On February 2, 1926, Mr. Abdul Haye, Muham-madan member from the East Punjab, introduced into the Indian Legislative Assembly a resolution looking to the prohibition of beggary and vagrancy in India. Supporting it, he said in part:[9]
[9. Legislative Assembly Debates, Vol. VII, No. 8, p. 627.]
One wonders whether the stars in heaven are more in number or the beggars in this country...Barring agriculture there is no other profession in India which can claim more followers...I make bold to say and without any fear of contradiction that every twenty-fifth man in this country is a beggar.
Of these mendicants Lala Lajpat Rai says in his National Education in India y p. 37:
We find that today a good part of the nation (sometimes estimated at one-fourth), having abandoned all productive economic work, engages itself in...making the people believe that next to becoming a Saddhú [a begging ascetic] himself, the best thing for man to do to avoid damnation is to feed and maintain Saddhús.