either. That's hilarious! Heck, I work as a white collar professional and even I can't afford 500 pound shoes. But for the Indian workers, we're talking about mere daily sustenance - and really, these obese wealthy people can surely survive with 200 pound shoes so others do not have to live in cardboard shelters. But then again, it is so much easier to blame the British for the poverty in India, but somehow take the credit for producing technology gurus. Pure comedy!
Posted by: Ohmer Zaypean | Thursday, 09 October 2008 at 12:19 AM
The only thing remotely comedic about this is you and your execrable opinions Zaypean.Can you not afford 500 pound shoes?Ahhhhhh Diddums.
Posted by: ajit | Wednesday, 15 October 2008 at 03:13 PM