Unveiling India’s underbelly: Poverty, organized begging and road to redemption

Written By Yasmin Uzykanova

Introduction:

The Indian population has been growing at a tremendous rate owing to the increasing share of the youth population forming the “demographic dividend” or “youth bulge” that will supposedly drive India’s future economic growth. 

CEIC Data (1951-2023) reports that India’s population reached 1,383.00 million in March 2023. The result – India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world and, hence, is recognized as one of the G20 major economies and a member of the BRICS countries. But along with the fast pace of growth, as witnessed in India, the other major issue that has made it to the forefront is the 228 million people who have been classified as poor according to the MPCE criteria used instead of the income criteria. Poverty is currently undergoing a reduction phase in the developing economy, which has taken huge strides towards significantly uplifting the poverty-line population. Yet, India continues to have the most significant proportion of the world’s poor, which has important implications for the welfare of the people and raises critical questions on the implementation organ of the governance system. While post-LPG conditions have put India in a favorable and commendable stand globally, the country is nowhere close to complete eradication of poverty, forming a macroeconomic issue of utmost importance. 

Looking at Poverty from the lens of the Indian economy:

Although numerous factors can cause poverty, numerous recognized studies have found a significant link between unemployment and the aforementioned phenomenon. Two explicitly identifiable factors are :

  • Insufficient income – Intergenerational poverty often leads to members having no access to education and, hence, no control over the number of children born in the family. The large family size exerts pressure on the earning member, usually one or two in a family, amounting to 10 or 11 members. Survival on meager income leads to cost-cutting, further perpetuating illiteracy, lack of skills, and malnutrition. 

  • Lack of jobs – Permanent unemployment resulting from a lack of skills and saturation of job generation capacity within the unorganized sector leads to a large proportion of people who lack healthcare access, food security access, and, to top the unfortunate tier, severe lack of employment. 

That there is a cause-and-effect relationship between the two is quite deducible, yet poverty perpetuates this cycle over generations within a family primarily due to social and cultural factors. However, this is where the government might want to come in, in the form of minimal skill-requiring employment generation, low-cost education benefits, and skill acquisition.

The Indian State has not fallen back on this aspect, but the fact that poverty continues to persist in the economy is proof of the apparent existence of implementational inefficiencies. The transformation of a somewhat protected and closed Indian economy to one that opened up to invite globalization and liberalization has had lasting impacts on the employability of the Indian workforce. True, most of these impacts have been positive and have increased the competitiveness of the three sectors, with the service sector growing tremendously owing to the outsourcing center that India has acquired the label of in the last few decades. Subsequently, employment has seen a rise. Yet, there is a section of the population that has failed utterly in making use of the opportunity. The demand for a specialized skill set within the service sector and educational qualification within the organized sector has ousted these agents from the latter (structural unemployment). The unorganized sector has been quite the champion for the troubled section, but the restricted capacity of job generation of the sector before attaining some level of disguised unemployment has further led to a filtered set of unemployed poor wandering in the streets and on the roads resorting to panhandling or begging as it is commonly called.

Hence, due to a plethora of widely impacting elements, a fruitful market transaction with factor services rendered and factor payments received is lost, and the issue of panhandling gains importance within a scenario where the globe is still reeling from the pandemic shock. 


In a survey conducted by the Department of Social Welfare of Delhi University (Commonwealth Games And A Beggar Free Delhi), it was found that about 9 to 10 % of the beggars were educated till the primary level, 5 % till the secondary level, and that six graduates and four post-graduates had resorted to beggary due to lack of employment opportunities. Lack of skills can also be attributed to the incompetent education system, which doesn’t cater to the requirements of the physical world, producing graduates who hold little of the expertise needed in outsourcing MNCs and even the indigenous organized sector. 

A recent business that has mushroomed in this section of unemployed poor is that of the Begging Mafia. This parasitic business often goes to extreme measures to sustain its income. With vested interests, the syndicate adopts various strategies amounting to human trafficking, mutilation, torture, and starvation of able-bodied people to generate sympathy and pity amongst the unsuspecting money-givers keen to do some charity. 


