APROPOS the article ‘Child beggars’ (Oct 12), I would like to add my personal experience and interaction with beggars to share my perception of how begging operates and whether or not beggars are to be sympathised with.

Begging can be considered the ultimate form of helplessness. However, I have seen physically able and healthy people begging on the streets, the pavements and, particularly, around the traffic signals. This, to me, is a matter of choice even if it means dependence on others to raise money. This is not begging.

I have come across people belonging to the working class seeking charity around street corners.

They have become fatalistic, believing that they are born poor and will always remain poor simply because it is their fate. They have given up on trying to make a life out of the hand that the fate seems to have dealt them. This, again, is not begging.

Nobody can deny, however, that on the larger scale, begging has become a ‘business’ in countries like Pakistan, India and Bangladesh where the beggars operate ‘professionally’ and in an organised manner.

Though the business’s origin may seem to be people’s helplessness, looking beneath the surface of the issue, we are able to understand the extent to which this ‘business’ is corrupted.

I remember an encounter with a beggar whom I asked if he had a shelter of his own. To my surprise, he replied that he comes from his home located in Korangi via rickshaw to Phase V, 9th commercial street in the posh Defence Housing Authority (DHA), to his ‘work’; to beg. After what that beggar said, it became hard for me to have any sympathy for him and I simply moved on.

These professional beggars are involved in emotional and religious blackmail as they deceive people to portray themselves as helpless and needy, which they truly are not. Awareness needs to be spread on the matter as people need to think twice before handing out money to those who do not deserve it.

Imtiaz Ali Mirani
Shikarpur

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2021