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<p>This article situates beggary legislation in India within a long penal trajectory that runs from colonial vagrancy codes to the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act, 1959, and its various clones enacted in different states of India. It shows how the destitute are governed through categories of public order, nuisance, and threat to public hygiene, turning a condition of deprivation into an offence. Drawing on statutes, court judgements, secondary scholarship, and field experience, it maps the continuities in law and institution, and the ethical incoherence of a welfare state that deals with destitution through detention. Recent judgements, Ram Lakhan (<CitationRef CitationID="CR47">2006</CitationRef>), Harsh Mander (<CitationRef CitationID="CR29">2018</CitationRef>), and Suhail Rashid Bhat (<CitationRef CitationID="CR52">2019</CitationRef>), signal a turn towards dignity and care, yet the road ahead still seems long as beggary laws continue to operate in more than twenty states and union territories of India. Anchored alongside the 2016 Model Bill on destitution, the SMILE Scheme and related policy schemes, the paper argues for replacing punitive measures with protection, care, and rehabilitation rooted in constitutional morality, social justice, rights, and inclusion.</p>

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Echoes of Empire: Beggary Legislation in Independent India

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年7月10日

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  • Mohammad Shahid Afroz

摘要

This article situates beggary legislation in India within a long penal trajectory that runs from colonial vagrancy codes to the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act, 1959, and its various clones enacted in different states of India. It shows how the destitute are governed through categories of public order, nuisance, and threat to public hygiene, turning a condition of deprivation into an offence. Drawing on statutes, court judgements, secondary scholarship, and field experience, it maps the continuities in law and institution, and the ethical incoherence of a welfare state that deals with destitution through detention. Recent judgements, Ram Lakhan (2006), Harsh Mander (2018), and Suhail Rashid Bhat (2019), signal a turn towards dignity and care, yet the road ahead still seems long as beggary laws continue to operate in more than twenty states and union territories of India. Anchored alongside the 2016 Model Bill on destitution, the SMILE Scheme and related policy schemes, the paper argues for replacing punitive measures with protection, care, and rehabilitation rooted in constitutional morality, social justice, rights, and inclusion.