Beggars are found through out  India, in villages and  towns, in cities and metros. Like the God Almighty they seem to be omnipresent. Their favourite haunts are roads, crossings, footpaths, bus-stands, railway stations, trains, marketplaces, temples, religious or festival fairs.  By seeing people at these places, beggars start an endless volley of      entreaties and blessings. They follow people close at their heels and keep    pestering them  till they give them some coins out of a sense of sheer disgust and helplessness.

There are different types of    beggars in India. The religious beggars cluster round pilgrim centers. Wherever we go, to Mata Vaishno Devi in Jammu Kashmir or Lord Balaji  in Tirupati, Tajmahal in Agra or Jagannath Dham in Puri, we see bands of beggars lining on both sides of the roads.

The crippled and disabled beggars remain lying on road sides arousing sympathy of the passer-by making all kinds of pitiful gesture. There are beggars who are quite stout and able-bodied. Begging is  a  profession for them. They beg by acting as physically handicapped or by drawing sympathy that one of his family member is in hospital and he needs money for treatment. There are some lady beggars who beg with their small kids and with artificial tears in eyes saying that the child has not eaten anything from last night. Another class of wise beggars beg by wearing the clothes of our God and Goddesses. Even children of  the professional begging families are involved in this profession with proper skills and techniques to draw people’s sympathy, to cheat them and to earn by this nasty mean.

Hence, begging in modern India has developed into an art and a fully-fledged profession. In ancient India begging was considered as the noblest of all professions. The saints called as ‘Bikshhus’ were collecting ‘biksha’ in order to lead a divine and pure life, far away from the  materialistic life. People were honouring them and inviting them to their houses in love and devotion and offering them food and drink in all veneration considering it as a divine work.

Begging is the result of the poverty of the country and the deep-seated religious sentiments and superstitions of our people. Unemployment, illiteracy and rapid  population growth are also responsible for begging.

But begging is the greatest social evil. It encourages idleness and inactiveness. It produces parasites and wastes a sizeable amount of human power.  Government should legislate laws for abolishing this evil practice. The disabled and crippled people should be maintained by the state. The able-bodied idle beggars should be compelled to work at government work-houses. The orphan child beggars must be provided with food, cloth, shelter and education. If proper action is not taken now, then in near future a day may come when the beggar problem will become India’s biggest problem.