In era gone by
begging was the last resort that a person used to adopt, after all means to get
fruitful employment failed. It was considered a curse as not being employed was
looked down upon. Every effort was made to get out of such a situation.
Slowly the
numbers of beggars started to increase. The main reason was education; as
uneducated people found it difficult to get employed. Manual labour that the
uneducated could do was back breaking as compared the easy life of a beggar.
Slowly it dawned on this class of society that it was an easy means of lively
hood and also more paying than the back breaking manual labour. In no time the
tag of a curse livelihood was thrown in to the winds.
Where there is
easy money organised syndicates cannot be far away and where there are
syndicates police and politics cannot be far away. In no time begging became an
organised business with police backing and political patronage.
Begging as a
business was taken in the right earnest. Training was imparted as to how to
invoke the sympathy of the public. Often kidnapped healthy children were
handicapped to invoke sympathy.
Begging at
religious places and at traffic light crossing has become a nuisance.
Irrespective of where you are positioned on the social ladder, everyone has
experienced this harassment by these beggars in our society sometime or the
other. Friends let me take the liberty of narrating one of the personal experiences
of its own kind.
One fine day, I
was waiting for the traffic light to turn green while deep in my thoughts,
until consistent knocking on the car’s window pulled me out of my reverie. Upon
looking up, my gaze was met with that of a teary eyed old lady.
She requested,
thoda aage bus stop thak chod dey do beta.
(Please give me
a lift till the next bus stand.)
I obliged her.
As we travelled,
I asked her the reason of her crying, and she finally explained why she was
crying, as her son had died and she had no money to arrange for his last rites.
Iss mulk mein
ghareeb ki koyi jagah nai koi gareeb ko nahi puchtha (There is no place for the
poor in this country, no one bothers for poor people here.)
Her torment was
heart-wrenching and by the end of it, I had tears of my own. She was dropped
off where she wanted to go, with whatever cash I could give to her at that
time.
And to my shock!
Three days later, on a different signal but in an identical setting, I heard
familiar knocking on the window. Looking up, I found the same old lady crying
with the similar anguish in her eyes and repeating the same old line!
When asked if
her son had died, ‘again’, the aged beggar just laughed callously and went
away, leaving me astonished, perplexed and offended at this cruel, unfeeling
deception.
There’s no
denying that today in India there are many people who live under the poverty
line and barely manage to make ends meet. Even the irony of today is that some
pursue selling their kidneys, while others look for potential clients who would
‘buy their children’. This sorry state of affair witnesses no end, and our
government has failed miserably when it comes to Human Development.
But this should
not let beggars take advantage of the situation and play with people’s
sentiments; people like you and me are fooled by their emotional blackmailing
tactics. We want to help and make a difference in their lives, but we are
discouraged by their dishonesty and it is hard to gauge who is sincere and who
isn’t.
I have come to
understand that ‘professional’ beggars are not needy, they are greedy!
Ask any one of
them to work instead of begging, and you’re met with deadly stares and rude
remarks make you feel as if you have committed a crime and shake the ground
you’re standing on. Request them to leave you, and the knocking on your car’s
window gets revengeful and even more persistent. Some even fire abusive words
at you, while warning you that they will pray for you and your family’s demise.
If their prayers were effective then in the first place they would not be
begging.
At times when
you offer beggars your change, they refuse to take it and state with up-turned
noses that they want more, and that the amount offered is petty. They often
say, I do not take alms from beggars.
These beggars
are known to work in groups that overtly and covertly have political backing,
while the police merely stand as miserable spectator. Even if an anti-begging
operation or a law is carried out and a locality is cleansed off this malignant
disease, one can witness a repeat arrival of the beggars in no time. I do
understand there might be some who may be ‘forced’ to beg because of their
economical conditions, under duress, or out of habit, the state and its
citizens treat them like a constant source of irritation but nobody does
anything about it.
Our government
has yet to come up with a proper rehabilitation or human development plan and
its execution. The adopted plan of action should not only provide ‘roti, kapra
and makaan,’ (bread, clothes and housing) but must also help inculcate a useful
set of skills that will assist them in earning a dignified income, without
having to harass people in the hopes of fishing money out of them.
This should
be coupled with counselling done by trained volunteer or doctors (who are
willing to help) in order to install a sense of self-sufficiency.
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