Beggary is a Social Problem in India. India, though free, is still a backward country as regards the social life of its people.
Our society has manifold evils. Millions of people in India to do nothing except begging and passing away their time in all sorts of nefarious and socially injurious practices. They do nothing but eat away the very vitality of our nation life. Many people of robust health are beggars.
To a great extent, the Western world is free from this unnecessary drain and pressure on their national output. Some people think that India’s religious and philosophic view of life is the chief reason for this beggar problem. Though we cannot deny this statement wholly, yet it is not at all a truth. Beggars and mendicants have, no doubt, been held in great esteem by the loftiest and the lowliest in India in the past. Some Indians believe that in order to prosper in this world and the next world, these beggars should be given alms. Religion has its own contribution to the acuteness of this problem. But economic causes also, are responsible for the same.
A large chunk of people in India are still poor this holds attractions for the social evil of begging. It is the best breeding ground for communism as well as for beggars. Neither the society is vigilant to deny the beggars their right for alms nor does the Government take any step to weed out this evil by creating and maintaining conditions of a decent and healthy national life. It has failed, to a great extent to provide poor houses for the crippled and labor houses for the able-bodied unemployed workers.
Though India is now a free country, and her future promises a lot, this problem of beggars has not been solved. Rather it has assumed vast proportions and remains an unchecked nuisance. A train of these beggars is to be found in every big town of India particularly at religious places.
At present the profession includes, in its compass, not only disabled and needy persons, but also able-bodied persons of doubtful character. Thieves, murderers, cheats and all types of criminals find it easiest to pass undetected in the guise of beggars. They lead a life of ease and indolence at expenses of others. Some families make begging their hereditary profession and they devise novel methods of appealing to the sympathies and nobler feelings of the people.
They will pretend to be dumb and deaf, although their faculties of speaking and hearing may be quite sound. Some of them pretend to undergo severe penances in public so that the people may take them to be pious souls and help them with alms.
If things are allowed to remain as they are in our country and nothing is done to check the growth of the beggar problem India can never prosper and can never take her due place in the community of nations. And one who raises a cry against this murderous profession is not headed to. There is the religion to back it. People think, what they sow in this world would be reaped by them in the next. If they give one rupee to a beggar, they would get much more rewards as a return in their next life.
Really, a bold and vigorous step is required in the direction towards eradication of the problem of beggary. The Government of India is taking efforts towards the welfare of the poor people. It is help to improve the situation. The Government should take the responsibility to provide for accommodation and food for the really needy persons, blind, cripples etc.
Every municipality must maintain a ‘poor house’ and only the disabled be permitted to live there. It must be financed by the board and the charitable organizations.
We have heard about the negative impact of Begging in our society. It is said that thousands of babies were stolen from their parents’ custody by the owners of ‘begging concerns’, blinded, crippled and artificially paralyzed. What a shockingly inhuman act it was!
Apart from the endeavors, to be made by the government to solve the problem of beggary, public enthusiasm is also needed to combat this evil, which is essentially a social evil, caused by the follies of our society. Naturally, beggary which is a social evil, can be remedied by social regeneration of India.