Slumdog Millionaires

Mumbai has been home to several abandoned human being. Abandonment is in respect to money, shelter, caste and food. Clearly these substance has been the foremost entities that India looks on to. We have grown but our predominant thought process is yet to. Still exists rural areas where classism is still practiced in a scale out grown. Aamir, a shy and scared child who he recollects he was. Aamir was initially grateful when a ‘kind’ older couple befriended him on his arrival in Mumbai. This chaotic urban sprawl is now India’s largest city and home to more than 20 million people.

Overcrowding is now so bad in this huge metropolis that shanty towns have even sprung up in the international airport. People in rags scavenge as giant jets thunder past just feet away. But for many on the Indian sub-continent, Mumbai will always be the city of dreams — a place of Bollywood film stars and gold-paved streets. It was certainly the image that brought Aamir here.

Fleeing a violent, drunken father in rural India — his mother had died years before — the12-year-old had sneaked on to a train bound for the city. And when he got there, he hoped to make his fortune. It was not to be. Alighting at Victoria Station, the city’s main terminal and an architectural monument to the days of the British Raj, Aamir was penniless and bewildered. He started begging for food. Within minutes, a couple emerged from the crowd and approached him. They gave him cakes and said they’d take him away to start a better life. He always craved for a better life.

But Aamir’s food was drugged and when he became drowsy, the couple put him in a rickshaw and took him to the city’s municipal hospital, which is where the real nightmare began. For at the hospital, a doctor was paid to amputate one of his healthy legs. He was in great pain, but no one ever cared.

His limb had been severed mid-calf, leaving him without a foot. Now in hiding after being rescued from the hospital by a charity, Aamir is one of hundreds of Indian children deliberately crippled by gangs so they can earn extra money begging. He still struggles to talk about his experience.

According to a recent survey by Delhi School of Social Work there has been a phenomenal increase in the numbers of beggars in India. In a decade since 1991 their number has gone up by a lakh.There are some 60,000 beggars in Delhi, over 3, 00,000 in Mumbai according to a 2004 Action Aid report; nearly 75000 in Kolkata says the Beggar Research Institute; 56000 in Bangalore according to police records. In Hyderabad one in every 354 people is engaged in begging according to Council of Human Welfare in 2005. The numbers a little historic but not less to get itself unnoticed stature.

Mumbai is home to majority of beggars. According to the Maharashtra Government they are worth Rs. 180 crore a year with daily income ranging between Rs 20-80.Almost every survey profiles beggars as a largely contented lot unwilling to take up honest labour. Nearly 26% in the DSSW survey claimed they were happy.81% claimed that they do not face any problem during begging and only 15% mentioned humiliation from public and police. A survey done in 2004 by the Social Development Centre of Mumbai revealed similar attitude. The majority of beggars see it as a profitable and viable profession.

The biggest problem lies in the changing attitude towards beggars. Traditionally, begging has been an accepted way of life in India. Giving alms to the needy was built into the social fabric. That changed with the colonial rule. To the Victorians beggary embodied laziness and moral degeneration. Colonial laws held a beggar punishable for his condition. The newly independent nation imbibed this attitude towards poverty. In the new millennium the Government doesn't want them lying around middle class regards them as a nuisance.

If there are problems, certainly the laws exist to promote/prevent it. India's beggary laws are a throwback to the centuries old European vagrancy laws which instead of addressing the socio-economic issues make the poor criminally responsible for their position. The definition of beggar in law states as anyone who appears poor. The anti-beggar legislation is aimed at removing the poor from the face of the city. The beggars who have spent years on the street find it very difficult to live in confined space. There are provisions for vocational training in the government run beggar homes. But these are worse than the third rate jails where convicts can spend up to 10 years.

India as a nation needs to think for its begging population. With the nation aspiring to achieve world standards in every field socio-economic measures are needed to curb the begging problem in India. The solution calls for a comprehensive programme and reorientation of the existing programmes. Philanthropic approach to beggar problem should be replaced by therapeutic and rehabilitative work.

But may be it has always been ignorant. We keep talking about developing infrastructure, but often tend to under state the severity of these slumdog millionaires who directly or indirectly are meddling to country’s grace and economy. Sure growth is still lot to be understood.