WHY BEGGERS REFUSE TO WORK
- Madhukar Dama
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
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🌆 INTRODUCTION
To the average person, a beggar who refuses work seems lazy, irresponsible, or ungrateful. But this judgment misses the deeply human, social, economic, and psychological layers behind that refusal. Many beggars are not incapable of work — they are unwilling to participate in a system that degrades, exploits, or excludes them.
This essay dismantles the simplistic notion that all beggars need is a job, and explains why many consciously reject work that others assume is a gift.
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🧱 1. NOT ALL WORK IS DIGNIFIED
The jobs beggars are usually offered are:
Menial, back-breaking, and underpaid
Often without contracts, safety, or respect
Involve abuse, exploitation, or humiliation
Table: The Offer vs. The Street
What Work Offers What Begging Offers
Harsh supervisors Personal control
Fixed hours, little freedom Flexible time
Insulting wages Sometimes equal or better daily earnings
Verbal abuse, caste discrimination Social invisibility, but not constant attack
For someone who has lived outside systems, submission to such degrading labor feels like a prison sentence — not salvation.
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🧠 2. TRAUMA CHANGES THE BRAIN
Long-term poverty, abuse, abandonment, and homelessness lead to:
Cognitive dysfunction (difficulty planning, concentrating)
Psychological scarring (fear, distrust, withdrawal)
Emotional numbness or volatility
These are not excuses — they are real barriers to functioning inside structured employment. Many beggars are simply not in a mental state to perform jobs that demand punctuality, obedience, and constant interaction.
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🔥 3. BEGGING IS STRATEGIC FOR SURVIVAL
In some cases, begging provides:
More daily income than casual labor
No risk of wage theft or delayed payment
No debt entrapment
It is not dignified or ideal — but it is safer and more predictable than many forms of daily wage work.
> “I don’t starve when I beg. I starved when I worked.” – Street interview, Bengaluru (NGO report, 2021)
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🛑 4. SYSTEMIC REJECTION
Even when beggars try to work, they face:
Caste-based hiring filters
Identity document requirements they cannot meet
Physical unfitness due to years of malnourishment or illness
Lack of clean clothes or grooming that disqualifies them in informal interviews
They are often treated as a nuisance rather than a potential worker.
> The system doesn’t want them working. It wants them invisible.
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🌀 5. THEY’VE BEEN BETRAYED BEFORE
Many beggars:
Worked in the past and were not paid
Were trafficked, abused, or enslaved
Were promised jobs by NGOs or contractors that never materialized
Were chased or beaten by police even while trying to sell goods
Over time, this creates a deep-rooted belief: work is a trap. Begging is safer.
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⚖️ 6. SOME BEGGARS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO WORK
There is a darker side: some beggars are part of organized begging rings or are physically disabled and dependent on handlers.
Children are forced into begging
Some adults are trafficked or manipulated
Mentally ill beggars may not be able to seek or hold work at all
These are victims, not free agents — but they are still blamed as if they are lazy.
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🧘 7. SOME HAVE CONSCIOUSLY REJECTED THE SYSTEM
There exists a small group — not mentally ill, not physically broken — but philosophically done with the world of work. These are individuals who:
Worked for years and saw no joy or security
Lost family, wealth, identity — and chose simplicity over suffering
Live without ambition, by choice
They may beg not out of weakness, but out of resistance to a system that they see as inherently corrupt.
> “Why should I join a system that eats people alive? Here, I breathe.”
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🔍 8. THERE ARE DIFFERENT TYPES OF BEGGARS
It’s crucial to recognize they’re not one homogenous group:
Type Characteristics
Chronic urban beggar Long-term street dweller, often unwell or elderly
Seasonal/circumstantial Displaced by medical crises, family debt, or rural migration
Organized beggars Controlled by rackets or handlers
Philosophical outsiders Intentionally reject employment, system-critics
Mentally ill Unable to work due to untreated conditions
Solutions must differ. No one-size-fits-all rehabilitation will work.
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🧾 CONCLUSION
Most beggars do not refuse work because they are lazy. They refuse it because:
It offers no dignity
It repeats past trauma
It’s exploitative or unsafe
It comes from people who never really wanted them included
Some are broken by life. Some are excluded by systems. Some are survivors. And a few are rebels.
> Until society changes the nature of work — and the terms of dignity — some people will choose to beg not because they failed, but because they woke up.
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WHY BEGGERS REFUSE TO WORK
A slow-burn Bukowski-style poem — bitter, brutal, layered, and unfiltered
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they say the streets smell like piss
and I say the offices smell worse—
of cologne, shame, and resignation.
they say,
“go work, get a job, be useful.”
I say,
“I did. once. twice. a hundred times.
and each time,
they wrung me out like a rag
and left me outside the gate
because I didn’t say ‘sir’ right.”
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I sat on construction steel in July sun
forty-two degrees on my neck,
the contractor said, “next week, money.”
next week became six.
then the police chased me from under the flyover
because I looked jobless
and smelled like betrayal.
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I begged once.
for a job, not money.
the watchman looked through me,
HR laughed at my beard.
“Do you have Aadhaar? Do you have proof?
Do you have a fresh shirt, a degree, a caste that’s polite?”
I said, “No. Just these hands.”
they said, “Then beg.”
so I did.
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but don’t call me lazy.
I get up before you.
I find corners that won’t have urine,
people that won’t spit,
temples that still allow shadows like mine.
I earn.
not pride, not pension—
but enough for rice,
a bidi,
and the silence your meetings can’t buy.
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they gave me a job once.
to clean toilets in a hotel
where men like you pissed whiskey
and called it culture.
a waiter slapped me
because I asked for leftover roti.
I left.
walked out, barefoot.
proud.
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you think you suffer in air-conditioned chairs
because your boss didn’t like your font.
I saw a man lose his leg
in a factory
and get blamed for not jumping fast enough.
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some of us lost too much to fake a smile.
some of us are done with rules written in suits.
some of us sat with pain too long
to be told to “stand straight and contribute.”
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what’s work, anyway?
typing things no one reads?
pushing buttons that sell lies?
carrying crates for the rich
who don’t see your spine bending?
you call it job.
I call it leash.
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I saw a man in a tie beg harder than me
outside the CEO’s office.
he was sweating through his ironed shirt
saying, “Please don’t cut me this quarter.”
and I thought—
at least I beg under sky.
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there’s dignity in begging
if you know why you’re doing it.
there’s slavery in working
if you forgot why you started.
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so when I say no to your job,
your offer, your plan to “uplift” me—
don’t preach.
I’m not your burden.
I’m your mirror.
your fear.
your future, if you’re lucky.
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I refuse to work
not because I can’t
but because I won’t.
not like this.
not for this world.
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📚 REFERENCES
1. Bharadwaj, A. et al. "Street Livelihoods in India: Dignity, Survival, and Resistance." Centre for Urban Equity, 2020.
2. Rao, K. (2019). "The Invisible Workforce: Why the Poor Avoid Poor Jobs." Economic & Political Weekly.
3. Human Rights Watch (2021). "Organized Begging Rings in Indian Metros."
4. National Institute of Mental Health & Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru: "Mental Health and Street Homelessness", Annual Survey 2018.
5. Centre for Equity Studies (CES), 2017: "Employment Barriers Among Urban Homeless".
6. Jan Sahas NGO Field Notes: Interviews with beggars in MP, Maharashtra, and Karnataka (2020–2022).
7. United Nations ESCAP Report (2021): "Social Exclusion and Urban Poverty in South Asia."
8. Dr. P. Sainath. "Everybody Loves a Good Drought" (Penguin, 1996) – context on rural collapse and migration.
