Calcutta poor

Few cities are as strongly linked with extreme deprivation as Calcutta, where people living on pavements, children on the streets, and those who scavenge for a living have come to symbolize the harshest forms of human suffering. Thomas questions the usual remedies: building better housing, creating more jobs, and bringing in social welfare agencies. His conclusion is that these measures do little to change what poverty fundamentally is.

Drawing on historical and anthropological research as well as his own visits to Calcutta's slums, the author finds that dignity, strong ethnic and cultural bonds, and considerable energy persist even amid severe want. These qualities produce resourcefulness and invention in the daily lives of the poor. Thomas argues that unless these inner strengths are drawn out, Calcutta's poverty will remain beyond solution, and that they must be the source of any lasting answers.

The book is illustrated with photographs of the city and its residents.