Beggars and choosers
To some the ever-increasing number of beggars in the society could be a matter of profound interest, or even anxiety.
A report in newspapers recently highlighted that, in the Pakistani-city of Karachi, in certain areas, the average income of the beggars is about seventy thousand rupees a month, as portrayed by a survey. This sum is more than what an average-level executive working in an average company might be earning.
In my neighborhood-slum too, there lives a beggars with his family, hiring a room at one thousand rupees a month. He goes away early in the morning and returns late. But people in the area have no doubts about his profession, though he never begs here. In fact, he practices his profession in the another end of the city, and is a matter of social-discussions often, in our neighborhood. The nearly twenty other families, sharing the similar habitat near him in that slum, but none practicing his profession, too could be often discussing his life-style among them.
If the existing state of affairs continues, the number of people trying to make a living by doing jobs may suffer a set back. Because, when you start obliging them, the beggars begin crowding you, and a day may come when you will have to join them.
But then is there, the glorification of begging in our culture, which is considered a renouncement of the worldly things. But how does one define some of the former beggars joining the politics; or advising the politicians? Also, how does one display his wealth, if there are no beggars coming to him?
The polity should be the kind that intends to pull more and more - manifest or incognito - beggars into the economical process of producing. But the penetration of beggars into it has rendered that possibility remote. It even gives the hints that a reverse trend may be afoot. The above-mentioned news from Karachi, at least, indicates to that fact.
Observing carefully the deliberations in the different international forums, the exact drama, as described here; found in the society; is staged unabashedly over and over again: Where a few rich governments appear chasing away some begging governments, while selectively obliging the others.
But every begging-government, at home, tries to give the impression that it had been the chooser in such international forums. But every body knows that such charades do not fool anyone.
K. C. Bhatt.