Questioning the sustenance of Organized Begging:

In July, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal directed Social Welfare Minister Sandeep Kumar to put an immediate stop to his “anti-begging drive”, calling it an “inhuman and futile exercise”. Earlier that month, the Commissioner of Police, Alok Kumar Verma, who shares Kumar’s vision of a “tourist-friendly” and “beggar-free” Delhi, had directed the Crime Branch to crack down on the begging mafia in the city, according to The Indian Express. The Delhi Police launched its drive in the face of official reports in the past repeatedly suggesting what its two-month investigation would only confirm — “there is no begging mafia in Delhi”(The mafia of middle-class convenience, The Hindu Businessline, Sabina Yasmin Rahmanis,2018)

Successful police crackdowns on begging mafia are rare, owing mainly to the secrecy with which these crime syndicates operate but that seems too flimsy an excuse to justify the enormity of the situation. After all, the regulating institution has efficient resources and tools. However, corruption at the lowest levels is a significant cause for the same, along with vested interests of the regulating bodies since gangs operate these syndicates. Dismissing the matter by blaming the deprived section for bringing about their poverty is a superficial glance at the deep-rooted rackets that are functioning underground. A significant loss to the economy is in terms of the human capital within the country and the loss of the circulating money within the monetary structure. Alcohol and drug-addicted children, physically handicapped and tortured individuals, and malnourished and starving women and girls make up this miserable lot. A seemingly never-ending cycle of doom and helplessness surrounds such people. More often than not, they eventually get used to the exploitation of such ruthless businessmen. The notion is confirmed by excerpts from numerous recognized studies, some of which have been included below:

  • According to norms practiced by mafia leaders, abducted children are first made dependent on drugs or alcohol. These children desperately beg all day long and go home in the evening, hoping to get something that their addicted bodies and minds need. Instead, they prefer hunkering beside their mafia lords to leaving their begging profession. (Md. Abdullah Al Helal, Kazi Shahadat Kabir, Asian Journal of Business and Economics Volume 3, No.3.1 Quarter I 2013) 

  • Cherneva (2011) explored that children are trafficked from their villages and are forced to beg on the urban streets. The children and elderly women begging on the street are often forced beggars – victims of human trafficking. For their destination, traffickers chose high-wealth concentration cities. There is a physical archetype that traffickers follow when choosing beggars. Often, they chose children with handicaps, explains the author. In several reported cases cited in the study, traffickers intentionally hurt and mutilate beggars. By physically maiming and deforming them, they create more revenue. A handicapped child earns three times more than a healthy child. 

  • Yusuf, A. (2012) said that some beggars are recruited by organized gangs and forced to give a part of their takings to crime syndicates.


The persistence of this illegal business can be attributed to poverty culture. Organized panhandling relies on this psycho-social concept, which blames poverty on the culture adopted and practiced by the poor. But it would be a sheer fallacy not to provide any weightage to the exploitative parallel economic market that forms the basis of the culture. Most of the income earned by these employed beggars is snatched by the employers at the end of the day, leaving only a measly sum adequate for mere sustenance. The contractual nature of this parasitic economic feeding-off leaves the beggars trapped and vulnerable, over-encouraging satisfaction in engaging in begging, and hence, a subtle form of poverty culture can be observed.  

Often, the business employs numerous middlemen who form a tight, inescapable trap around these captive beggars. These beggars are threatened with amputations, physical and mental torture, starvation, and other inhumane living conditions. Knowing these individuals won’t hesitate to carry out their threats effectively, this helpless captive group rarely attempts to escape their clutches. 


Poverty Alleviation Programmes by the government have succeeded in alleviating poverty by a large proportion, yet it has failed to reach the section in dire need of rescue. Implementational inefficiencies, vested interests leading to corruption, and policies lacking in practical and direct targeting are some reasons why poverty couldn’t be eradicated entirely. Moreover, the rehabilitation of beggars (genuine or those employed by the mafia) is left mainly to the welfare organizations within the country. 

