Taste of Life: ‘Begging’, a boon and a bane

For the last few years, every December, several social media users have been posting about the dying tradition of a “Vasudeo” singing devotional songs in the morning. They lament the disappearance of the folk singers and urge their readers to preserve the Indian culture.

“Vasudeo” is a community of Krishna worshippers who are said to have come to Maharashtra from Dwarka in Gujarat. They are wanderers who sing songs and survive on alms given by the people. They wear a long coat reaching to the ankles and a turban with a peacock coronet. They wrap a piece of red cloth around the waist, throw a wallet over the left shoulder, and take the cymbals or “chiplis” which they beat while they sing and move about the streets.

The “Vasudeo” is one of the several communities listed by the government as “bhikshekari”, or those who survive on alms. However, the Colonial rule, and later, the Indian laws, always saw them as “beggars”. The specific caste-based identities and their functions, even though unjust, were subsumed under the larger classification of “beggars”.

The so-called “beggar problem” was a subject of much discussion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Poona. Applications were made by citizens regularly to the Poona municipality, and later, to the Legislative Council for the provision of shelter, food, and clothing for the disabled and the infirm living on streets of the city. However, the “beggar problem” continued as acute as ever; and newspapers continued inviting attention to the matter and criticising the apparent lethargy of the authorities.

The Marathi newspaper “Kesari”, on June 14, 1922, reported that a food bank for “beggars” was being planned near the Kasba Peth Ganpati Temple.

While the newspaper did not report anything more on the said food bank, another Marathi newspaper “Jnanaprakash” reported a month later that the plan was shelved owing to opposition from some prominent citizens and the Poona municipality. The food bank would encourage begging, they said.

In 1915, the Bombay Municipality appointed a committee to address the “menace of beggars”. The committee advised the municipality to build an infirmary and a workhouse to accommodate beggars. Similar measures were suggested to be carried out in Poona. However, no action was taken then.

There were a few homes for the infirm, the old, and the destitute in British India. “The Friend in Need Society” of Bangalore, established in 1840, was the first to offer shelter and food to the aged and the destitute. The “David Sassoon Infirm Asylum” was established in Poona in 1863. The institution offered clothes, shelter, and food to the aged and the infirm. Later, Sir Munguldas Nathoobhoy gave ₹3,000 to build a separate ward in the David Sassoon Infirm Asylum for Hindu women who begged on the streets of Poona.

Leprosy-affected people were thrown out of their houses and they had no option but to beg for food. Mr Keyser, Collector of Poona, on December 30, 1891, laid the foundation stone of two “leper wards” in the David Sassoon Asylum, and the widow of the late Mr Nusserwanjee Maneckjee Petit had given ₹8,000 towards building the facility.

The problem of begging was multi-causal. Unemployment, physical or mental disability, family conflicts, lack of vocational training, debt, famines and floods, old age, and destitution were some of the reasons why people took to begging. It was a product of economic, social, and caste-based disparity.

Several religions prescribed and permitted alms-seeking. Religious ethics did not discourage people from giving food to beggars and alms-seekers because it was considered a way to practice charity.

It was obligatory for householders of all religions not to refuse anyone who approached them for food or water, and to give whatever they had even if it meant they had to remain hungry. While begging for food and water was not frowned upon, begging for money and clothes was viewed unfavourably since it implied indolence.

However, all those who sought food or money were not “beggars”. Several communities simply carried out traditional, caste-based work of seeking alms. Religion and the pervasive caste system burdened certain communities with the task of helping people achieve virtue or “punya”. As a result, most Indians did not see religious or caste-based seeking of alms as a stigmatising, undesirable and unlawful act.

The Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, published in 1885, listed 23 classes of “beggars” with a strength of 10,477 or 1.23% of the Hindu population in Poona district. Most of these communities traditionally sought alms in return for some religious or spiritual duties.

The “Aradhis” or “Praying Beggars” had to seek alms from at least five houses, once a week, and eat food given to them.

The “Bharadis” were a class of wandering alms-seekers who chanted verses in honour of the Goddess Ambabai or Saptashringi. Some villages or families paid them yearly allowances in grain for performing this duty in local temples.

The “Bhutes” went from door to door with a lighted torch, playing the one-stringed fiddle and the drum. While asking for food, they danced, sang songs, and touched their bodies with the lighted torch. The “Chitrakathis” showed pictures of heroes and gods and entertained their audience by telling them stories from ancient scriptures. They were usually given finger millet as alms since they cooked bread or porridge with the grain. The “Gondhalis” were the performers of the “gondhal” dance that was performed in honour of goddess Bhavani on the occasion of a thread ceremony, marriage, and of the seventh month of a woman’s first pregnancy. They got all their food and clothes from their patrons till the mid-twentieth century. The “Holars” were musicians from Karnataka who received millets, pulses, rice, and occasionally, vegetables, as alms. The “Sahadev Joshis”, and the “Sarvade Joshis” acted as astrologers and accepted alms. The “Vaghes” and the “Murlis” sang songs praising the lord Khandoba. The “Jogtins”, the “Panguls”, the “Vaidus”, and the “Vasudeo” were some other communities described in the Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency as belonging to the “beggar class”.

While most of these communities accepted only grains and pulses, later, they started accepting cooked food. Several anecdotal and oral records indicate that more than often the food they received was stale and smelly. These communities lived on the fringes of society while reminding people of their religious and spiritual duties. They provided virtue as a commodity to their customers and earned food.

However, the laws of the land and later the so-called “upper castes” treated most of these communities as criminals and “untouchables”. Their lifestyle was considered as aberrant. They were thought to be unclean and “impure”. Several communities consumed meat and fish and, hence, they were not allowed to enter the houses of their patrons.

The so-called “upper caste” gaze continues to romanticise and glamourise these communities and their hereditary occupations while ignoring their hardships, misery, and vast historical exploitation. It wants to preserve the so-called “folk traditions” by making them continue the practice of “bhiksha”, or begging for alms while criminalising it at the same time.

The Indian Constitution has recognised the right to food as a part of the right to life under Article 21. The right to food is not a right to be fed, but the right to feed oneself with dignity. We need a broader understanding of rehabilitation and empowerment that enables everyone to live a life of dignity they deserve.

Chinmay Damle is a research scientist and food enthusiast. He writes here on Pune’s food culture. He can be contacted at chinmay.damle@gmail.com