Thandi Sadak….
Sometimes while on my digicam I get some pictures that ‘tell-a-tale’ great realities… here is one from the recent visit to lalbagh while the Annual flower show 2007….
The picture holds nice title of “Thandi Sadak”, symbolizing a ‘thunda’ attitude of police towards the beggar behind them or perhaps they have conveniently forgot that begging is still an offence under THE KARNATAKA PROHIBITION OF BEGGARY ACT, 1975
If they DID arrest the beggar, scores of pseudo human rights activists will be calling for their suspension.
The solution is to have rehabilitaion progams for physically disabled persons
@Rajesh: Does this post mean that you want the cops to arrest beggars or what? I don’t understand. Either ways WTF?
I agree that arresting the beggar would only lead to more controversy; and our country, with its culture of giving of alms, will not easily be able to get away from this kind of situation where a poor person (disabled or not!) feels that he can earn better by begging than by other means. We need a change of mindset, where each of us would do some voluntary work for the disabled, and give only to organizations rather than salve our conscience and give a few pennies to beggars.
I agree that arresting the beggar would only lead to more controversy; and our country, with its culture of giving of alms, will not easily be able to get away from this kind of situation where a poor person (disabled or not!) feels that he can earn better by begging than by other means. We need a change of mindset, where each of us would do some voluntary work for the disabled, and give only to organizations rather than salve our conscience and give a few pennies to beggars.
Sure….we have a country where there are people who throw gold chains as offerings to the “gods” sitting up there at thirupathi. Yet the poor and downtrodden cant get a buck to keep themselves alive.
If you’d really like to make a difference you should of taken this guy home and given him a job instead of hypocritically talking about an act which belongs to the British Raj era.
Make no mistake about it…Im no humanitarian crying about beggars rights. However there are bigger issues facing this country.
Besides this Id love to see people crying about government money being used to feed beggars in jail!!!
Rajesh, you pointed me to a very good URL. I always wondered why not much action is taken for beggars. It is good to see that there is something in place but sad to see how nothing gets implemented properly.