Begging as a business?
It's not a joke, but serious business, in Karachi. It is one of the most well networked, controlled and professionally managed businesses in the metropolis – so much so that it would beat Karachi's famed postal service in organisation and efficiency.
The big difference is that the post office is a legitimate service and begging is controlled by the underworld. Had it not been so, it would have been the subject of academic research into the manner in which religion, guilt and laziness are exploited to create a thriving enterprise.
The usual police-underworld nexus protects the business and acts like a safety net and that is why you see so many beggars unharassed by the police at intersections, even though it is strictly forbidden by law (and for that matter religion as well). But it is ingenuity, effort and understanding of human psychology that keeps begging a steady and growing business.
Weddings and Mosques are focal points for the begging mafia – after all, people feeling especially pious after their visit to a house of God, or on a joyous occasion are easy pickings for their army of beggars.
It will be almost impossible NOT to find a beggar panhandling outside of Juma prayers (Friday Prayers), outside any mosque as the congregation finishes it;s weekly prayers, there are several scores of beggars waiting to catch them as they emerge.
The beggars are invariably tragically maimed, diseased, old and often cannot even walk. They are typically brought to the mosques an hour before Juma prayer in a trucks and then transported away after a few hours of seeking alms.
One does not know what the service conditions are, but they are probably very exploitative. For those trapped in it, it is probably as exploitative as prostitution and petty robbery. But the business also works because begging, indeed, fetches more money than manual labour. If we were to restrain ourselves for a few seconds, and think about the problem, we would realize that we are indeed the source of the problem. If we choose not to give haphazardly to beggars on street corners, and rather instead choose to give in a structured manner to schools, or organized non-profits such as edhi, then not only will we be able to help our own communities, but also create positive economic cycles.
One of the worst aspects of the begging industry is that it employs a large number of children. Adults with money are especially vulnerable to the practiced woebegone faces of little children. But it is the inventiveness and imagination that is remarkable, and by giving money to these poor exploited children we are merely perpetuating a cycle of ignorance by not allowing them to get education and not allowing them to be able to learn a trade. We are essentially creating an economic black hole in the economy whereby we are creating a problem that should not exist.
Several months ago I encountered a cute seven-year-old with soulful eyes at an intersection on Sharah-e-Faisal. "begging is a bad thing isn’t it? I don’t want to beg, I want to earn a living by selling knick-knacks on the buses, but I don’t have the money for the deposit," he said in the best film fashion.
He told me it was Rs 10 he wanted for the deposit to be given to the dealer. The story was clearly fake and very clever. I grilled him about the business, asked him where the dealer was and even threatened to accompany him to the dealer to pay the money.
He nodded vigorously and agreed. But I didn’t do it. I simply had no time to verify the story. I parted with the ten bucks exactly as the kid knew I would.
I later learnt that he worked different intersections at different timings with the same story. I did a rough calculation and figured out that he would earn at the least Rs 3,000 a day, which was more than I earned those days with my multiple degrees.
Then there are the urchins who sell magazines at traffic signals. They are on to a new trick to boost commissions. They pick up soft targets (like me) and ask for a ride to the next big signal. They then begin to pour out a sob story about this big bad guy, who came by in a car 10 minutes ago and asked to see a glossy priced at Rs 100 and sped away without paying.
Your heart bleeds at the heartlessness of it all and the little brat hops off at the next signal richer by ten bucks or more, depending on how big a sucker you are.
It happened to me twice before I got wise, the third time, I told the little imp that I wanted to hear no 'hard luck story' – he sold me a magazine instead.
The organisation drops the hard luck act during eid festivities. Child beggars are then trained to smile and persuade you to share your joy.
There is another bunch of women who work the signals pretending to seek money for the funeral rites of an abandoned body. Over the years, they have become smart enough to target only those in private taxis who they clearly identify as tourists.
It never fails to work and the pickings are big. During the few minutes at a signal you often watch them pocket Rs 30 or 40. In fact, they flash their notes around as a benchmark to stop you fishing for small change.
Ever so often I have had colleagues offer jobs to able women and child beggars, but they are not interested. It is much more lucrative to prey on the guilt of hardworking individuals and work flexible hours at street signals/mosques rather than seek employment. The business hardly has lean periods.
Please do your part and pass along the message:
In order for us to succeed as a society, we simply can not indulge in helping those who are really not in need.
Pakistan has a whole deluge of problems, and we should give to the right causes to help alleviate poverty, hunger, and not to manipulative organized crime.
Please pass on the message for all of us.
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