Where the state can start to end begging

CHENNAI: From mapping and tracking communities that beg to creating beggar-free zones in the city – ideas are plenty in the corridors of power on ways to curb seeking alms. But implementing them stop short at their doors.

With past drives against beggary coming a cropper and rehabilitation plans remaining non-existent, TOI spoke to various stakeholders to find a long-term solution to check begging.

Vanessa Peter, a policy researcher at Information and Resource Centre for Deprived Communities, said the first step of rehabilitation is for the state government to acknowledge beggary is a social problem and factor in the heterogeneity of these vulnerable groups.

“There should be a clear distinction between destitute beggars and those who do it professionally. Their needs aren’t the same,” said Vanessa.

While at least 80% of professional beggars have houses on the city’s outskirts, the basic requirement of a destitute is shelter, she pointed. “And by shelter I don’t mean confinement,” she said, referring to past drives by the Chennai Corporation and city police, which involved rounding up beggars, including those who look like them, and admitting them to the Institute of Mental Health and other institutions.

While the state turns a blind eye to the needs of these beggars, they agree that not everyone is on the road by choice. Abject poverty, disability, illness, inter-state and intra-state migrations owing to failure in business or agriculture and family disputes are some of the major factors that push them to the streets.

“Sometimes, it is for as simple a reason as to buy a book,” said Sheila Charles Mohan, member, Child Welfare Committee, Chennai. She cited a recent instance of a 12-year-old produced before the committee. “He wanted to buy toys for his siblings. Something his parents couldn’t afford.”

The absence of any proper survey of beggars has come in the way of taking up a comprehensive rehabilitation programme. And their numbers are climbing. Louis Amudhan, senior divisional commissioner, Railway Protection Force, said at least 90% of the destitute they rescue from railway stations every week under Operation Dignity engage in begging. In 2015, 230 elderly destitute were rescued from Chennai Central and Egmore stations.

Last year, it climbed to 468, many of who were abandoned by their families. “All of them were sent to old age homes. Some of them returned to the same spot. To tackle beggary, what we need as a first step is a social protection programme for the destitute,” he said.

All the stakeholders TOI spoke to placed the onus on the district collectors to undertake a survey of beggars and to create a state-wide database, which will include their place of origin, educational qualifications and skill sets.

M P Nirmala, chairperson of Tamil Nadu Protection of Child Rights, said having a database would also help officials identify where most of these beggars are from.

“We need to get to their roots, identify their problems and work with them,” she said. Having a database parallel to the Centre’s missing child portal will also help the state identify children who could be trafficked.

Activists also suggested mapping services, entitlements and homes as part of the rehabilitation process. “Rehabilitation should involve an entire gamut -- skill building for the unskilled, employment linkages for the skilled, repatriation with families wherever possible,” said Vanessa. Professional beggars, she suggested, could be in institutional care for a little longer, where vocational training is provided too.

When asked which department should take the responsibility to chalk out a rehabilitation plan, response was varied – most suggested the social welfare department, many the police, a few pointed to the Chennai Corporation. None mentioned the Commissionerate for the Welfare of the Differently Abled that is currently tasked with rehabilitating beggars. “We need a nodal centre that deals exclusively with the issue,” said Girija Kumar Babu, general secretary of Indian Council for Child Welfare.

Calling criminalising of begging a colonial construct, Harsh Mander, director of the Centre for Equity Studies, said the state should, besides coming up with a social protection policy, start penalising those who force people to beg under stringent sections of the Indian Penal Code.

“Hostility against beggars derives from the conviction that there are dangerous mafias and gangs that abduct children, cut off their limbs and use them for begging. We have a law to punish them. That same law can’t be applied to the destitute and starving,” he said.


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