Opinion
Tonight, while you read this in
your home, a man will approach her. Tomorrow morning, she will have new
injuries and torn clothing. She cannot scream. She cannot fight. She cannot
turn her face away. And tomorrow, thousands of people will walk past her on
their way to work.
This is not fiction. This is not
ancient history. This is India, October 2025.
Let me tell you what a destitute
is, because most of us don't really know. A destitute is not a beggar. Beggars
can walk, talk, and ask for money. A destitute is someone who cannot help
themselves at all… cannot eat without assistance, cannot move to relieve
themselves, cannot maintain even basic hygiene. These are our fellow citizens
who have been abandoned by their families, or who suffered sudden medical
emergencies on the streets, or who fell into circumstances we cannot even begin
to explain.
In Vijayawada alone, we see seven
to eight new destitutes appear every single week. Not beggars. Not homeless
workers looking for shelter. Destitutes are human beings in advanced states of
medical deterioration, lying paralysed, dying slowly in full public view.
For the past few years, we
through YES-J's 'Compassion Connect' programme has been doing what our
government should do. We find these dying citizens. We bathe them. We care for
them. We get police permission. And then we admit them to care homes run by
Missionaries of Charity, a Catholic charitable organisation, because those are
the only destitute care facilities that exist.
After one year, those homes are
full. There are no alternatives. There are no government homes. None.
So where do destitutes belong?
:
This is the question we asked the
Government of India through the Right to Information Act. The response reveals
something so shocking, so shameful, that every Indian citizen needs to know
about it.
One RTI application we filed was
transferred 28 times across different ministries and departments. The Ministry
of Social Justice & Empowerment, the ministry whose very name suggests it
should protect vulnerable citizens, stated: "The Department does not
operate any scheme specifically for destitute individuals."
The Department of Empowerment of
Persons with Disabilities returned the application, saying the information
"is not pertaining" to them, even though many destitutes are
paralyzed, mentally ill, or physically disabled.
The Ministry of Housing &
Urban Affairs pointed to homeless shelters. But when we visited these shelters,
the managers said clearly: "No destitutes who cannot take care of
themselves can stay here." These shelters are for able-bodied workers, not
for people who need medical care and nursing assistance.
18 government departments (so
far). Not one accepted responsibility. Not one.
The only scheme that even
mentioned destitutes… buried in Clause 14 of the guidelines for homeless
shelters, which says that was ended on September 30, 2024 in an RTI reply.
There is no successor scheme. As of today, there is no active government
program for destitute care in India.
Let that sink in. In a country of
1.4 billion people, with a government that runs schemes for almost everything,
there is no scheme for citizens who are dying on footpaths because they cannot
move.
But here's what makes this truly
horrifying is the government knows they
exist. The guidelines explicitly mention "the infirm, sick, victims of
crime, destitute, and minor children must be handled with extreme sensitivity,
rescued from the streets, and brought into the shelter." The Constitution
guarantees every person the Right to Life.
They know. They write it down.
They just don't do anything about it.
Do you know what happens to
budget allocations for related programs? In 2021-22, only ₹5 lakhs was spent
out of ₹50 crore allocated. In 2022-23, only ₹44 lakhs out of ₹15 crore. The
problem isn't money. It's that nobody is accountable. Nobody has to answer for
the women being raped on footpaths. Nobody has to explain why there isn't a
single government destitute care home in the entire country.
The government doesn't even have
a legal definition of "destitute." What isn't defined doesn't legally
exist. What doesn't legally exist cannot make claims on the State. What cannot
make claims can be left to die.
This is not a welfare issue. This
is not about poverty alleviation or development schemes. This is about human
beings. Indian citizens with names and families and histories lying in their
own waste on our footpaths, being eaten alive by maggots, being raped while
paralyzed, and dying unmourned while we walk past them to temples and shopping
malls.
How can we call ourselves
civilized? How can we speak of "Incredible India" and our
"ancient compassion" and our "cultural values" when we
tolerate this? When we have normalized the sight of dying human beings on our
streets?
The woman on the Vijayawada
footpath doesn't need our pity. She needs a government that acknowledges she
exists. She needs a hospital bed. She needs medical care. She needs dignity.
She needs someone in power to say: "This is our responsibility, and we
will not rest until every destitute citizen has a safe place with proper
care."
But today, the official position
of the Government of India is: No information available. Not our mandate. No
scheme exists.
This is not acceptable.
Destitutes are not someone else's
problem. They are not outside the fabric of India. They are us. They are what
any of us could become after a stroke, an accident, an abandonment. They are
Indian citizens with the same fundamental rights we all possess. And their
Right to Life is being violated every single day while multiple government
departments claim it's not their responsibility.
Where do destitutes belong? The
only answer is they belong in care facilities with medical staff, proper food,
and human dignity. They belong to us. They are our responsibility.
Until we have government-run
destitute care homes in every district, with proper funding and staffing and
oversight, we have failed as a nation. Until there is one ministry, one
department, one official who can be held accountable when a destitute dies on
the street, we have failed at democracy.
The question is not where
destitutes belong. The question is… What kind of country are we if we let our
most vulnerable citizens be eaten alive by maggots while we walk past to work?
That woman is still near the
gutter in Vijayawada. Sexually assaulted yesterday night. Lying there next to a
busy road with no clothes. Right now. As you read this.
What are we going to do about it?
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