Beggarly Doctorly Mafias!

By Maxwell Pereira

The recent expose by a television news channel on the nexus between beggar mafias and rogue doctors has once again brought to sharp focus the persistent problem of beggary. In vivid detail was exposed the role of unscrupulous medical professionals resorting to a horrifying and unethical practice of amputating healthy limbs and surgically creating deformities for commercial self-gain, at the behest of beggar mafias.

That the social malaise of beggary continues to flourish with impunity in Indian cities is an under statement. It exists much to the disgust, distaste and horror of the community, affecting public health and environmental ambience of city life. As also tourism, with the unwelcome picture beggary portrays. Interest groups periodically get incensed in bursts and spurts to make noises on the issue – in debates and seminars, in courts, media and government offices, with little effect: And social scientists have endeavoured to highlight there is more to it than the blatant attempts by repressive crime control agencies to criminalize a social problem of poverty, destitution, homelessness, underemployment and unemployment in urban slums and ghettos.

Anti-begging laws do exist. The Social Welfare Departments (SWD) of Governments are tasked with tackling, if not eradicating the menace… and the police are to assist them in this task. Periodically joint drives are conducted to remove beggars from public places – particularly, from roads. Those picked up in Delhi are produced before designated courts, where most secure immediate release on various grounds or assurances. A few get remanded to beggar homes run by the SWD meant for vocation training and rehabilitation. But defeating the objective, their incarceration is never for more than few days. Invariably, all land back at their favourite begging spot to haunt and solicit with added vigour.

The Delhi Government under chief secretary Shailaja Chandra was the only time when some serious effort was made to tackle effectively this menace in the national capital. On 24 September 2002, the Delhi High Court had yet again directed Delhi administration to clear the city of beggars and hawkers – this time, because they `obstruct the smooth flow of traffic'. The order, in response to a public interest litigation (PIL) petition that described beggars and homeless people as the `ugly face of the nation's capital' and as people who, among other things, caused `road rage'. Coming on the eve of the April 2003 PATA Conference, it perhaps demanded more attention to provide an impetus for a concerted operation for clearing beggars off the streets.

Taking cue from the High Court, Ms Chandra tasked me as the city’s then traffic chief for a plan to rid road junctions of beggars. While I had nothing in the ‘traffic’ arsenal to target beggars, we came up with an idea of discouraging and penalizing vehicle owners and drivers who patronized beggars and vendors at road intersections.

The argument was simple. Beggars and vendors constituted an accident hazard while moving in and out of traffic; they also diverted the attention of drivers. And often motorists busy giving alms or buying wares obstructed vehicles behind them after the green light had come on.

So to supplement existing anti-beggary laws and give more teeth to enforcement modalities, we issued a notification – “No motorist shall encourage or indulge in activity detrimental to traffic flows or safety of road users at signalised traffic junctions. Giving alms to beggars or purchasing articles/ wares/ goods from roadside vendors at traffic junctions is an act obstructive to the quick discharge and smooth flow of traffic, and/ or hazardous in nature likely to endanger safety of other road users”. While providing for a fine for violating this rule, respecting the sensibilities of an intrinsically ‘charitable’ people, the notification clarified “it was not to discourage people’s urge for charity, but to channelise charity to right quarters away from traffic junctions.

Enforcement of this notification pinched – and was not palatable to NGOs working with street children. We faced a tirade against the move, and had to counter adverse public opinion fanned by the NGOs. Our stand of a vested interest commercialising beggary, even through maiming and dismemberment of victims kidnapped or recruited for the purpose, was decried by activists waving an old DP crime-branch study finding no role of criminals or mafia behind begging in Delhi. The police’s inability to expose mafia content behind beggary was used to defend the beggar community as a “distressed people” asking police to ‘de-criminalize’ begging as “people do not beg out of choice, but out of compulsion”.

There is for sure a vast segment of beggars who fall in the category of “distressed people”. But I firmly believed in the existence also of beggar mafias to exploit and commercialise the Indians’ tendency to gain punya by giving alms. That crime syndicates working behind begging do exist. And no doubt a large number of people are brought into Delhi for begging.

Also true, the criminal mafia character behind beggary needed more attention of the police, even while the infrastructure created within the SWD could have been adequately and effectively used to fight the beggar menace sincerely. Given the pressures and list of priorities the police are saddled with, that beggars do not come anywhere near top priority should not surprise anyone.

The projection of the ‘plight’ of those deprived of livelihood by my merciless act of sweeping them off the road with a ‘draconian’ law, did not hold water – at least for a while. The Delhi public strongly approved our move. Looking back, even if it was for a brief spell, Delhi’s roads were clean of beggars – the only time so perhaps, in the last over three decades of my association with the city.

31.07.2006: 900 words: Copyright © Maxwell Pereira:
Available at: http://www. maxwellpereira.com and mfjpkamath@gmail.com