Do the poor have self respect?

I had settled inside the shared auto-rickshaw which accommodated 10 people when I noticed an old lady speaking something to a man sitting on the opposite row of seats. The lady had a child in her lap, perhaps her grandchild, and appeared stranger to the man. She asked in a local language which I understood approximately – she was saying that she did not have money to reach her destination and could he offer to pay her fare which would be 5 rupees? The man appeared to ponder for a moment and then nodded in consent. I noticed that other passengers were well dressed and better-offs except the old lady who appeared poor and the man who appeared rugged and not in great shape.

Then the auto-rickshaw started and after a while I noticed that the woman was getting down. Curiously I tried to look if the man was indeed paying her fare. I saw that the man had also gotten down. It appeared that he gave her fare also to the rickshaw driver, but was told that the fare had to be Rs 10 and not Rs 5 each and hence he had to extract another currency note from his pocket. As the lady and the man tended to turn back, I saw something which was difficult to believe. The man kissed the old lady on her cheek while the lady tried to put him away by smiling shyly and saying “na na na” asking him to go away. But the man achieved what he wanted to and by that time I lost them since auto-rickshaw had already moved ahead. Seeing what had happened, I was outraged and felt horrible and also found it pitiful that I was not in a position to do something.

When I recollected the incident, it appeared that the man was drunk. It appears that when the drunken man realized that he had to pay extra and perhaps a substantial amount to help a completely stranger (since he had already committed to pay) he tried to extract some benefit out of the deal by subjecting her to that ordeal. The lady knew that she did not have a choice and tried to run it down. Or else, it might have happened that the man was a habitual offender. As what kind of a man would take a moral high ground of keeping his word (to pay her fare) but still do something outrageous to appear like a thug? May be he would still have subjected that ordeal on the lady no matter if he had to pay Rs 10 extra or not. It is also a possibility that the two knew each other from before and hence the lady did not raise an alarm. Whatever be the reason it is evident that the lady had to suffer since she was poor. That brings me to a difficult question: do the poor have self-respect? The lady in this incident appeared not to be affording some. I had read an author once who argued that the poor people can’t survive maintaining self-respect and hence keep none… What do you think?