I have always looked askance at celebrity charity. Several years in the business of dispensing publicity probably makes you skeptical of people’s motives, particularly those who cannot give without a camera capturing the moment. But frankly, four fingers point inwards too, to a cynical conscience: after all, what’s wrong in giving under public glare? Invariably, it is the celebrities who have the dough to cough up. Besides, charity remains an act of goodness, whatever the intent, as long as the cheque does not bounce or the offering is not siphoned off through a back door soon after the photo-op.
A second life within a lifetime probably puts you in a philosophical frame to muse about such mundane things like charity. A provocation has also landed from America, the torch bearer of the capitalist West: Fortune magazine’s cover story talks of how Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, celebrated tycoons in their own right, have initiated a ‘campaign to get billionaires to give away at least half their wealth, before or after death’. The target is $600 Billion, a figure that makes, say, our IPL deals, seem a pittance. This effort of Bill Gates is billed as the greatest ever boost in the history of philanthropy and is expected to launch a fight to finish against poverty and disease.
Now, scriptures of all faiths to our own shastras to modern statutes (like the Income Tax Act) extol and encourage charity. A charitable bent of mind is a God-given gift, but it can also be cultivated. Really, acts of giving and sharing do not pre-suppose possession, abundant or otherwise. A magnanimous mind can always find the material, even if meagre. A mean mentality, on the other hand, can foreclose even manifold, er, means. But given that giving is a matter of the mind, still some attitudinal dilemmas persist.
At the core of those conundrums is a key moral question, which is also at the base of religions and economic theories: Who are we to give? After all, whatever we have were not created by us but appropriated from this earth through some fortuitous circumstances ranging from heredity to being at the right place at the right time. Hard work no doubt is a legitimate claimant for wealth but then providence does not always reward labour, mental, physical or intellectual, at fair scales across the board. Obviously, such inequality seems to be a sinister design of the Almighty himself, that no man can fully alleviate, howsoever lofty his intent is or deep the pockets are. The givers, in all humility, must perforce have to thank their luck and share it too, for fate can change the fortunes and trade the places in a jiffy. ‘Earn to Give’ should be the motto which would also address the desire and motivation to earn minus the moral incongruity of feeling great or condescending while giving. In short, it is the person who is receiving who is doing you a favour!
The modern milieu has blurred many lines too. The hazy one that divides need and greed is a typical example. A natural giver would give irrespective of his needs being satisfied. But to an average individual, charity begins ‘after home’, which is only when the threshold of needs is reached and breached and there is excess on the hand. But then, the luxuries thrown up by a tech-driven world compete with the needy for that surplus. Simply, any upgrade to a latest gadget puts this choice before us everyday. And the urge for self-indulgence almost always wins the day. (I am not sure if Gates threw his pet personal effects acquired at great cost out the Windows!) And this accumulated guilt at some point leads to giving, that is assuming something is left after all the thanks-’giving’ to the Gods. But to the credit of such givers must be said this: Every human, being wants the lifestyle of the one above him and so ‘third-party-guilt’, call it dhrishti, is inherent in all stations of life. One need not be guilty for being comfortable for that is a natural evolutionary tendency but should certainly feel so if one can give, but did not.
Another line that has been obliterated is the one between good wealth and bad wealth. In the heydays of the classical, well, class conflict between capitalism and socialism, all wealth was deemed bad with the have-nots perennially ranged against the haves. After over a century and a half of socialism, the have-nots have only multiplied many times even in socialist countries. This was because, the socialist slogan of ‘from each according to his capacity to each according to his needs’ only promoted laziness and made the bulk of the population consumers rather than producers. Also, socialism fostered a parasitical third class, the Welfare State that consisted of Babus and politicos, ironically described as public servants. To this day, ‘State charity’, a socialist legacy, though a necessity in areas like health, education etc, stands vitiated because the resources instead of reaching the needy lines the pockets of this class that now includes the progeny too!
In these days of ATM-to-mouth existence when one has spent even his future incomes, there is borrowed wealth also to reckon with. There is also concealed income that becomes legit if IT is paid. But let us assume that all hard-earned wealth, declared or not, but through a legal business or profession, is good wealth. This automatically puts the right of disposal in the hands of the earner. To give or not to give, is his problem. So what is bad wealth? Or whose wealth is bad? Criminals for one. And then the obviously ill gotten wealth of the politicos. Barring a Tata here and an Ambani there in such a densely populated nation, the bulk of India’s wealth lies in the hands of the aforesaid breed. Really, in comparison, the billions that Bill Gates proposes to generate would now look like ‘petty’ IPL deals! Now, can a dispossessed person to whom all wealth seems ugly know the difference between your hard earned money and the immoral booty of the loot brigade? After all both moneys traverse the same avenues and are displayed on the same showcases. Your giving may seem like charity to you, but the receiver will most likely deem it an entitlement. With growing and glaring exploitation and inequities we will have less and less reasons to blame him.
It may sound ominous but the day is not distant when the habit of giving will be the only survival option. For, what is not given voluntarily might be taken forcefully. Expect no charity there. Now, give that a thought!
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