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| Crackdown: New Delhi is now enforcing its ban on begging. raveendran/afp/getty images/newscom |
New Delhi cleanup sends in the Beggar Raid Teams
To transform itself into a 'world-class city,' India's capital is locking up panhandlers.
By Mian Ridge | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the March 4, 2008 edition
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New Delhi - Paltu frantically tries to hide a coin in his clothing. The young man has been begging outside a temple in New Delhi, where panhandling is illegal. And police have just seen him accept 1 rupee (about $0.03) from a passerby.
As they swoop down, Paltu begs the police not to lock him up. "I can't get any work," he cries, gesturing at the stumps of his legs. But the police force Paltu, who walks on his hands, into a van with grilled windows. He moves obediently to a seat at the back, quietly weeping.
Though begging has been illegal in India's capital since 1960, it has mostly been tolerated. Across India, the ancient custom of giving alms, especially near places of worship, remains an important part of many peoples' lives.
In 2010, however, New Delhi will host the Commonwealth Games, and authorities are trying to transform the capital into the "world-class city" promised in glitzy ads. Many of their efforts are controversial, from rounding up stray cows – regarded as sacred by Hindus – to building a mammoth games "village" on the banks of the Yamuna River, which nonprofit organizations say may precipitate an environmental disaster.
But nothing is quite so shocking as New Delhi's crackdown on its beggars. "This is a criminalization of poverty," says Anand Kumar, a lawyer with the New Delhi-based Human Rights Law Network. "Many of these people have no option but to beg. To arrest them without even providing the infrastructure that guarantees them the most basic needs is appalling."
City populations swell
The government has made some efforts to tackle the root causes of begging, such as an exodus of rural poor to the cities.
According to a recent survey by Delhi University, most beggars in New Delhi came to the city from impoverished rural areas
in search of work. By 2030, India's urban population is expected to have swelled from 285 million to 575 million – an increase
of about the size of America's population. [Editor's note: The original version incorrectly referred to the "rural" population.]
In the Feb. 29 budget, the government planned to waive more than $15 billion dollars of loans to small farmers.
Although some nongovernmental organizations work with beggars and homeless people in Indian cities, providing food, shelter, and vocational training that might lead to employment, their contribution is a drop in the ocean of Indian poverty. Some 260 million of the Indian population of 1.1 billion people exist on less than $1 a day. [Editor's note: The original version misstated the number of Indians living on less than $1 a day.]
Beggars rounded up
But right now, Delhi's government has a cleanup operation on its hands. The beggar roundup is being organized by the city's Social Welfare Department. Every morning, it dispatches nine vans from its Beggar Raid Team. Each carries three plainclothes men, who scan the crowded streets of bullock carts, cows, motorbikes, cycle rickshaws, newspaper hawkers, and stray dogs for ragged people pleading for money.
"Since the end of last year, we've been told to increase the numbers we arrest," says Anand Pandey, a civil servant known as a "raid officer," who is in charge of the team that just caught Paltu, as he peers out the window. "Generally we observe them from a distance and then try to catch them red-handed."
Warrants are not necessary for arresting beggars. Once picked up, they are tried in the city's Beggars' Court. Those whom Mr. Pandey calls "first-time offenders" often go free with a warning. Others are incarcerated until friends or family scrape together the money to pay their bail of about 3,000 rupees (about $75). Many are locked up in "beggars' homes" – dedicated jails – for a minimum of one year and a maximum of 10, the latter being the same penalty given for violent robberies. If they are "blind, a cripple or otherwise incurably helpless," according to the law, beggars can be locked up for life.
After Paltu's arrest, the police home in on an elderly man in a green turban and filthy white shirt begging at the temple who later gives his name as Shankar. He kicks and screams as the police wrestle him to the ground, where he lies moaning and refusing to move.
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