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Essay

Beggars can’t be choosers.

Outline

1. Introduction.

Beggary is an evil which robs an individual /nation of its self-respect.

1.1.self reliance is the door to prosperity.

1.2.Pakistan is the soil of tremendous opportunities but unfortunately, it is

begging.

2. why does Pakistan begs from other countries:causes:

2.1.Economic crisis.

2.2.Weak democratic ground.

2.3.Rising terrorism and extremism.

2.4.Over population

2.5.Energy crisis

3.7 non-exploitation of indigenous resources

3.8 reliance upon others
3.9 Bad governance
a. Illiteracy
b. Corruption
4. Impacts upon over-reliance on other countries
4.1 Impacts upon the sociological front.

A. Ethnic strife
b. Social disharmony
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c. Brain drain
4.2 Impacts on the economic front.

a. Inflation
b. Poverty:
4.3 Impacts upon the political front.

a. Lack of trust in politicians

4.4 Impacts upon the psychological front.

a. Inferiority complex
b. Frustration
c. Depression
5. The policies of Pakistan can make it self reliant country.

5.1. it is rich in mineral and natural resources.

5.2. huge capacity of revenue generation.
5.3.geosthe strategic importance of its location.
5.4 60% of its population is below 30 years of age.
5.5 it possesses 185 billion tons of calls.
5.6 topographical features:
Land of rivers
fertile land
four seasons
Range lang
6. Suggestions:
6.1. self-reliance through' trade' not 'aid'
6.2 revolutionizing the agricultural and industrial sectors.
6.3 economic reforms.
6.4 cordial relations with all the countries are based on equality.
6.5 exploration of indigenous resources
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6.7 Active citizenship.

6.8 good governance.
7. Conclusion.

“Poverty is not a vice but beggar is a vice.”

~Foydor dostoevsky~

The axiom beggars are not choosers, presents the stark reality of life, that
beggars are evil which robs individuals/nations of their self-respect.
It itself-respecter that a beggar has no choice owing to his descriptive condition.
He lives on the alms of others. The dole may be in the form of a coin. A beggar
can not force an alms giver to pay him a dollar instead of a penny. Although a
beggar is subjected to great humiliation yet, he never gives up beggary. Thus it
is rightly said that beggars are not choosers.

Similarly, a beggar is devoid of self-respect. He does not have a sense of self-

respect he never feels small and thus is shorn of Self-esteem. This epitomizes
that money makes man’s morale to an extent. Truly, self-reliance is a key to
success. He, who depends on others, deprives of dignity. It is crystal clear that
people who possess self-respect would never drag their hands to anyone.

Moreover, man wishes for the gratification of all his desires. But simply he can
not, owing to the scarcity of money resources. To satiate his ballooning desires,
he must attain the status Of deity. No doubt, it is essential to develop oneself
financially strong enough so that wishes may be directed to reality. Otherwise,
wishes without wealth are welcomed by worries. In this regard, someone has
adroitly said,
If wants were horses, even beggars would ride on them.
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It is true of the modern man who wishes to possess 3Bs, namely a Buick a
bungalow and a bank balance to have free access to all modern convince of life.
But the scarcity of resources confines him to abide by crawling desires. Besides,
the proverb beggars are not a chooser demonstrates the doldrums conditions.
For example, a person drowning in complications and conundrums tries his last-
ditch to dispense with sombre problems. Thus, the values even worthless and
trivial solutions by finding himself in a used street. Hence it goes without saying
that

Wants are good slaves but are bad masters

Further, the philosophy of phrase elaborates various other aspects where man is
compelled and compromises on various things willy -nilly. One of them is the
rapid invasion of culture. Acculturation mostly in third-world countries is in full
swing. The invasion of western culture has moved far ahead. We find its
shadow on half of our lifestyles. For example change in dress code, diluting
parental power and strengthening children’s freedom, exorbitant use of
technology and changing ideology of life all are the ingredients of western
recopies’.

Moreover, it is crystal clear that developing nations follow developed one. For
instance, between those two students, one who Successfully passed exams and
another trying hard to turn the corner .An aspirant one would cordially follow
all those techniques which made to sparkle the stars of fortune on the former
one. Likewise, poor or developing nations follow the trends and cultures of
developed nations. Once the trend sets up everyone starts following it and
hence, it becomes inevitable to accept change for those who regret alien
cultures. In this regard, only beggars are not debarred from choice but all those
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people behave alike who calmly access the stipulations of necessities.

Similarly, more often in third-world countries, child labour is practised to a

large extent. Poor parents maimed by poverty throw their children into the
market. Unaware of wan realities when a child steps ahead in the outer world he
never imagines that soon he regrets into the marsh of offence. Consequently,
another name is reckoned with the massive list of crooks. Unfortunately,
Pakistan is counted among the top ten child labour countries. About more than
fifteen lace children are devoid of education. Poverty and haplessness confound
parents to enjoin child labour. Hence it goes like beggars are not choosers.

