Accompanied by her children, Maighi Jogi* leaves her house in the Jai Ram Jogi settlement, to beg and collect some wheat and rice in the nearby villages. She returns home in the evening to cook whatever she has managed to get by begging to feed her three daughters and two sons, none of whom go to school. “It is part of our daily routine to visit different villages, going from door to door to beg so as to survive another day,” says Maighi. “Some of us are also snake-charmers but poverty compels us to beg for food. We beg from dawn to dusk and return at night with some eatables. This is what we have done all our lives for generations. My children will also become beggars and snake-charmers.” Maighi’s husband is a snake-charmer who goes to Karachi and returns after two or three weeks with not more than 2000 to 3,000 rupees.

The Jai Ram Jogi settlement is located in the union council (UC) Dad Khan Jarwar, district Tando Allahyar, Sindh. According to a survey conducted in 2016 by the National Rural Support Programme (NRSP), the Jai Ram Jogi settlement comprises 77 households with a total “population” of 387 people. The inhabitants of the village belong to the Jogi community, jogi being a colloquial term for yogi, a Sanskrit word that refers to people who practiced yoga as a daily ritual. Interestingly, they are settled in Gujarat and Rajasthan in India and in Tharparkar in Sindh, Pakistan. With time, a community has developed and subsequently it became a caste. Along with snake-charming and begging for a living, they are also involved in fortune-telling and exorcism. Mostly, they are worshippers of Shiva and wear the traditional saffron-coloured dress. Some Muslim jogis who live in taluka Thari Mirwah, district Khairpur, Sindh belong to a branch of the Rajper Sama tribe, which ruled the state of Sindh in the past. The majority of the Hindu jogi community is settled in the lower parts of Sindh such as Badin, Umerkot, Mithi and Tharparkar districts.

The settlement has been named after Jai Ram jogi, a snake-charmer and mendicant in his earlier life. Jai Ram was also known as a murli nawaz (murli player) and he played murli or flute on the radio and television in the early ‘90s and received numerous awards and certificates for his performances including the Latif Award for lifetime achievement by Syed Qaim Ali Shah, the then chief minister of Sindh.

A community of beggars and snake-charmers struggles to change their lives

Despite his achievements, Jai Ram feels sad that the people of his village have no other means of livelihood but snake-charming and begging due to which they are stuck in poverty. They lack basic amenities of life such as power and gas connections, have no access to toilet and safe drinking water. Since one hand pump for the whole village is insufficient to fulfil the needs of drinking water for the whole community, women fetch water from wells and tube wells after a 30 to 45 minute-walk. Children wander on the streets as there is no school to attend in the village, and parents are not willing to send their children to school away from their village. As per the Poverty Score Card Survey conducted in district Tando Allahyar in 2016, all of the 134 children (5-16 years) do not attend school.

Some people from this community work as unskilled labourers on farms or as domestics and earn around 250 rupees per day — that is, if they can find work in their UC. Begging brings them only a kilo or half a kilo wheat flour, rice or around 200 rupees a day.

Many of the inhabitants of Jai Ram Jogi village flock to urban and rural areas with species of snakes to perform tricks or just beg for a living. A typical performance may also include handling different non-venomous varieties of snakes or performing other seemingly dangerous acts: as putting a snake in the mouth and then pulling it out, as well as other street performances, such as juggling and conjuring. In return they are offered a small portion of wheat flour, rice, grains, clothes, milk and money. According to Jai Ram, “We have lived in poor and miserable conditions for decades, hence we are snake-charmers or beggars by profession for at least seven generations. People visit us and take our pictures but our miserable situation has never changed for us.”

Some NGO programmes are working to reduce their poverty by organising social guidance, technical and financial assistance to the rural areas in Sindh. The programmes aim at stimulating local community-driven development initiatives in order to reduce poverty with special attention to empowering women. The main aim is to provide diversified sources of income for the targeted communities such as the Jai Ram jogi settlement.

Educated girls from nearby villages have been hired who have started community awareness sessions with these communities on different civic issues, such as sanitation, health, hygiene, family planning, human rights, voting, birth and marriage registration.

Ten women from the Jai Ram Jogi settlement have also been attending these sessions. The poorest of the poor have been provided with micro-health insurance programmes, which will provide them with a financial cover in case of hospitalisation of a family member. So far, medical insurance cards have been distributed among the poorest households of Jai Ram Jogi settlement.

“My husband, Chandu who is 45 years old has kidney stones and he needs proper treatment which now seems possible after receiving health insurance,” says Lachhmi, a recipient. “I feel happy to receive this support for our household. Some households will be provided an income-generating grant to enable them to initiate income-generating economic activities in line with their micro-investment household plans, while others have been provided with technical and vocational training to enable them to learn new skills to enhance their income.

“My son Birju who is 18 will soon attend a motorbike repairing course under a micro-income generating programme,” says Shanti, his mother. Later, Birju plans to start working as motorbike mechanic in a shop in Bachal Pitafi village near their settlement and then expects to start earning approximately 6,000 rupees per month from this motorbike repairing work soon after the training.

Although efforts are being made to help these villagers, some of them still opt for begging as an easier means of livelihood. Change is not visible so far but the process has begun through social guidance and economic support. It is hoped that over time, some of the social programmes will influence some of the households to develop alternative livelihoods so that they can shun begging forever in favour of a dignified living.

*Names changed to protect privacy

Nadir Ali Shah is an anthropologist who works at NRSP and tweets at nadir.ali@rspn.org.pk

Dr Abdur Rehman Cheema also works at NRSP and tweets at arehmancheema@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, June 3rd, 2018