BEGGAR’S PLEA: A WRITTEN STATEMENT REFLECTING IN THEIR EYES BUT REJECTED BY PASSING JUDGES
Beggar’s Plea: A Written Statement Reflecting in Their Eyes but Rejected by Passing Judges
“बीच सड़क इक लाश पड़ी थी और ये लिक्खा था
भूक में ज़हरीली रोटी भी मीठी लगती है”
~बेकल उत्साही
The above lines echo in the life of every beggar having empty hands, but a heart full of hope. Their pleading on the streets is truly the evidence of a silent cry wherein the pride bows down and the hands stretch out. We are living in the Amrit Kaal of Bharat and carrying a ray of hope to be a developed nation by 2047, when the whole country will be celebrating the 100th Independence Day. But it really pains me to pen down that since 1947 to the present, not even a louse crawled on any political/ruling party’s ear when the statistics relating to the poverty were screaming before them, showing the plight of the downtrodden section of the society especially the children when their golden childhood was lost in begging and we as a society did nothing but judged them as a beggar but miserably failed to judge the system.
Causes Of Begging
Friedrich Nietzsche rightly stated that “To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” Unfortunately, beggars are in search of life through the suffering caused by begging. There are numerous reasons to an individual has no option but to engage in the act of begging such as poverty, unemployment, inequality, homelessness, and loss of job or work due to which they resort to find peace in alcohol and become drug/alcohol addicts, which acts as a catalyst in their suffering. Broadly, there are six primary reasons as to why somebody engages in begging, and these causes are Social, Economic, Religious, Disaster, Forced Beggary, and Illiteracy.
As per the report published by the Institute for Human Development in coordination with Department of Social Welfare (Govt. of NCT of Delhi) in 2021, it can be inferred that majority of the people were forced into begging as a result of circumstances such as poverty (62 per cent), unemployment (45 per cent), landlessness (18 per cent at the place of origin), illiteracy (18 per cent), old age/disability/illness (24 per cent), widow (6 per cent), drug/substance abuse (3 per cent) and family disintegration (3 per cent).
1. Social Causes- Change in the joint family institution, cultural conflict, and mass migration create a situational crisis, and therefore, people take recourse to begging as a means of survival. In fact, orphans and people who are physically and mentally retarded are compelled to engage in beggary. Sometimes, the family environment, such as violence, abuse, hunger, and whatnot, leads children to run away from home in search of work. Females, especially widows, who are deserted from their in-laws' house find no place and therefore they engage in the act of beggary for their survival. But that’s not the case with every person. There are certain communities, such as Nats, Bajigars, Sains, Jugglers, Bhats, and Kanjars, who consider begging as their hereditary profession, and they don’t attach any social stigma to the act of begging.
2. Economic Causes- Unemployment or under-employment, destitution, landlessness, poverty, calamity, drought or famines, and various other conditions of destitution are all variants of economic causes. Most migrant workers, especially from the most populous State, have no access to civic amenities, food security, and public housing in the cities, because of which they are forced to engage in beggary to sustain themselves.
3. Religious Causes- The irony that is nurtured by the society is to impose a rule, however unjustified, and proffer an explanation or justification to substantiate the substratum of the said rule. Mankind, since time immemorial, has been searching for an explanation or justification to substantiate a point of view that hurts humanity. Most religions sanction seeking and giving alms, and people regard it as an opportunity to do punya or good karma. A sort of religious sanctity is attached to alms giving.
4. Disaster/Pandemic- Acts of God, such as earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, hurricanes, and drought result in huge loss of lives, livelihood, and property, and push the poor and vulnerable people deeper into the poverty trap. Such disasters compel many to leave their homes, leaving everything behind and under circumstances of immediate need, they are forced to beg to survive. A report by Stranded Workers Action Network (SWAN) in 2020 suggested that more than 80 per cent of migrant workers have not received government ration. In such cases, they either return to their rural homes or resort to begging in big cities for survival.
CONCLUSION
The society, especially the incumbent government(s), has to undergo a perceptual shift from being the propagator of Vishwaguru to being the country wherein data reflects the reality that reportedly some 60 thousand people engaged in begging in Delhi and over 3 lakhs in Mumbai according to a 2004 Action-Aid report; nearly 75 thousand in Kolkata, according to the Beggar Research Institute; 56 thousand in Bangalore, according to police records. In 2005, the Council of Human Welfare found that one in every 354 people was engaged in begging in Hyderabad.
It should be noted that Governments, the law, and society are bestowed with the Herculean task to act as levellers in this regard, and for the same, one has to remember the wise saying of Henry Ward Beecher that deals with the changing perceptions of the world in time. He said that our days are a kaleidoscope. Every instant a change takes place in the contents. New harmonies, new contrasts, new combinations of every sort. Nothing ever happens twice alike. The most familiar people stand each moment in some new relation to each other, to their work, to surrounding objects. The most tranquil house, with the most serene inhabitants, living upon the utmost regularity of system, is yet exemplifying infinite diversities.
I believe that one who does everything with willingness and interest finds that he is able to draw unceasingly from the reservoir of cosmic power. The same is applied to the government also. If the government and society, through the collective effort are willing to act bona fide for the beggars then together we can snatch the children, widows, orphans, and physically or mentally retarded people from the clutches of the act of beggary.
Therefore, the government must take necessary actions towards the plight of the people who are poor and are in a hapless situation, and consequently engage themselves in the act of beggary for their survival. If the status quo remains the same, then we, the people of India, should stop carrying the hollow dream of a developed nation till 2047.