In addition to this illiteracy has also brought about appalling ignorance women
and child abuse, drug addiction and various other crimes are the outcomes of
illiteracy to a certain extent. Thus society is constrained to bear the burnt of the
above crimes as beggar bears disgust and taunts. A part of it, the saying suits the
political conditions of those nations who seek foreign aid. Unfortunately our
beloved country Pakistan is one of them. The most prominent aid donor country
to Pakistan is America. The U.S has made our political leadership dictate
foreign commands. Besides, we live like strangers in our own country. Where a
foreigner may have access to justice but our ordinary man is far behind on the
path of justice. There are many incidents which annihilated not only the rules of
international law but also violated the sovereignty of Pakistan.

America as a donor country exploits the sovereignty as much as it can and

Pakistani politicians shamelessly can not defy the wishes of their foreign lords.
Since it has proven that dependence detracts from dignity. One who lives on
behalf of others like beggars, certainly he is exploited and embarrassed. In this
reference, it is well said
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Aspiring beggars is wretchedness itself.

~ Oliver goldsmith~

Since independence, Pakistan has been struggling to cope with political and
macroeconomic instability and has been relying on foreign aid and other capital
inflows. But because of inconsistent macroeconomic policies, millions of
people have been thrown into the ranks of the poor and the country has not been
able to help them. According to the latest World Bank report entitled World
Development Indicators 2013, 60% of Pakistan’s population is living below the
poverty line, of which 21% of households are found to be extremely poor which
live on less than $1.25 per day. Pakistan is one of the biggest victims of
terrorism after the 9/11 incidents. With a loss of 50,000 lives and about $100
billion in economic terms, thus pakistan is the only country which has suffered
that much.

beggars can’t be choosers” are platitudes which we hear when we talk about
inappropriate and unhelpful aid .Those who say that beggars can’t be choosers
mistakenly assume that people that receive aids are begging for help and
therefore any aid is helpful. The truth is that most aid recipients do not asks for
aid. Aid agencies on their own decide to provide assistance to them for a variety
of reasons. The second misconception is that all aid has either a positive impact
or no impact at all on those that receive it, therefore there is no harm done even
if the project is not successful. In truth aid recipient invest in the aid they receive
whether it is time, money, political capital or penalties paid for receiving aid. If
aid is useless or in some cases harmful then the aid recipient are worse off than
they would have been without aid.The potential price aid recipient pay to receive
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aid should be factored into all aid decisions. Aid recipient do pay a price for
receiving aid.

Further, begging is very dangerous for world community. The beggars do not
work but depend on other and enjoy the life very well. Different reviews show
that beggars have good pattern of food and some beggars have constructed good
house and purchase land for their families and have good bank balance while
some are very poor and have not sufficient money for their basic needs
fulfillment. It further told that beggary is a bad occupation which is started due
to poverty in the world. The poor people always engage in this activity due to
their poverty and sometime they make a good team and through this team
sometime children are forced to begging while in this business majority children
are involved forcefully. Sometime parents send their children for begging into
market. It is the time of their education while they spend most time in begging
and not get the skill and training for their future, so that they left illiterate. It
was also observed that beggar migrated from rural to urban and from one
country to other for the purpose of begging for earning the money for their
livelihood. So they take interest in this job for ever which negatively affect the
world economy badly and make the world community in sorrowful condition.

Furthermore, Begging strength in the developing world is more than the

developed countries of the world. The per capita income of the developing
countries are low and so they have less investment in the capitalization because
of this the job generation is less than the developed countries and the
unemployment problem is more and sever, which in the long create different
problems in the country and decrease the growth of the economy which latter on
increase the number of beggaries in the country. No proper planning in the
developing countries is existed for begging reduction. Some programs are
working for its controlling while their output is to some extent zero. Beggars not
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only do the begging but also they play great role in different crimes of the
world. The young genders are sexually harassed and sometime kidnapped by
someone. Different programs were launched for its controlling but still the issue
is not solved by world government. So it is necessary for the government of the
world to identify beggar number in the world countries and discuss this issue in
their parliament and make good policy for their control and keep good fund in
the budget for its solution.

The West has spent $2.3 trillion on foreign aid over the last five decades and
has not managed to “get 12-cent medicines to children to prevent half of all
malaria deaths, or $3 to each new mother to prevent 5 million child deaths,”
writes William Easterly, the author of “The White Man’s Burden: How the
West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good”.

Consequently, Easterly believes that economic development comes, not

through aid, but through home-grown efforts of entrepreneurs and social and
political reformers. It could also be added that strengthening of the civil society
also helps in economic development.

