For the visitor, social responsibility in India must be approached differently than back home. Without a strong welfare system and facing immense poverty, India has barely any safety net besides the voluntary exchange between individuals. The Hindi term baksheesh refers to the responsibility of richer persons to contribute to the poor through alms and tipping. Street performers who succeed in drawing a crowd explicitly ask for baksheesh for their troubles. Baksheesh is what you call the alms given to the distressing number of disabled beggars around Old Delhi. Back home, we're taught not to give directly to the homeless, and instead to contribute to local shelters or organizations. Lately, that rule has been very difficult to observe.
Then there's the dilemma between the needs of the vendor at a bazaar weighed against the handicrafts' dubious manufacturing origin. Let's just say, I've been warned more than once. The boggling array of purses, scarves, tapestries, dresses, shalwaars, bracelets, et cetera ... Well, it must have come from somewhere. Under what conditions were they made? Who made them? Where did they come from? What does it say about me if I choose to buy?
I could always shop at FabIndia or the Crafts Museum, where there is a modicum more confidence about the source's credibility. But then, where does my money go? To the seamstress or to the shopkeeper? To the artisan or to the businessman? Meanwhile, there's no good answer to the woman whose sole income comes from the shawls arrayed in front of her.
It's a struggle, plain and simple. Sadly, one of the difficult byproducts of this trip has been to escalate my awareness of real, crushing poverty in a way that I don't think will ever leave me. It's given a whole new meaning to the term "buy local". Because, really ... what is the alternative?
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