KEY POINTS:
Most mornings in New Delhi, a battered van sets off around the Indian capital and snatches bedraggled and disabled men from the streets.
These men are among the last things Delhi wants to see as it spruces itself up ahead of hosting the 2010 Commonwealth Games, seen as
a chance to flaunt the capital as the face of a new, more modern India.
Hundreds of beggars are being locked up for between one and 10 years under anti-begging laws.
As the raid van patrols the streets of Delhi, officers watch expectantly through the windows as a hunchbacked young man in rags hobbles around a corner, his withered left leg dangling between his crutches, a memento of childhood polio.
The man stopped at a roadside kiosk and stretched out a hand.
The kiosk owner took pity.
"He gave him money, let's go!" shouted A. M. Pandey, head of the Delhi's beggar raiding team, as he and a colleague hurtled out of the van towards the man, who was carefully pocketing a one-rupee coin (NZ3c).
The shocked man first tried smiling his way out of trouble as he was led across the road, his crutches scrabbling on tarmac.
"Don't push me," he said, his smile dissolving into tears when he realised he was being forced into the van.
"I'll go home and not beg, I promise you."
While India's economy may be growing faster than ever, so are income inequalities. It still has no comprehensive welfare system to keep millions of people out of poverty.
Activists say it is a double injustice to imprison those that hit rock bottom in Indian cities, and they want begging decriminalised.
Even some of those working within the system, who repeatedly bring up the Government pressure they are under with the coming of the Commonwealth Games, agree there are serious problems.
A welfare officer at one of the beggar jails said he had men in his custody who he believed were innocent homeless labourers, who can look indistinguishable from beggars.
The men caught during raids are initially locked up in a rat-infested north Delhi detention centre. There is no phone for them to call family or friends, although they are allowed to write or dictate a letter.
Eventually they appear before a magistrate in a dedicated beggars' court. Nearly 3000 men shuffle through each year.
The defendant's case is decided on the strength of his word against that of the Government official who originally bundled him into the van. Sometimes there is a lawyer from a non-governmental organisation to help.
Proving that begging took place is not necessary.
As the 50-year-old law says, "having no visible means of subsistence", and so being likely to beg, is enough for a conviction.
Some men go free. Others are locked up until they can get someone to pay a bond, typically 3000 rupees ($97). The rest are sent to a beggar jail for one to three years, or up to 10 on a second offence - the same penalty as for violent robbery.
If they are "blind, a cripple or otherwise incurably helpless", as the law puts it, they can be locked up for the rest of their lives, at the discretion of a senior civil servant.
"This law criminalises poverty," said Paramjeet Kaur, the director of homeless charity Aashray Adhikar Abhiyan.
"Mostly those caught are not beggars, they are the working homeless or travellers, people new to the city."
There are nearly 60,000 beggars in Delhi, according to the local Government - nearly a third are children.
The ancient idea of giving alms as a religious duty is still strong, which is why temples and mosques are the first places the raid van heads to each morning to catch beggars.
But some middle-class Indians just find beggars irritating.
Members of the New Delhi Bar Association successfully urged the courts this year to see that more beggars are locked up, saying some of them can be rude and threatening.
Likewise, the media routinely describe beggars as a menace, and characterise them as scheming and wealthy members of gangs.
But many authorities working with beggars say there is almost no evidence for such claims. Most beggars earn less than 50 rupees a day - about the price of a cappuccino in a Delhi cafe.
Most migrated to Delhi from villages in India's poorest states for lack of income, often due to illiteracy, disease or old age. Many are women and children, but the Government struggles to find the female staff needed by law to catch them.
Rehabilitation is usually given as the main justification for jailing Delhi's beggars, but only a dozen or so men out of the 350 currently locked up at one of the beggar homes opt to take the spinning, handloom and carpentry classes offered there.
STANDARD OFLIVING IN INDIA
* Average life expectancy - 63.6 years (2004)
* Infant mortality - 56 per 1000 live births (2005)
* Child mortality - deaths before the age of 5, 74 per 1000 live births (2005)
* Percentage of children underweight for age - (under age 5) 47 per cent (1996-2005)
* Percentage of undernourished population - 20 per cent (2002-2004)
- Reuters
