Hiding Beggars before the 2010 Commonwealth Games
The 2010 Commonwealth Games are coming to India in October. With the arrival of the Games we can see a major cleanup going on off the streets. Not of garbage and pollution though, of beggars, slum dwellers and stray animals. The act is similar to what China did before the start of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games when pollution was such a major issue that cars were removed from cities and other measures were taken. The problem for India though is that these people are citizens of its country and they cannot just throw them away somewhere and be done with it. Even the animals cannot be dumped somewhere, an entire strategy to find a solution to this problem has to take place.
The 2010 Commonwealth Games will be held in Delhi, India from the 3-14th of October. The Games will feature 10,000 athletes from over 70 countries. There will also be 150,000 officials at the event along with 50,000 tourists. For this huge amount of people coming for the Games, the Indian Government has started a major cleanup operation in Delhi. The plan is to rid the streets of the city of stray dogs, slum dwellers, beggars and any stray animals that are found wandering the streets. Some sobering statistics greet the government when the try to start this operation; the number of beggars estimated by a local NGO is close to 120,000 and the number of stray dogs is close to 250,000. Where will all these people and this huge number of stray dogs go? Will they just be dumped in another city for the duration of the Games? It is not clearly evident how the Indian Government plans to accomplish this task. The cost alone is staggering; it is thought that the cleanup operation will cost somewhere around $65 million. That is a lot of money that the people of India will have to cough up for the upcoming Games.
Delhi is trying to upgrade its image and make it look good for the Commonwealth Games. One thing that is hard to understand is why are these sorts of actions only taken when there is a huge event about to take place. Should it not be the case that poverty reduction and cleaning up the streets and reduction in pollution levels should be an ongoing process? The other side of the coin is the fact that a major sporting event actually helps to kick start a large number of projects and ventures in cities around the world and helps them achieve their targets. Yet the way it is done has to be noble and peaceful with clearly defined goals.
Delhi may have fallen short on this aspect of the equation in the lead up to the Games. They have effectively waged a ‘war against beggars’. This is a very poor way to describe the situation. The beggars are citizens of their country and their only crime is being poor. So a better name for the scheme could have been a ‘war on poverty’ and maybe policies to help the poor instead of getting rid of them would have made a bigger impact on tourists and the outside world that would be taking part in, visiting and watching the Games. Other measures taken such as criminalising begging and funds for social development projects are being diverted to the Games. These factors are not showing the Indian Government’s take on begging and the Games in a very good light.
There are two aspects to the upcoming Commonwealth Games. Firstly the fact that they will do wonders for the Indian Government, for tourism and for the economy. All major sporting events have this effect on the cities and countries they take place in. There is another side to major sporting events that take place in cities in developing countries. A lot of the time, revamping projects and renovation of structures get the upper hand before poverty reduction and helping those people who need it the most. Even though it is a good thing to renovate cities for upcoming events, but it should not be done at the expense of the poor. Maybe sporting events should not be held in cities until they have reached a target for poverty reduction and cleanliness.
Whatever happens to the beggars and the stray dogs leading up to the event, the Commonwealth Games will bring them no joy. They will continue to live in the shadows and try to stay one step ahead of the organisers and the police that are trying to make Delhi look nice for foreign tourists.
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