Begging for Change

By: Cherie Chung

June 2, 2015

While living in Pune, I stayed right across from an ice cream/milkshake shop called Sujata Mastani, located in a busy intersection that was always full of potential customers—except for one elderly woman, who was always there but never buying. With her shrunken frame, permanently frowning face, and cane, she couldn’t help but inspire pity amongst the shoppers. She sat there with her hand outstretched, hoping that this pity would turn into a little bit of money for her to live on. Every day, I watched as people ignored this woman, eating their ice cream and chatting away happily while she lived her life on the streets. I wondered if she was like the others who slept outside shops during the night with no place to go. I wondered why people didn’t care more. I wondered how I could help her.

After nearly five months in South Asia, I still have not become desensitized to this kind of suffering—one of the biggest stereotypes about India, but one that is not at all unfounded. While walking through a crowded commercial area, I nearly fell into tears after seeing beggar after beggar, maimed and diseased in ways that I had never witnessed in the West. One man with leprosy held out his diseased fingers in a plea for sympathy, while another woman’s back was so twisted and hunched that just sitting there must have brought her immeasurable pain. Seeing the children, however, hurts in a whole different way. They will often come up to you while your rickshaw is stopped at a traffic light, sometimes selling balloons or stickers, with matted hair and grungy clothes. Just when you think your heartstrings can’t be yanked any further, the little children look at you with big eyes and say softly and pitifully, “Please… for me… something to eat…” while gesturing to their empty mouths and perhaps touching your hand or arm.

I confess that my heart softens so easily, and my arm reaches towards my wallet while my mind rationalizes that it’s only 100 rupees, not even two dollars for me, that will allow them to eat a decent meal. Who could it hurt? But the truth is that it can hurt a lot. In some cases, you might be financing mafia gangs that kidnap children, forcing them to beg for money and then keeping their earnings. These gangs will take the children to a hospital and deliberately amputate a limb, because crippled children earn more money begging. A sting investigation in 2006 exposed several doctors who agreed to amputate limbs for as little as 200 dollars. The gangs may also keep these children on all forms of alcohol and drugs to keep them complacent. The victims aren’t just children, but also babies. One news story told of a family who left their baby with the nanny at home each day, only to find out that the nanny had been renting the baby out for 100 rupees a day to be used by beggars. While the nanny’s deceit is unusual, renting babies is more common and is done to garner sympathy.

So why hasn’t this stopped? Part of the problem lies in a criminalization of begging—a tendency to view them as a public nuisance, a disturbance to traffic, and a target for arrest. Criminalizing beggars merely punishes helpless people and does not assist them, simply giving the gangs more power. Another part of the problem lies in child protection laws, which vary from state to state. For example, in Delhi, after 24 hours a case of kidnapping must be filed with the police; however, in many places, no report is filed, and the child’s name is simply added to a registry of already missing people. With scant reporting and little enforcement, there is very little fear of prosecution to keep a kidnapper from taking another child.

Of course, not all beggars have been forced into begging by the gangs. Some are there supplementing their professional income; some are disabled or unfit to work. Regardless of why or how they got there, however, 10 or 20 rupees is not going to provide a permanent solution. What this has taught me is an important lesson about development in general; it’s important to ignore the knee-jerk reaction to just give money haphazardly. We have to think about cause and effect, and how we can design innovative and long-term solutions to these kinds of problems. If not, we are just begging for them to continue.

For inspiration, read this article about a bank started by beggars.

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