Come summers, Valley witnesses an unprecedented surge in the problem of beggary. Though a social evil, but here in the Valley the mendicancy has been flourishing with more and more people including small children joining the ranks of beggars to swell their number to teasing levels. There is hardly any nook or corner where there can be found no stretching hands begging for anything. Although beggars were always present here but their numbers would make them insignificant to the extent that beggary was hardly noticeable. But since past few years the problem has aggravated so much so that it seems that the Valley has become practically a paradise for begging hands. During the holy month of Ramazan – which will commence in couple of weeks — the problem takes mammoth proportions and this year too the situation is no different. In fact with mainland India witnessing intense heat, the numbers of beggars that have already descended into Kashmir is unprecedented, and so are obviously its ramifications.
In the past, if any local would take to begging, it was sheer compulsion that would make the person to opt for a practice that would remain a slur on the status of the progeny for quite some time. But now times have changed. Any person can go for it and when benevolent people like Kashmiris are around, then there is no question of mendicancy proving a failed option. People here are of different stock. If they have it, they will give away some to a seemingly needy person as alms ignoring the fact that the receiving hand may be just amassing money by feigning destitute.
Encouraged by this trait of the Kashmiris, people from other states have come here to start business out of begging. There are many people who leave some handicapped persons at different places in the cities and towns with a bowl and collect the money in the evening. What they need spend is just to provide food to the collecting body. There are numerous boys and girls who also have been addicted to mendicancy. They have become so unabashed that they will not hesitate to insult a respected citizen even on slightest pretext of receiving few bucks than expected. People are now seen shirking and avoiding these mendicants by routing their way. It is quite unfortunate that state-subjects have to divert their way for fear of being insulted or rebuked by a non-state-subject who has become so powerful by sheer begging that he/she can verbally overpower anyone. Although this time round the ongoing unrest has been somewhat a deterrent for the beggars from outside the Valley, but the problem nevertheless is perceptibly visible.
About 70 percent of the beggars here are from outside the state which compounds the problem manifold as it creates social problems as well. The hutments where these mendicants reside become bars in the evenings. The money collected is used for drinking alcoholic beverages. And even after watching all this government seems helpless to address the problem firmly so that the menace is eradicated once for all. Why do authorities allow people from other states to beg and trouble the people in the state? It has been a scourge for the people of the state which they desperately want to be lodged down from their wits.
Presence of beggars everywhere also bring bad name to the people of the state as the tourists from outside the state take them as belonging to Kashmir. State has already failed to redress the problem of local beggars and when the unwanted guests are thronging here, it is proving a source of great inconvenience to one and all in the state. So government needs to ban the pouring in of the beggars from outside the state by banning it out-rightly. Only then can the people of the state heave a sigh of relief and the money that goes as alms can be used in a better and constructive manner to rehabilitate those who are genuinely in need of some help.