Punjab seeks Rs115b foreign aid for mega project. Criticisms on government-
to-government foreign aid can be divided into two groups. One group rests its
claim on the technical evaluation of aid programmes, thus raising doubts about
the efficacy of foreign aid, especially in relation to poverty reduction. This
group makes recommendations for improving the programme design and
accountability mechanisms, but it accepts the basic paradigm of foreign aid that
the poor need external help. This is aid managerialism.

The other group criticises foreign aid in terms of its probable use as a leverage
to extend influence on the domestic policy of developing countries. This group
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raises fundamental questions about how the aid is structured and relates it with
what they call a neo-imperialist agenda. In most cases, 75% of aid money goes
back to donor countries in the form of contracts and supply of goods.
Governments are often engaged in a turf war when negotiating the terms of
engagement with foreign aid agencies. The currently enforced Foreign
Contributions Act 2015 in Pakistan links the use of foreign aid with
transactional approval from the Economic Affairs Division. This is aid politics.

The politics of US aid to Pakistan is that There are important actors in foreign
aid – the aid professionals, consultants, evaluators and international and local
contractors. They associate themselves with governments, civil society and
donors More often than not, they broker the flow of aid between donors and
recipients by preparing programmes, proposals and projects. Their interest lies
in expanding foreign aid. This is an aid business.

The problem with the first argument – aid managerialism – is that it may end up
demanding more foreign aid and just like any failed government programme it
gets more re-budgets just feed into the foreign aid cycle and increases the cost
of fundamental change. The problem with the second argument – aid politics –
is that it may deny external resources when and where they are needed the most,
especially for meeting challenges of the ongoing humanitarian crisis including
disaster preparedness and mitigation. This argument also increases the risk of
the government’s increased control in the recipient country, which in turn could
be utilised to further a government head’s undemocratic ambitions.

Ultimately, The Possible remedies in An alternative scenario, a hypothetical

one can be considered in which there is no government-to-government foreign
aid. In such a scenario, the recipient government declares a ban on foreign aid
for publicly funded programmes and departments such as public education and
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health instead, it creates channels and mechanisms where foreign aid can flow
directly to the civil society, NGOs, private sector and philanthropic
organisations, serving the same purpose of public goods delivery, albeit in a
much more cost-effective manner. The slowdown in foreign aid inflow as An
immediate consequence of this ban will be a fundamental change in inter-
governmental relationships altering the power structure. At the same time, it
will keep donor countries committed to the Sustainable Development Goals.

This aid globalism. Altering the foreign aid equation by this fundamental shift
will strengthen civil society and private institutions, which will also bring a
positive change to social and political structures in the recipient countries. The
re-directed foreign aid will be government-light, and society-heavy.
Governments on both the donor and recipient sides will have reduced controls.
However, this should not undermine collective efforts to make aid flows more
transparent and more accountable. IN aid globalism, lesser money will be flown
back to donor country-based contractors and lesser money will be stuck in the
bureaucratic gridlock of recipients. Most of the aid will reach where it is needed
the most.

Keeping in view for this discussion that Beggars are devoid of self-respect.
They have to bear the taunts of people. They are subjected to great humiliation.
They don’t feel small in extending their bowl to people. People call them names
and they have silently to put up with them. Beggars thus are shorn of self-
esteem/dignity. This prevents them from having their choices in life. Their only
choice is begging to silently bear the recriminations of the people. Once
begging is adopted it goes deep into the psyche of beggars. Even if some
beggars are economically well off, they do not like to give up begging. Nations
that develop the habit of begging in the form of foreign aid to raise the level of
development, find it, in the long run, to dispense with aid for one reason or the
other. The debt-servicing problem rises which consumes a large proportion of
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their budgetary resources. The inflow of foreign loans is offset by the servicing
of loans that debtor countries have to repay. Most of the inflows of loans are
utilized to pay off the external debt, and only a small percentage of aid is
utilized to finance development projects.

The poor developing countries are caught in a debt-trap, out of which they
cannot get out. Top of all, they are enslaved permanently by the creditor
developed countries. They are forced to toe the lines which the developed
countries wish them to follow in the formulation of their domestic policies.
They cannot follow the independent foreign policy to promote their interests in
the global context. The poor countries, willy-nilly, have to accept the
conditionalities of the developed lender countries.They cannot dare to defy their
wishes. The poor countries placed under heavy debt, thus do not have the
independent will of their own. They cannot pursue independent policies, free of
foreign dictation to promote national interests. Hence if Pakistan wishes to
assert its will in the sphere of international relations, it must break the begging
bowl for all times to come.

Beggary is an evil which robs an individual / a nation of its self-respect. If we

wish to revive our selfhood, we must stop taking foreign aid. We must depend
on our internal strengths. What we need is dedicated leadership which could set
the nation on the path of self-reliance.

finally, I end up my essay with the optimistic words of Henry Wadsworth

Let us, then, be up and doing,

With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing,

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Learn to labour and to wait.