Tribute to Baba.....

Krishna Kumar (name changed) was about 65 years old man from a village in Akola district. This is one of the very first cases that i handled. Its been about two years since he passed away but memories refuse to fade.
We tried our best but couldn’t do enough to save his life and this feeling would test me for the rest of my life.
Krishna baba, as we would call him joined our special group (i use to conduct special sessions for this group on the issues ranging from confidence building to cleanliness to options for livelihood)with the hope to get out of the beggars home.
He was detained for one year. Though he said that he never begged and belonged to good respectable family, he never gave his family contact. It was only after three-four months with us that he told about his family but with a condition that we’ll not contact his family.
As he told, he had a son who threw him out on his wife’s insistence as he would stop her whenever she was harassing his wife. His wife was critically ill and he would often get in fight with his son and daughter in law for not taking adequate care. After his wife’s death last year, it became very difficult for him to stay there and after one such incident, he was out.
He came to Mumbai on a friend’s advice and joined him as a portar.He would get some 50-60 rupees a day as he wasn’t able to work for long hours.
One day when he was resting at a road side, he was picked up by the police. Once in beggars home, he was detained as his age made him easy suspect for the crime that is begging,and secondly because he could not give his family’s address.
When he came to beggars home, he was fairly healthy but soon he started getting weak. We showed him at the institution’s hospital and he was given few tablets. One day he was hit with stick by the mukadam (fellow inmates given the care-taker's responsibility) and his hand got swollen. We complained to the authorities but nothing happened. Again, one day he was beaten up by another mukadam.After that, he fell ill. To me,it appeared as if more than physical pain,it was mental and emotional humiliation that was making him weak.The sense of being deprived of any self dignity and freedom was killing him slowly.
Problems do come in numbers.He developed diarrhea along with fever.He couldn't be transferred to public hospital for one reason or the other.It was after a week that he was taken to hospital.However,doctor didn’t admit him and said its only weakness and nothing else. He was brought back to the beggars home.
Fighter that he was, he continued doing his things on his own but reducing energy would not allow him to sit for long hours. Group members offered him to help with his daily things but he refused.
One day he gave in. He expired in the early morning and we just couldn’t believe it. He was bundle of energy and his still body appeared very untrue.
Nobody in the barrack had lunch that day.It was for the first time that i saw people in beggars home missing their meal to mourn the death of fellow inmate.
He was a father figure for the entire group.One would be amazed to see his high energy and optimism.He never ever complained for anything,whatsoever.
His ever-smiling face is still fresh and keeps coming up.He has been very instrumental in providing me the strength to continue with the work in the institution.
He is gone but not dead.He lives in inspiration and its a special feeling for me to write about him as my first post on the experiences of working with destitute citizens.
We miss you Baba!

Introducing Koshish

Homelessness: Major Challenge facing us today; Koshish is a field action project of Tata Institute of Social Sciences,Mumbai. TISS has been involved in work with homeless population through its field work placements but more direct work was needed.

There was combination of reasons that led to the start of this project. Once, it was decided that we would get into direct work with homeless citizens, we started shaping it. Initially, regular visits were made during the night time to identify the geographical location for the project.Since,we were yet to test our work in the real field, we decided to start with M Ward and Kurla,due to the physical proximity to TISS.
At the government level, work had already been initiated inside the beggars’ home through the field work, a year ago. I was the first student to be placed there after almost 18 years and i still how i faced complete denial in the beginning but when the results started showing, it all began to change. Untiring efforts have started yielding results by now. Department was opening in terms of support and cooperation. Resistance from the staff at Beggar’s Home also became almost negligible. Infact, fairly good level of acceptance evolved.
Although, service delivery was not the agenda but it was essential requirement to create that entry passage. It was needed to network with various individuals and organizations and bring services in, especially inside Beggars Home. That’s the prerequisite to give them trust that things will happen and what we say, would materialize to some extent.

Beggars Homes are the custodial institutions maintained under Bombay Prevention of Beggary Act, 1959.Law was brought in place to check the issue of beggary. It basically aimed at prevention of beggary through training and rehabilitation of those who were involved into begging.

However, the way beggary and beggar is defined in the act changes the whole document into very vulnerable and anti-poor document. Of late, the focus of the police has been completely on the arrest of ‘so called’ beggars though the systems that were put in place for training and rehabilitation have either disappeared or become non-functional.Therefore, effectively what remains today is not a law aiming for rehabilitation of socially poor category but a mean to punish any poor person for being poor. The poor farmers and laborers who are forced to migrate from their native lands for various reasons are the biggest victims of this law.
The nature of BPBA, 1959 and its implementation which criminalizes poverty was very crucial among the reasons why this work was initiated.

Koshish aims at addressing the interrelated issues of beggary, destitution and homelessness through a combination of measures pitched at the varying levels of providing support for basic and immediate needs, facilitating linkages to gainful and secure employment, advocacy for integration into the larger society and for the development of meaningful policy, and activism for securing rightful entitlements.