This volume addresses a central dilemma of our times from a perspective based on lessons from the ground-persistence of structural poverty after sixty years of independence amidst rapid economic growth, widening social anomie, political crisis and failing policy. . The collection presents an alternative school of thought which has been evolved by scholars and activists over decades, in which the poor are presented not as the problem but as an essential resource. Among this volume's distinguishing ideas are: a new role for the poor, raising mass consciousness, a core methodology for transformat.