Poverty is defined by powerlessness and cannot be simulated by renunciation

Evidence

Gandhi always said that he wanted to live like the poorest of the poor. The question is, can poverty be simulated? Poverty, after all, is not just a question of having no money or no possessions. Poverty is about having no power. As a politician, it was Gandhi’s business to accumulate power, which he did effectively. Satyagraha wouldn’t have worked, even as much as it did, if it wasn’t for his star power. If you are powerful, you can live simply, but you cannot be poor. In South Africa, it took a lot of farmland and organic fruit trees to keep Gandhi in poverty. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 233

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Defines poverty as powerlessness, not absence of possessions — key to the caste/class distinction underlying Ambedkar’s argument.

Related

• Poverty cannot be simulated because it fundamentally means lacking power (similarity 0.94)
• The poor must reclaim power while the privileged win applause by renouncing it (similarity 0.82)
• The powerful gain popular appeal by renouncing what they can afford to lose (similarity 0.79)
• Gandhi donned poverty while Ambedkar defied caste by dressing richly (similarity 0.78)