Out as free men, these inmates long for a prison term to ‘return home’

It was leprosy that first ravaged the life of Qismat Ali, 60. Almost three decades later, his life has been ravaged again — this time by a law that saw his only shelter being taken away from him.

Ali was one of more than 40 inmates at the home for leprosy and tuberculosis-affected beggars (HLTB) in east Delhi’s Tahirpur, who completed their term recently after being convicted of begging. When begging was decriminalised last year by the Delhi High Court, the inmates were turned out of the only home they had, albeit a ‘prison’, where they got food, medicine and care.

Since January, Ali has been out in the cold on the footpath, forced to beg to survive.

Ali uses crutches to walk — his left foot is in bandages, after it was eaten away by the disease almost three decades ago.

With no means to earn a living, he is forced to beg every morning. By the afternoon, it is time for him to take his medicines and get his wounds bandaged, but it’s too cold for him to rest out in the open, which hampers recovery.

“It has been a little more than 28 years since I started staying at the HLTB. I would be sentenced for at least a year each time and this went on till the act of begging itself was decriminalised last year. The HLTB was home, for me and for many others, all these years. We are all now languishing on roads, trying to fend for ourselves with this dreaded disease,” Ali said, adding that he hopes that the government lets them stay in the home for rehabilitation.

A weaver by profession, he has been begging for a living since leaving his village in Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur in early 1990s, after his family and villagers abandoned him owing to the disease.

“I would weave for a living and I made enough, but I had to leave the village as my family and neighbours started shunning me,” Ali said.

After one of the inmates recently filed a petition in the high court to allow them to stay in the home for the winter and demanded a scheme for rehabilitation, the high court, on January 24, asked the central and the Delhi governments to frame a policy and take all former inmates back as an interim measure.

However, the government is yet to comply with the directions, leaving the 40 inmates to fend for themselves on footpaths.

Lallan Kumar Yadav, leader of the leprosy-affected patients at HLTB, who is yet to complete his term of conviction, said he wrote last September to the Delhi government’s social welfare department to take steps towards the long-term rehabilitation of the former inmates.

“The department has not done anything yet. Many of the former inmates are left with no option other than begging as none of them can go back to their families. The social stigma attached with the disease is such that their families don’t let them in. It has been many days since the court order, but the file is still pending,” Yadav said.

The department had, almost a month ago, started vocational training for former inmates. However, according to Yadav, none of them have got jobs yet.

A group of inmates in different batches are being trained at a factory in vocations such as making candles, dusters and mops.

“At present, about 10-11 inmates are attending the training. The ones who had completed the training earlier have still not got a job. They were told that initially, they would be able to make around ₹900 a month and later on, as they progress, the remuneration will be increased,” Prem Kumar Vishwakarma, who lost his fingers to leprosy, said.

He too has been living on the streets since the past two months.

Only providing vocational training is not enough, Yadav said, as beggars with leprosy do not have families, homes or pensions to bank on.

“This disease eats into parts of our body. Our wounds have to be regularly bandaged. Where will all of these differently-abled persons, who have been living at the home for around 30-40 years, go? Like everyone else, we vote in every election and, as citizens, have a right to a life of dignity. The government must prepare a scheme to provide food, shelter, medical care and pension to these inmates,” Yadav said.

The government has a reservation policy for leprosy affected persons, but not many have been able to get jobs under it, Yadav added, looking wistfully at the broken tricycle he uses to move around.

The home, which has a capacity of around 300 inmates, at present, houses 370 residents. According to a senior official at the home, the patients have been lodged there almost all of their adult lives.

“Even though this is a prison facility, it is a home for these inmates, as they have no homes or families or even a job, owing to the disease. They would never want to leave this place — they have no other home,” the official said.

Delhi social welfare minister Rajendra Pal Gautam said he had signed a file last week directing that these inmates be taken back, in compliance with the court order.

“I have asked the department to come up with a policy for rehabilitation and resettlement of beggars with leprosy at the earliest, and allow them to stay in the home as an interim measure,” the minister said.