I have recently become an avid reader of the articles of T.J.S George published as point of view,in the New Indian Express.It was his latest article'Those who giveth, those who taketh'published in that column on 8th August 2021,that prompted me to probe into the jungle of riches and its witches and the realms of the wealthy,with their concern for the wellbeing of humanity.
Wealth and money are abstract terms controlled by the concrete stuff called cash and coins.John Milton a famous English poet of the sixteenth century,came out with one of his most notable lines"the hungry sheep look up and are not fed"in his pastoral elegy Lycidas.Milton's line was of course said in a different context and a reference to the line above,could even be called irrelevant,to an article concerning wealth.
But the irrefutable point is,wealth changes its connotations in accordance with its existing realities.For the starved and hungry,food is a form of wealth.If wealth brings happiness to a vast section of humanity,food is the base on which the building of happiness stands tall,as the Eiffel tower.So when the hungry sheep are not fed,it reflects a kind of dismal imbalance around the globe.
TJS George has rightly acknowledged an impressive quote from the well known writer,author and philanthropist Rohini Nilekani,which says"wealth comes with a huge responsibility."In a way,other than illgotten wealth,{instances of which might outnumber these days}people have to responsibly make wealth and responsibly retain the wealth made by them.But what the quoted line pinpoints is the invaluable social responsibility of sharing and distributing a portion of wealth for social wellbeing,as a huge humanitarian task.
When it comes to meaningful distribution of wealth for social amelioration,one cannot confine to the normal contribution of funds to poor feeding and maintenance of old age homes and orphanages,because these social activities attract the attention of even middle income groups.The sharing of wealth should come in its most generous form,towards promoting education and health care,which are the two globally significant areas of human welfare.
In this regard,the artcle of TJS George mentions the unique contribution of Shiv Nadar to education and health care and specifically points out that Wipro's Azim Premji occupies the fourth place in the list of twenty most generous people of the world,marked by an organisation called Business Insider,which has allotted the first slot to Bill Gates of Microsoft.TJS George happily records a few more names of other responsible wealthy Indians,who take care of the philanthropy side of life,in one way or the other.
However,similar to Robert Louis Stevenson's gothic novel 'Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde',wealth has its graceful and grotesque sides rattling human imagination, like angels and devils.There are upstarts in the sectors of wealth,who become wealthy by clinging to politics and by travelling on its corrupt wagons.Consequently,they begin to control politics,after jumping from rags to riches,like thunder following lightning.These are the Hydes{evils},who exist in the guise of Jekylls{goodness}.
Oliver Goldsmith in his beautiful poem'The Deserted Village'lamentably says''where wealth accumulates men decay".Conversely,we can also argue that there are'decayed' men,who easily accumulate wealth.Truly speaking,these days there are no deeper routes to wealth,growing as thick bushes almost everywhere.In any corrupt system, most people can appropriate their wealth,generated through multipronged sources of misappropriation.Money pooled through shady channels of skullduggery,abuse of power and underhand deals,raises its artificial springs to water the plants of wealth and makes them grow into a dense jungle,wherein schemes are hatched to rule,with a hidden agenda for misrule.
Can we expect any gracious emanation of 'huge responsibility' from such kind of weird wealth,not made but amassed?In many people's neighbourhood in India,there are cases of sudden wealth raisers,with a least sense of social responsibility.The clandestine origin of their unnatural roots of wealth,does not make them shy of their fast track growth of wealth,like an instant beverage.Instead,it adorns their lifestyle, with bouquets of vanity and banquets of cosmetic etiquette.It might take years for them to mature,to become nobly wealthy,so as to realise their 'huge responsibility'in augmenting the resources for social wellbeing.
Finally,I take the privilege to quote irrelevantly,the following lines of Samuel Taylor Coleridge,the romantic poet-cum-contemorary of William Wordsworth,who in his poem 'Dejection:An Ode' says,
"O lady we receive only what we give
And in our life alone does nature live"
If the wealth makers shoulder their 'huge responsibility'and give away a considerable portion of their wealth that they received,for others'wellbeing,they leave their generosity as a legacy,bearing the fruits of egalitarianism.On the other hand,if they die in riches,by not bothering to lift even a small section of mankind from the ditches,they incur a vast desert of mindlessness,as a curse for their progeny.
TJS George perfectly concludes his article by saying that if people are'spiritually inclined' they will listen to 'the divine consciousness' and give away in proportion to what they receive.This is what my lines quoted from Coleridge would indirectly mean too! If we give from what we receive it becomes a blessing.Silmilarly,what we receive is nothing but a mirror reflecting the happy returns,or horror ghosts of what we have given, or not given! Wealth has it overdues in its making.Hence the wealthy have the huge moral responsibility of willingly dispensing with a portion of their wealth,as dues to society,for its much needed wellbeing.To conclude,philanthropy is neither an act nor an art.It is a passion.
P.Chandrasekaran.
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