Rethinking the Governance of Begging in India

This article reviews the recent Advisory issued by National Human Rights Commission for the protection and rehabilitation of impoverished, uneducated children, women, and differently-abled individuals engaged in begging. The Advisory fairly recognises begging as an outcome of systemic failure of social institutions, rather than merely a socio-economic problem, and proposes a roadmap for a state-wide entitlement-based policy. This article contends that for the proposed policy to be effective, it must integrate ethical, legal and policy imperatives in formulating a context-sensitive and rights-compliant framework. Policymakers can strengthen this approach by drawing from comparative anti-begging jurisprudence

Begging · Commission · Corporate governance · Human rights · Outcome (game theory · Social policy · Collaborative and Sustainable Housing Initiatives · Homelessness and Social Issues · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare