“If I Were a Rich Man” is a song in the 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof, written by Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock. It is sung by the main character, Tevye, and reflects his aspirations to become rich. I have always loved this song and especially how Topol enacts it in his inimitable style in the movie.
Tevye dreams of the material comforts that wealth would bring him. He describes the enormous house he would buy and the needless luxuries he would fill it with, including a third staircase “leading nowhere, just for show”. I don’t think you sense in this song any greed but simply a wish of someone poor but of course in imagination.
Tevye then contemplates the esteem that wealth would bring him, with important men seeking his advice. I wonder how the songwriters very subtly say that esteem and wealth go together – although they don’t have to be. Tevye considers how wealth would allow him to spend less time working and more time praying and studying the Torah. He ends the song by asking God if it would “spoil some vast eternal plan” if he were wealthy. The song is a simple expression of a poor wanting to be rich.
I am pasting below some of the interesting lines of the song and do watch the video clip below how Topol delivers these lines.
“Oh, Lord, you made many, many poor people
I realize, of course, it’s no shame to be poor
But it’s no great honour either!
So, what would have been so terrible if I had a small fortune?”
The most important men in town would come to fawn on me!
They would ask me to advise them like a Solomon the Wise
And it won’t make one bit of difference if I answer right or wrong
When you’re rich, they think you really know!
Today, most (I dare not say everybody) want to become rich. And alas, we see increasing gap between the rich and poor every day.
Today India’s gap between rich and poor is among the highest in the world. The gap has increased despite notable economic growth in recent decades. The top 1% of India’s population holds over 40% of the country’s wealth. The bottom half of the population holds only about 3% of the country’s wealth.
How do we talk of sustainability in this contrast? I am always dumbfounded when I try to seek answers (not solutions) and feel depressed when I don’t see a blue sky.
In the Stockholm conference, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi raised a question
Are not poverty and need the greatest polluters?
Note that Indira Gandhi was asking a question and not making a statement. The world however read it differently. In fact, that line has gone down in history as:
Poverty is the greatest polluter.
Another version has it as
Poverty is the worst form of pollution.
Indira Gandhi giving her address at Stockholm on June 14, 1972. | Photo Credit: United Nations
Jairam Ramesh in his article Poverty Is the Greatest Polluter: Remembering Indira Gandhi’s Stirring Speech in Stockholm originally published on June 7, 2017 quotes this misinterpretation and writes
“It is difficult to pinpoint an exact moment or occasion when her Stockholm speech came to acquire its iconic status. While it certainly created ripples— when any reference to Stockholm was made in the international community in the 1970s and 1980s, her speech would invariably get mentioned—its impact remained restricted to a limited circle for quite some time. It was most probably in the run-up to the famed Rio Earth Summit of 1992 that it was rediscovered with a bang, as it were. That it continues to resonate is proved by the fact that Karl Mathiesen wrote an article in The Guardian on 6 May 2014 with the title ‘Climate Change and Poverty: Why Indira Gandhi’s Speech Matters’. The Pakistani economist Tariq Banuri told me in September 2009 that her speech ranks with Rachel Carson’s book of 1962, Paul Ehrlich’s book of 1968, and The Limits to Growth study of 1972 as one of the four crucial milestones in the global environmental discourse.” (Read Indira Gandhi: A Life in Nature published by Simon and Schuster, 2017 authored by Jairam Ramesh).
The question raised by Indira Gandhi continues to get discussed in the international debates, especially between leaders of different worlds, those developed, rapidly developing and still developing. See articles in Guardian and Pollution as Another Form of Poverty – The New York Times
Praneeta Mudaliar and Prakash Kesavan present an interesting article titled “Poverty and Pollution – Revising Indira Gandhi’s Speech for Cotemporary Debates on Environment and Development”
The authors conclude saying “…the development efforts that India has been touting in various international arenas benefits neither the poor nor its goals of environmental protection. Yet it would be ironic if these failures are taken to argue that the goals of poverty alleviation cannot be reconciled with those of environmental protections. We argue that the failure to reconcile these goals represents the inability of Indira Gandhi and other Indian leaders to depart from a model of development that prioritizes economic growth”.
I decided to speak to my Professor Friend to listen to his views. As usual we met at the same coffee shop with garden in front.
Professor said “Dr Modak, there is no easy answer to these questions. Perhaps our pursuit to economic growth alone without regard to equity and ecology and our inability to take everybody along to a shared vision of true growth (or how the growth should be!) is the challenge”.
He paused and lighted his cigar. After a deep puff he continued and said
“And I don’t know how to start addressing this problem. Most like us are stuck right on the first step. But unfortunately, human lives are short and even shorter are the political regimes as they continue to rise, fall, shuffle with no serious interest to take this vision beyond geographical boundaries”
I thought of asking Lord Vishnu why he doesn’t consider extending human lives to at least 200 years so that we understand the gravity of the poverty and pollution and more importantly climate change.
Professor gave a cynical laugh as he probably read my mind.
He stayed quiet for a while and then said
“Well Dr Modak, do you remember the story of Abhimanyu in Mahabharata?”
I nodded.
Abhimanyu was the great warrior son of Arjuna in the great epic Mahabharata. In the war between the Pandavas and Kauravas, Arjuna taught Abhimanyu the strategy for breaking into chakravyuha, a formidable military structure that resembled a labyrinth of several defensive walls. A later folklore adds that Abhimanyu learned this information from Arjuna while still inside his mother’s womb. However, he was unable to hear how to exit the chakravyuha, and this incomplete knowledge later contributed to his demise. He could penetrate the chakravyuha alright but couldn’t exit because lack of this knowledge and was eventually killed by Kaurava warriors surrounding him and attacking him unethically.
Abhimanyu surrounded by Kaurava warriors standing all alone
“Dr Modak, this civilization today is perhaps behaving like the great warrior Abhimanyu. We feel we know enough about how to achieve economic growth but we do not know how to return to sensible sustainability. I am afraid the world will then meet fate like Abhimanyu”
I didn’t say a word. What do I say?
Professor extinguished his cigar and asked for the bill.
I said “Professor, I forgot. A Happy New Year to You”
Agree. Our economic growth is leading to more pollution and socioeconomic divisions. Time to rethink or may be reset!
Dr. Modak, A Happy New Year to You.
These days all the discussions and debates happen over a two-dimensional screen while the ‘smoke and eww’ of inequality presents itself in our higher-dimensional lived experiences. Perils of a highly ‘personalized’ society.