Summary Of Behind The Beautiful Forevers By Katherine Boo

The book, “Behind the Beautiful Forevers”, by Katherine Boo is an excellent depiction of what life is like for those living in an informal settlement in the Indian city of Mumbai. The book follows various inhabitants of Annawadi settlement but focuses on the life of Abdul Husain, a Muslim teenager who runs a trash sorting business with his family as a means of supplementing an income in the impoverished settlement. The author effectively portrays the poverty and destitution that runs rampant in one of the various informal settlements found in Mumbai. The book discusses some of the many constraints in which dwellers of the informal settlements face in their engagement with a corrupt state. Two of the main constraints the inhabitants face, are

This is evident in the book through the Annawadi resident Asha Waghekar, a kindergarten teacher that possesses extensive influence in the settlement, and aims to be the first female slumlord of Annawadi. Asha aims to do this with the help of Subhash Sawant, a member of the Shiv Sena party, a predominantly Hindu party that is highly prejudiced against migrants from northern Indian states, and is the highly corrupted Corporator of Ward 76 in which Annawadi resides. In the book, the clever and corrupt Asha, uses her political connections to position herself to be a minor player in a scam where “Asha, having befriended the bank manager, was helping him select the Annawadians who would get loans—for her own cut of the loan money, she hoped.” (pg.25). This corruption demonstrates a flaw in the Indian political infrastructure because the loans she influences are part of an anti poverty scheme created by the central government with the intention of ushering in growth for entrepreneurial citizens stuck in poverty. This flawed political infrastructure that is rampant with corruption, is one of the biggest constraints on the informal settlement inhabitants. This is demonstrated in the book through Asha, as she controls who does, and who does not get the subsidized government loans, hindering the potential development created by the loans by using them for personal gain instead of for the greater good as they were intended. The flawed Indian political infrastructure plays a role in constraining the inhabitants of the slums by affecting the progress of the development that occurs in both the informal settlements, as well as the economy. The flawed Indian political infrastructure, and the vast corruption within it, has limited the potential progress the country has