the raw material which developing countries generally produced were always much lower than the prices of the finished products the developed countries produced. The word “aid” seemed meaningless in that context. At the same time the mismanagement in the developing countries was becoming obvious. Reports were appearing regularly of how the elite class in the developing world was cornering all the money given as aid and very little was reaching the poor. Caricatures appeared in Press showing a king in an African country feeding chicken to his dog while thousands in his country were starving. Public opinion in the developed world soon turned against the idea of giving aid. Joshi’s own observation supported that new perception. He realized that the gap between rich and poor in a given developing country was far greater than the gap between rich nations and poor nations globally. In particular, what he saw in an African country Niger was very disturbing. There he saw how a small part of the capital city resembled the Western cities. It had foreign cars, big hotels, shops overflowing with latest gadgets. A tiny part of the population was enjoying all those comforts, while the vast majority was languishing in the most abject poverty. This he found in country after country. He used to interact with the delegates coming to the West from developing countries and realized that majority of them were more focused on furthering their own career and prospects and were least bothered about the poor in their countries. He saw how consultants fooled UN and benefitted personally from most of their high-paying UN assignments. For instance, he was struck by the observation that when leaders of the developing nations visited Western cities they were always driven in big and posh cars, whereas leaders of the developed nations who came to attend those very conferences were using much simpler cars. This difference also extended to 64
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Sharad Joshi : Leading Farmers to the Centre Stage
