India, Nov. 17 -- The World Day of the Poor arrives each year as an indictment. It calls us to look, without pretence, at a truth we dodge daily: the poor are not the margins of society. They are its foundation. And yet, in our country, they remain the most neglected, the most misrepresented, and often the most punished.

Every civilisation has grappled with its duty to the poor. Ancient codes, village customs, and religious traditions all carried some form of obligation. No tradition has articulated it with the moral clarity the Catholic Church has offered through the centuries, which it yet fails spectacularly.

Pope Leo XIII, in Rerum Novarum, insisted that the cry of the worker and the poor should disturb the conscience of the powerfu...