Just weeks ahead of the high-profile Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) to be held in Hyderabad on November 28-30, the city police has found itself making international headlines for all the wrong reasons. A move to round up ‘beggars’ and rehabilitate them ahead of the event has raised eyebrows. The original city police notification on the issue stated the beggars were inconveniencing people and asking for alms, sometimes in an “indecent” manner.
Even as the Telangana prisons department, one of the best-run in the country, protested the intent was to rehabilitate the beggars, parallels were drawn to a similar sweep in 2000 ahead of a visit by then US President Bill Clinton.
It may be noted that Ivanka Trump, the daughter of the current US president, is scheduled to attend the GES. Stung by criticism that the state is trying to ‘whitewash’ reality for the benefit of foreign dignitaries, the police have now issued a statement saying the programme will be halted till after the GES. But this does not alter the problems inherent in such ‘sweeps’.
A rights-based approach would ask why people end up begging or living on the streets, what interventions can address the causes behind such circumstances. For instance, strengthening mental healthcare and support systems at the village-level might prevent people with mental illness ending up on the streets of cities.
The Telangana prisons rehabilitation programme for beggars sounds good on paper, but even the department’s press notes describe begging as a ‘menace’ and betray its intentions. The department also insists those rounded up can leave at any time after establishing their identity and giving an undertaking not to beg, but that implies the state views people as ‘problems’ to be ‘fixed’ rather than as humans with rights and aspirations whose circumstances or choices have left them destitute. It is this attitude that should cause more concern than any colonial hangover that may cause a developing country to hide its poor from western dignitaries.