Demolishing myths about begging

Begging is considered a legitimate form of economic activity by poor people with disabilities, who are neglected by state institutions that fail to reintegrate them with the larger society

In August 2018, Delhi High Court passed a remarkable judgment that held several clauses of the anti-begging law unconstitutional. However, begging continues to be a practice that is approached with ambiguity, if not outright disdain. Begging is still a crime in at least 20 other Indian states and Union Territories. 

One of the more sympathetic views on begging is that it is a communal activity reminiscent of religious almsgiving. I have worked with begging communities in Delhi and Mumbai since 2010. In the course of my study, I have found that begging in its very urban manifestations is largely a secular practice. The reason it continues to be conflated with religion is that it doesn’t find a legitimate expression within the secular discourse of the state that largely views it as a crime. Within the framework of capitalist ethics therefore the act of begging is the polar opposite of the thesis of meritocracy, and challenges the middle class morality underlying our aspirations for productivity and development. 

Related to this is the second popular stereotype about begging populations that portrays them as lazy, freeloading individuals habituated to living on handouts. They are additionally also perceived as conmen who manipulate public sympathies to earn a living. However, the data collected for my research indicate that most begging individuals did not start off as beggars. Beggars do come from somewhere and have personal histories and backgrounds like we all do. But our class bias allows us to dehumanise them and see them as isolated objects propelled by an industry to scam the unsuspecting public.

The reality is far less interesting, and perhaps too discomforting for most of us to acknowledge without weaving narratives to absolve ourselves of our wilful complicity in entrenching exclusionary practices: Our country is actually that poor. Begging individuals form one of the most heterogeneous marginalised demographics that is in need of state welfare. Most people who beg have worked in their lifetimes until they could not work any more due to illness, old age or disability.

Others prefer begging over other forms of economic activity because it allows them to work for themselves, have relatively flexible work hours, and requires minimal education and skills. On many occasions, due to friendships forged with regular donors overtime, some are also able to view begging as a path to progress. Begging is also considered a legitimate form of economic activity by poor people living with disabilities, who suffer utter neglect at the hands of state institutions that fail to rehabilitate and reintegrate them with the larger society.

Here it is also important to mention that not everyone who is homeless is also a beggar. Though the law makes no such distinction and empowers authorities to make arrests on mere suspicion of one being a beggar, many homeless people are actually daily-wage labourers who simply cannot afford accommodation within the city, especially around the places where they are most likely to find work. These more often than not happen to be the busiest and most tourist-friendly places. It is also true that many begging individuals are substance users, which is why they prefer to sleep in the open rather than in shelters that may disallow use of substances or monitor them.

But India is also where graduates constitute one-third of the unemployed population, unemployment levels are at an all-time high, and the State is increasingly dwindling on all fronts when it comes to securing the right to livelihood for citizens. Under these circumstances, if we are not helping the poor have a better life and afford quality beverages and vegan food to satisfy current nutritional and nationalist requirements, who are we to judge?

Yet the most damaging myth about the extremely marginalised and vulnerable demographics of our metropolitan landscape is that of the existence of an insidious begging mafia. It is a favourite trope for the West to portray the development experience of the Global South in one snapshot: the beggars outside high-rise towers of South Mumbai. At once the most oppressed and the most dangerous, the beggar is the ultimate symbol of the paradoxical “other” in a postmodern globalised world. Popular representations of begging in the media, including widely acclaimed films like the Slumdog Millionaire, perpetuate the same stereotypes about beggars being organised criminals in a savage but profitable industry.

These urban myths and poverty fantasy fictions are unfortunately not supported by credible evidence. The stigma of crime associated with being visibly poor is older than the modern prison system. That these laws rooted in a colonial legacy continue to be operative in a postcolonial neoliberal state to incriminate, incarcerate and further marginalise the oppressed should worry us, and not the fact that the latter is making the most rational choice given their circumstances — that is, soliciting alms.   

The writer is a PhD (Sociology) candidate at the Jawaharlal Nehru University