Nine years ago, I visited Alappuzha, a small town in Kerala in South India. In the middle of this quaint seaside resort, with its small, mostly one- or two-storied buildings and unhurried pace of life, were a number of enormous gold stores totally at odds with the sleepy surrounds. I was told that during wedding season, townspeople would purchase kilograms of gold to match the weight of their daughters as part of the bridal trousseau — an ancient tradition known as streedhan (woman’s wealth) — that forms most Indian women’s financial security blanket for marriage. Despite its time-honored cultural role, the Indian government has striven in the new millennium to move away from such unsophisticated hoarding and bring most of its population under the formal banking system. Nevertheless, the national veneration of gold continues undeterred, seriously imperiling the wider economy.
Read more...
No comments:
Post a Comment