Abstract:
While Marx had made attempts to clearly establish a ‘destitute’ as state of being ‘unoccupied’ and ‘beggary’ as an absolute failure on the part of an individual to sustain effectively through certain means of productivity and livelihood, the terms seem to be highly interchangeable in the current day urban world. The current study attempts to understand beggary as a growing socio-economic problem and as an extreme form of poor in India. We have tried to analyse beggary from a developmental perspective and as an inevitable outcome of exploitation and criminalisation of poor under the vicious forces of political economy. We would want to recommend possible solutions to deal with beggary in the urban world based on our findings from…show more content… Lack of adequate attention to the welfare of various social arrangements, wealth accrued from industrialization getting confined in the hands of a few are some other factors that lead to the process of victimisation and criminalisation of the minorities, downtrodden and the poor masses in the country. The outcome is an increase in poverty in general, and begging in particular. The advent of industrialization has also disintegrated the village economy, so much so that owing to unemployment and poverty thousands migrate from rural areas to cities and other urban areas in search of livelihood making the situation even worse. Furthermore, industrial accidents, unemployment, disease and old age of people below the poverty line especially in urban areas have forced them into…show more content… According to the 1991 Census, about 2000 persons per square kilometre and 5.01 per cent of the country’s population live in extreme dense conditions of inhabitation with Greater Mumbai as the highest ranking in population (16,368,084) followed by Kolkata (13,216, 546) and Delhi (12,791,458). Urban India has 11.55 per cent of the total population living below the poverty line (Planning Commission Report, 2001). Such socioeconomic and cultural trajectories are also manifested in various other forms of poverty, which include morbidity and mortality from illness, malnutrition, lack of shelter (mainly in the city); thereby increasing the number of homeless people and pavement dwellers, beggary and vagrancy, and above all social discrimination, marginalisation and exclusion of such poor sections of population from the mainstream of life and development processes. The picture is graver in the urban areas of the country especially in the cities as beggary, vagrancy, homelessness, etc. are on rise.
The denial from employment and social exclusion (in terms of acceptance and tolerance) of the beggar section of population appeared to be justifiable and legitimised by a majority who practice the culture of marketization and consumerism and institutionalisation of beggary as an ‘offence’. Thus the cardinal reason for most of the different categories of beggars to earn a meagre living on the streets, near religious places
