NEW DELHI , Ramesh Kumar wakes up at 4 AM. He commutes 2 hours to work. He works 12 hours. He earns ₹15,000 a month. He commutes 2 hours back. He comes home at 8 PM. He's exhausted. He has no time to think. No energy to fight. No money to organize. This is not poverty. This is design.
The survival trap is simple: keep people poor, keep them tired, keep them divided. When people are poor, they're too busy surviving to fight. When people are tired, they can't think or organize. When people are divided, they can't unite. This is how the system controls 1.4 billion people.
The numbers are brutal. 270 million people live in poverty. 90% of workers are in the informal sector, no security, no benefits, no future. The average Indian works 48 hours a week but earns less than ₹20,000 a month. But politicians earn ₹2.5 lakh a month. They work 2 hours a day. They have all the time in the world to steal.
Dr. Anjali Sharma, a sociologist, explains: 'The system is designed to extract maximum work for minimum pay. It's designed to keep people desperate. It's designed to make survival so difficult that people don't have time or energy to demand change.'
But here's what they don't tell you: this is not accidental. This is intentional. The system wants you poor. The system wants you tired. The system wants you divided. Because when you're poor, tired, and divided, you can't fight. You can't demand. You can't change anything.
The solution is not in accepting the trap. It's in breaking free. It's in realizing that you have power, the power of 1.4 billion people. It's in using that power to demand change. It's in refusing to be trapped.
But until that happens, 1.4 billion people will keep being trapped. They'll keep working 12 hours for ₹15,000. They'll keep being too tired to fight. And the system will keep controlling them.