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We have seen that only a small fraction of homeless people beg for alms for a living, and these tend to be persons who are disabled or ageing. But the laws and police actions that criminalise begging, vending at traffic lights, street performances and even just ostensible destitution, make survival even more hellish for them, and dignified survival an impossibility.
There are many ways that the law in India empowers State authorities to lock up, and indeed lock away our most vulnerable people. These include in every city significant numbers of homeless people.
Most jails are packed with impoverished and socially disadvantaged people, held for prolonged periods without conviction, frequently for petty offences. Children without adult care and protection are housed sometimes for their entire childhood in jail-like State-run juvenile homes. Girls and women deemed by the State or judicial authorities to be “in moral danger”, including those rescued from sex work or young women in inter-religious or inter-caste relationships, are incarcerated in custodial women’s homes, often confined all day in small spaces with no opportunities for play and privacy.
Laws to criminalise beggary were enacted in India for the first time under colonial rule, overturning a very different civilisational tradition which taught the...