Much to everyone’s surprise, street- children and beggars no Longer sneak into traffic when it comes to a halt at red signals. Nobody now, insist you there to purchase newspapers ,magazines and flowers . Nobody ask you to take pity and give alms on the very road meant for driving .The changes are clearly visible as Delhi’s traffic and civil administration manage to get rid of once seemingly difficult and embracing problem .The sprawling vagrant community in Delhi is out of sight these days as the city finds itself in the midst of hosting commonwealth games.
Though this is a positive development and clearly in line with standardized operational procedure to host the game, my mind dwells upon the fate of those marginalized people who, just a few days back, used to scramble for merely feeding themselves in this highly economic prosperous city .Now driven forcibly out of this city the destitute might have made their ways into some other cities where conditions for them would be no better. Everywhere, these people heavily rely on sympathy and pity of some passers-by for their subsistence .They are no better than animals who spend their entire life with no permanent roofs on their heads and stand vunralable to various kinds of exploitations and abuses. Nature’s fury hit them hard as they lack in even basic requirements of life .The most vunralable among them are women and children who are criminally abused and thrown for begging ,prostitution , street-selling and some other anti-social activities. The number of such poverty stricken people are increasing at an alarming rate. They can be easily traced on railway platform, bus-stand ,road-side and any other public places. Their ubiquitous presence causes lots of inconvenience to people and is blot on socio-economic picture of India, which the world looks at to be a near future superpower. The shocking growth of such phenomenon manifests our collective failure in addressing the pressing needs of unprivileged and weaker section of society.
As there is no dearth of legislation and experience has proved them to be only partially effective, we need to mull over some other ways to give a death blow to this ominous shadow .This should be our collective responsibility though the government with its mammoth resources can provide leadership to the cause on a sustained basis. Some ministers could come forward to take up the cause of these people and strive to ameliorate their condition significantly during their tenure .Some other may choose the cause of their interest and work on them as mission. This is exactly what some British parliamentarians are reported to be doing these days .The noble practice will provide the necessary political voice and support to these penurious community, in the absence of which they are bound to lead a reprehensible and shameful life.
In a world we are living today, we cannot expect all the people to devote themselves fully to social causes. Thinking so is impractical and it amounts to only emotional treatment of the problem. The pragmatic approach would be to evolve such course of actions which can be easily undertaken by individuals and institution without overlooking their own priorities and pursuits. What I seek to suggest here is to develop a structure which could effortlessly solicit peoples involvement in social works and they can readily respond positively to such calls .This will happen when people need not have to go extra mile for serving the community and they may contribute towards the cause while doing their own work. This way individualism will not become obstacle in the way of community development and fraternity. Though this work is not easy and calls for a greater degree of administrative acumen along with indefatigable effort on the part of the government and its machineries, this will prove once adopted to be a panacea for all social malaise.
The gist of the matter is that the continuing preoccupation of Indian people with fixing their own priorities is translating into a lack of meaningful engagement with the so called unprivileged community .This has caused a social hazard and it can be tackled successfully only by striking a right chord between material progress and altruistic endeavor .
Since awareness precedes any change, media has an important role to play in this regard .It can also help to bring about changes in social and administrative attitude towards drifters. Some NGOs and corporate houses are already doing their bit, they can now encompass left outs and vertically launch the programs so as to dent on the problem. Educational institutions should be infused with a culture of sensitivity and sympathy through various participatory programs so that the coming generations may not show callousness towards poor people.
As the signal flashes green, my mind is filled with a palpable fear of these communities haunting back to the city once the mega event is over . Though my small piece of work ends here with a note of fear and pessimism, your grand work should begin here with a hope and optimism to weed out this social stigma and implant in society an aesthetic cultural amalgamation forever.
VASHISTHA RAY.