 

Legal Provisions Against Organized Begging:

The Act which functions as the derivative figure for all the state anti-begging laws is “The Bombay Prevention of Begging Act, 1959”. Adopted by Delhi in 1960, the State’s act does not differentiate between the homeless and the beggars. There have been numerous arrests of homeless vendors who sleep on the streets.

Provisions of the anti-begging laws are highly arbitrary; the law's implementation is even more. Anti-begging squads are to raid public places such as railway stations, temples, mosques, and bus terminus and arrest anybody who looks poor and homeless. There have been situations where homeless or disabled people were perceived as beggars based simply on their homelessness or disability. The inefficiency is caused by the uncertain definitions of panhandling in different states and the overlapping of the concept with numerous other concepts, one being- homelessness.


The judicial debate of legalizing or illegalizing panhandling, for that matter, has been a long one with, ostensibly, no end to it. Various courts, including the apex court and the respective state high courts, have pronounced different verdicts, with one defending the declaration of legalizing the phenomenon, citing a violation of fundamental rights otherwise, while the opposition calls for a clampdown on panhandlers given that begging can not be considered free speech.

The Delhi High Court moved away from the judicial practice of castigating begging and upheld its legitimacy through a comparative discourse on the common law doctrines of necessity and duress, as well as on the principles of equality and liberty embodied in the Constitution. Article 19(1)(a), read with Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, asserts that unreasonable prohibitions on begging are unconstitutional in that they invariably deprive beggars of two fundamental rights. (Ram Lakhan vs State on 5 December 2006).


Conclusion:

Some critics argue that begging is not an expressive activity and that, in consequence, it should not attract the special protection we accord to free speech. They view the beggar as engaged in a commercial transaction whereby they are attempting to obtain the means to deal with poverty or homelessness or perhaps to buy booze or drugs. Other critics point out that most beggars do not advocate any political ideology; they don’t advance, at least not by intention, any abstract political or social view or argument. Thus, they can scarcely be said to make a conscious contribution to the free marketplace of ideas. 


The legal complexities of a highly debated economic and social survival process, the lack of rigorous government intervention in generating employment and targeting beggars, and serious inefficiencies in implementation and preventive actions might cost the country its demographic dividend-estimated economic boost, resulting in a more serious issue of low living standards of its citizens. India could do well to utilize the current global ripples caused by a spectrum of events including the pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war, an unusually low-lying China economy with the breakdown of Pakistan and the Sri Lankan economies. The country needs a clampdown on population growth (definitely not as extreme a measure as the forceful family planning under the former PM of India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi), a well-strategized policy framework targeting specific groups on issues of employment and alleviation programs, a clear legal framework addressing the issue, reduction in middlemen operating at implementational levels, a dedicated organization which entirely focuses on rehabilitation of panhandlers and an institution apart from the police, amounting to the likes of RAW, which directs its actions with immediate crackdowns on the Begging Mafia. 

Moreover, widespread awareness amongst the hailed godsent citizens out to do charity is needed through official government campaigns and the informal methods of communication by the more informed citizens. 

Further ignorance of this financial survival strategy will only contribute to the enormity of this phenomenon, adversely impacting the well-being of the country and the Indian economy in the long run and delivering a sharp blow to the welfare-based framework. There’s a need to develop an empathetic understanding of the situation and care more for the upliftment of these derelicts for the sake of humanity. But simultaneously, it is to be kept in mind that the individuals require rigorous rehabilitation and training in employable skills.


To quote Sabina Yasmin Rahmanis from The Mafia of Middle-Class Convenience, the Hindu Businessline –

“There have to be mechanisms within a welfare state that allow, for instance, a young destitute mother who is begging, or selling cheap articles to passers-by at traffic signals, and sleeping on the pavements with her children, to be seen as socially vulnerable and in need of welfare and support and not as a social threat.”

Alternately, if not addressed judiciously and swiftly, we have a ticking bomb amongst us holding the potential to explode a large part of the developing Indian economy, aiming to attain prosperous heights, into a destroyed, scavenging, and parasitic economy. 


References: 

Written by Pratyasha Kar | Proofread by Yasmin Uzykanova

Yasmin Uzykanova
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