A Social and Moral Dilemma

Every day, at every cross road in every major city of India, all of us are faced with a moral question that none of us have answers for.

As your car or two wheeler approaches a signal light and your vehicle comes to a stop, all of a sudden from the road side each column of cars starting with the first car in line is thronged by under-privileged people (most people call them beggars, but that word beggars is so degrading that it doesn’t feel right to use that word for ANYONE): Under-privileged kids, women with babies in their arms, and old helpless women who can hardly walk. The big dilemma and uncomfortable situation that we are faced with is to whether to give them short-change that we have in our car, or to completely ignore them as if we don’t even seem them. Either ways, it’s a very uncomfortable situation because if you give them money, you know they will ask for more, and more of them will come, but if you don’t give them you feel bad/guilty internally for cold shouldering them.

My first reaction for a long time has been to not give them any money. I keep parle-G packets in my car to give them when someone knocks on my window, but I will never give them any money. My logic says that when you give them money, you never know what they are going to use that money for. Be it kids, women, or older women, the money eventually goes into eating gutka’s or bidi’s. yes, don’t be surprised, even kids in the under-privileged section eat gutka’s and smoke bidi’s. Besides, if we give them money, to me its encouraging them to keep continuing to beg (begging is an act, and so no harm in using it). I’d rather see those kids in schools and the women working to earn a living.

But is this really morally and socially correct??

Until we establish a structure in our society and in our governance system to support these under-privileged people, how can we expect then to become self sufficient? We have to change the way our society looks at them, we need to provide them the support system that will help them find something to do that they are good at, and that will earn them the money.

These kids on the street have amazing skills and talent. Just the other day, I saw just such an under-privileged kid doing summer-saults on the side of the road. She was flipping herself like I have seen very few people do. Now with that talent, we need to channelize it, and if it doesn’t get channelized and goes to waste on the side of the street, we cant blame those poor kids, we need to blame our system and ourselves, because we are as much a part of that system.

We need to establish enough schools which give enough incentives for kids to come. It doesn’t only have to be studies, we need to provide enough support in sports, arts, and handicrafts too. There are singers, painters, makers of cane sofas and accessories, makers of clay models, and what not all over the country, but because what they make doesn’t seen or earn them enough, they end up on the streets.

We as a society need to come up with a model to help these kids out. To make sure they earn what their talents deserve. If you see a well made painting on the street that you like, you would pay a couple of hundred ruppes for it, and even then try to bargain on it, but if you see an abstract painting (which doesn’t even make sense for the most part) by some famous artist you will end up paying in thousands, or even in lakhs. So why the double-standards??? I don’t expect anyone to pay in thousands, but atleast pay the guy on the street enough for him to be encouraged to continue to improve his art. Because if we don’t show that encouragement, he will have no choice but to beg or steel, because at the end of the day hunger is a far more demanding force than ethics. When rich people drop their ethics for getting bigger order, how can we expect poor people on the streets to adhere to them.

Anyways, I am taking the discussion onto a completely different track. Ethics at various levels is an completely different blog that I will write some day.
But yes, please look into yourself and establish small center’s of encouragement for the special talents in these under-privileged street side kids. Its our social and moral responsibility. That’s the only way we can eliminate poverty in our country. It wont happen overnight, but we can atleast start. Every small drop in the ocean adds up.