Mumbai as a visitor.

nanookmog

We are heading to Mumbai in March and, with all the discussion around beggars, wonder if there are any institutions that specifically attempt to help people in this position that we could donate to before going or during our trip?

patrickgill

Were you referring to the percentage of people below the rather stingy poverty line? The most recent data I can find is from the Planning Commission in March '07 which puts the percentage between 21.8 and 27.5, depending on how you measure. Interesting stuff:
http://www.planningcommission.gov.in/news/prmar07.pdf

So I wasn't wrong to quote that figure after all. Although I think we're both agreed on that the massiveness of Indian poverty cannot be overstated.

I also think we're both agreed that most beggars are deserving of sympathy for one reason or another, and that's all I was ever trying to say. (I'm not saying that sympathy is always a particularly useful emotion in this context.) My only motive in posting my earlier screed was to ward off the idea that most beggars should be treated with extreme suspicion -- I hope you'll agree with me here.

Almost all are desperately poor; perhaps many are also directly exploited. There might be a few exceptional wealthy cases which pop up in these fairly flimsy tabloid stories, which are no doubt the usual mixture of interesting fact, fascinating exagerration and deliberately ommitted vital details. (those that do make it rich, well I salute their ingenuity -- god knows India doesn't make it easy for anyone.)

But I still think the exact nature of the so-called "beggar mafia" remains very hazy. There seem to be definite instances of individual exploitation, particularly when it comes to children. Still, police studies that I've read about have never been very conclusive either way. In one of the studies done for Delhi's social welfare department, out of 3,526 beggars interviewed, only 22 said they were forced to beg, while only 8 said they were a member of a begging gang (I concede the surveyors' categories are also a little hazy). 2,871 (i.e. a large majority) said they did not beg in any one fixed area but rather roamed around to different temples and markets etc..., which again seems to bely the idea of a gang boss controlling particular beggars at a particular spot. I recognise that this doesn't account for the dangerously malnourished children you see at regular spots, flogging torches one day and santa hats the next -- if you can find information on this aspect of this business I'd be interested to read more about it.

I'm glad you posted those links. I was interested to see the undercover Mumbai Mirror reporter was able to beg for nearly three weeks in different places across the city without once being forced to hand over earnings to the beggar mafia, and that all he pocketed was less than 500rs in that time (http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpa...04 6c1b4281e). It made it clearer that the other beggar stories they run are very much the exception, if they're true at all, rather than the norm.

This story was posted by someone else:
http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpa...232131994fa19f
It's a really good example of how a flimsy tabloid story is concocted. I noticed the man being beaten up in the pictures is never explicitly referred to as a beggar mafia guy, and when a newspaper doesn't say something outright it's often not for very wholesome reasons. There's nothing on the page to contradict the idea that the fight could be about something wholly unrelated to the story, which always makes me a bit suspicious. Moreover, this guy is getting beaten up on Barakhamba Road; yet the story is talking about beggars a few kms away at ITO. And my favourite bit of tabloid laziness is the best supporting quote they could find was from a random, unnamed policeman!

As I said, even if Indian tabloids were by some never-seen-before miracle producing flawless, accurate, non-sensationalistic reporting about rich beggars, they are not talking about the majority of beggars -- again I think you emphasised the same point, Dilliwala. I believe that middle-class readers of English-lang newspapers, including myself, deserve to feel a sting of something resembling guilt whenever poverty taps on their windows. I resent the newspapers for trying to soothe that sting.

p.

Dilliwala

patrick,
(Disclaimer: I'm unable to deduce whether u are a long-time resident of India or recently-arrived, so E & OE if I say something that looks like I'm trying to 'teach' u)

"Were you referring to the percentage of people below the rather stingy poverty line?"
"So I wasn't wrong to quote that figure after all. Although I think we're both agreed on that the massiveness of Indian poverty cannot be overstated."

I'm saying that the number of poor in this country in reality (whatever that means) is nearer 35-40%, not 25%. Of course I don't have any links to prove this, this is just what I learnt from the School of Life. E.g. a farmer who is driven to suicide out of sheer desperation is poor, no matter that he owns 2 bighas of land. (He is of course "better off" than those sleeping under the fly-over nearest to my place. Better to be landed and poor than landless and poor )

Govt reports and figures in this country are believed by the concerned govts only. (Wasn't it recently that one govt ran ads with a series of figures, the punchline being "You never had it so good"? They got voted out. ) In college we studied about poverty figs going right back to the 70's, including instances of re-categorisation (yes, it's been done more than once) to make the figs look less unattractive. The lecturer laughingly said something to the effect that "the govt wud have us believe that poor people are stampeding across the poverty line." Trying to picture that line as real and a stampede to cross it - let's say the image is just as sharp today in my mind as then whenever I read something about poverty going down. Still causes me to smile (the saying, not the poverty figs) whenever I recall it.

"I also think we're both agreed that most beggars are deserving of sympathy for one reason or another...."

Yes.

"My only motive in posting my earlier screed was to ward off the idea that most beggars should be treated with extreme suspicion -- I hope you'll agree with me here."

There's a saying in Hindi "Ek gandi machhli sare talab ko ganda karti hai" (one dirty fish dirties the whole pond).
The harsh reality is, as I said previously, that organised begging is widespread (there will never be an accurate report - we don't do those in this country. And rightly or wrongly, no one trusts the police, even when their motive is genuine). The fact that it's a small percentage of all begging is not the issue here; this is not a percentage issue but a numbers issue. Since most people can't distinguish a 'genuine' (cough) beggar from a mafia-controlled one, the human tendency is to believe that most of them are mafia-controlled, if not all (like with terrorists. Bad comparison, but I'm using it to highlight my point). And therefore people will choose not to give. Nobody wants to feel 'ripped-off'. We can accept that however wrong (branding all beggars), this is what happens, or not. How does one go about educating a society? I have no idea where to start.

I don't have a high opinion of the TOI group, not in its new avtar - I find them lacking seriousness of purpose and a tendency to sensationalise even the most mundane news. However they are not generally given to outright lying. There is some truth, even if only a kernel, in what they write - the SOL teaches us to separate the wheat from the chaff. The MM undercover report for me was more disturbing in that the guy was able to hire a baby with such ease, and less about how much he made.

"And my favourite bit of tabloid laziness is the best supporting quote they could find was from a random, unnamed policeman!"
Not that I'm accepting anything in the report as gospel, but just on this point - most cops wudn't give their name out in such cases. Bad journalism? Yes. No quote, 'bad' quote - too many outlets, too few eye-balls, many reporters will opt for the 'bad' quote. Our desi news channels are even worse - they prefer, e.g., to show live a crowd lynching a petty thief, rather than analysing why he was stealing to start with.

"I believe that middle-class readers of English-lang newspapers, including myself, deserve to feel a sting of something resembling guilt whenever poverty taps on their windows."

They do.

Anyway, we may disagree on some details, but it's good to be able to air views. I think we broadly agree that a lot more needs to be done.