Our culture has always looked at begging as a means for salvation and taming the inner ego. Instantly we get a mental image of sadhus, fakirs and buddhist monks begging for food not out of necessity but as a way of life.
What we see now in the pictures below are dismal people begging out of dire necessity, lack of food, clothes (forget clean) and milk for their kids. It moves many of us to give them money, sometimes whatever we can reach to not bothering how much we are giving them.
But are they truly in dire straits or are we being led to believe that with brilliant con artists.
The lady above with a child with gauge cloth around its head, begging for money, crying her heart. Her tear stained muddy face is truly pathetic and painful to see. But the problem is several people must have observed that she is in the same state day after day, for several months. Is that a carefully cultivated attire or harsh reality of the poor person in India.
What is more irritating is when you truly feel bad and do offer them money, and you find them talking with their fellow beggars discussing their state of affairs happily without any worries at all sitting on the traffic islands, waiting for the next red signal and the next person to beg from.
I have had several personal experiences, one of which stands out: there is a seemingly lame old man with a white beard near the junction at khairathabad flyover, and he begs with absolute need and pain. The moment you offer the money and signal turns green, he suddenly becomes normal and walks away fit and fine and starts relaxing with a beedi, now that one act is completed.
See the kid above lying in the lady's arms with a bandage to the leg. The kid would be less than an year old. If it is true its really painful to see, but is it?
What I am rambling about?
I am not naive to believe that we are in a idealistic world. I do understand the reality of begging as profession, beggar mafia, doctors amputating beggars etc. But even knowing all this, does not dull the pain in the heart when you see the suffering or assumed suffering, and other hand feeling bad that quite possibly they are innocent enough and are being pushed to this by criminal minds. I have had seen it first hand a son, actually dropping of his father at a temple to beg for the day.
This problem has many dimensions. First we who are having enough money to live by and have a conscience feel bad about it and would like to bury our pain and conscience by parting with a few rupees. Beggars make us feel that with "Allah tera acha karega", "Bhagwan tera bhala karega", "Devudu ninnu challaga choosthadu" etc.
Second dimension to the problem is there is a possibility that they do not have food, clothes and shelter. As Swami Vivekananda says "A person who is hungry does not need a philosophical discourse on pros and cons of begging, but needs food to satisfy their hunger". True to that statement we cannot stay one day without food.
Third the few rupees we do give them do not meet any of their needs, what do you get with a rupee today? We feel gratified with our benovelence and move on our way but the beggar who is really hungry is left with little money and more hunger because the food is still our of their reach.
Another dimension is we do not know if this is a profession, taken up by themselves or coerced into by others? The giving them money is our mistake, by encouraging them as a easy way to make money, and also putting more such people into danger. This is one of the main reasons why begging is so prevalent in India, when compared to everywhere in the developed and developing world.
What to do?
All cribbing and not enough thinking you say? True. We need to do something. Let me present my thoughts which is only one way to solve this problem. First thing is to stop giving money but give them food and clothes consistently (I will come to details how). Second make people aware that they should stop giving money by distributing pamphlets with two simple sentences "Don't Give Money. We are giving food".
Some articles on begging and other dimensions to it, here and here.
What we see now in the pictures below are dismal people begging out of dire necessity, lack of food, clothes (forget clean) and milk for their kids. It moves many of us to give them money, sometimes whatever we can reach to not bothering how much we are giving them.
But are they truly in dire straits or are we being led to believe that with brilliant con artists.
The lady above with a child with gauge cloth around its head, begging for money, crying her heart. Her tear stained muddy face is truly pathetic and painful to see. But the problem is several people must have observed that she is in the same state day after day, for several months. Is that a carefully cultivated attire or harsh reality of the poor person in India.
What is more irritating is when you truly feel bad and do offer them money, and you find them talking with their fellow beggars discussing their state of affairs happily without any worries at all sitting on the traffic islands, waiting for the next red signal and the next person to beg from.
I have had several personal experiences, one of which stands out: there is a seemingly lame old man with a white beard near the junction at khairathabad flyover, and he begs with absolute need and pain. The moment you offer the money and signal turns green, he suddenly becomes normal and walks away fit and fine and starts relaxing with a beedi, now that one act is completed.
See the kid above lying in the lady's arms with a bandage to the leg. The kid would be less than an year old. If it is true its really painful to see, but is it?
What I am rambling about?
I am not naive to believe that we are in a idealistic world. I do understand the reality of begging as profession, beggar mafia, doctors amputating beggars etc. But even knowing all this, does not dull the pain in the heart when you see the suffering or assumed suffering, and other hand feeling bad that quite possibly they are innocent enough and are being pushed to this by criminal minds. I have had seen it first hand a son, actually dropping of his father at a temple to beg for the day.
This problem has many dimensions. First we who are having enough money to live by and have a conscience feel bad about it and would like to bury our pain and conscience by parting with a few rupees. Beggars make us feel that with "Allah tera acha karega", "Bhagwan tera bhala karega", "Devudu ninnu challaga choosthadu" etc.
Second dimension to the problem is there is a possibility that they do not have food, clothes and shelter. As Swami Vivekananda says "A person who is hungry does not need a philosophical discourse on pros and cons of begging, but needs food to satisfy their hunger". True to that statement we cannot stay one day without food.
Third the few rupees we do give them do not meet any of their needs, what do you get with a rupee today? We feel gratified with our benovelence and move on our way but the beggar who is really hungry is left with little money and more hunger because the food is still our of their reach.
Another dimension is we do not know if this is a profession, taken up by themselves or coerced into by others? The giving them money is our mistake, by encouraging them as a easy way to make money, and also putting more such people into danger. This is one of the main reasons why begging is so prevalent in India, when compared to everywhere in the developed and developing world.
What to do?
All cribbing and not enough thinking you say? True. We need to do something. Let me present my thoughts which is only one way to solve this problem. First thing is to stop giving money but give them food and clothes consistently (I will come to details how). Second make people aware that they should stop giving money by distributing pamphlets with two simple sentences "Don't Give Money. We are giving food".
Some articles on begging and other dimensions to it, here and here.
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