Urdu → English transcript

What just happened in Noida last week?

Poor people were protesting,

The roads are blocked, it was causing a lot of trouble.

But you know, it is not to be seen as an isolated incident.

This is a sign of a very big problem that is coming,

of the growing gap between rich and poor.

When big cities are built,

then two worlds are created together.

On one side, glittering towers,

fancy societies, flats worth crores,

and on the other side, the very same buildings are

made and run by

workers and laborers who, in slums,

live without electricity, without stability,

without security.

History also keeps showing us again and again

that whenever

inequality crosses all limits,

then imbalance comes into society.

Look at the French Revolution,

the growing depth

between rich and poor shook the entire monarchy.

Or the movements that happened in Europe

after the Industrial Revolution,

where workers…

They fought for basic rights.

A time came in India as well when

liberalization in the 1990s gave everyone a chance.

The economy started to grow,

the middle class expanded,

and the country was moving in a positive direction.

For the first time, millions of families

bought motorcycles,

bought cars, whether someone was rich

or poor, slowly everyone had

a mobile phone in their pocket. So the divide was not

that deep and everyone was benefiting

in some way. But in the last ten to twelve years,

this momentum has broken. The benefits of growth

started to concentrate in the hands of a small segment.

Small traders,

laborers and the middle class

started feeling the pressure,

while the wealth of the rich began to double

and quadruple. Meaning

the growth of the middle class stalled,

the rich kept getting richer and the poor poorer.

The chasm of

inequality kept getting deeper.

Today’s Noida is a symbol

of this very contradiction. On one side…

The dream of a three-trillion-dollar economy and on the other

hand job insecurity,

expensive life, social frustration.

There is an old saying that when

your stomach is empty and you see a glass palace in front of you,

then the anger is not just at the hunger,

it is also at the injustice. And centuries

ago it was the same, kings and emperors

lived in their palaces with every comfort and luxury,

and our and your ancestors were being crushed.

Inequality is not just a game

of numbers, it is a question

of respect and dignity.

If through education, health care

and fair wages

we do not address this depth,

then in the times to come such movements will

keep happening. Law and order

does not come only from policing, from batons, from tear

gas, it comes from social justice.

Now you are watching this video on your phone,

most people’s phones will cost twenty to twenty-five

thousand and some people’s

one and a half lakh, so this is a growing…

Besides basic facilities

every single person

should have equal respect

and dignity in society, that's it