Just about a day ago, I read a story about the Karnataka tourism Minister Mr Gali Janardhan Reddy is donating a crown worth 42 crores to Balaji. Something did not seem right to me. I tried reading a little more detail about Mr. Minister.
I am not a atheist. But I fail to understand Mr Reddy, 42 crore crown for God ? What is it worth for ? To me its a pile of precious metal sitting in some secure locker in a bank . For people who do not know, Mr Reddy is a mining baron in Bellary, one of the poorest place in India. The reality is people in Bellary do not have enough money to make both ends meet. Children work in mines. No school. Not enough drinking water for everyone. These are the very people who elected (though I am not convinced, he was actually elected) Mr Reddy to the assembly. And he in turn donanted the 42 crore crown to the God. And Mr Reddy believes God actually made him the MLA.
In detail, the crown is made up of 32 kg of pure gold, 70,000 diamonds weighing 4000 carats, and a 890 carat African imported emerald. In contrast I am wondering, how many crores Mr Reddy had donated to any hospital which treats the very people who get hurt in his mines and get treatment in a hospital ? Has he ever imported some life saving drugs for the very people who actually toil in his mines to make on an average of $2 per day for a 5 member family to feed. Let alone get treatment. Let alone sending their children to schools.
What a blatant scathing display of superficial devotion to God who actually have never understood the pain of people from his own constituency. Haven't we learnt anything from the greatest philanthropists like Mr John D Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Warren Buffet, William Robert Gates Jr ? People from foreign countries donate money to control AIDS, treat malaria, construct schools in India. And so called our very democratically elected rulers donate a pile of precious metals to temples. Are we are boasting of roughly 50% of our population being in their 30s or 40s and have at least a bachelors degree to their credit. NASSCOM boasts itself being the foremost organization of the India's flagship IT supremacy in the world. The world regards India as a fastest growing economy in south east Asia.
I believe it would be fair to say, we have not grown with this culture of giving. How many of our celebrities actually involve themselves in a humanitarian activity ? Shahrukh Khan and Mr Bachchan are super stars because the average rickshaw puller in a poor dirty potholed city sheels out atleast 10 rupees to buy a cinema ticket to boost the overall box office collection of the so called superstars. But I never heard Mr Bachchan or Mr Khan donating some money to any hospital or any NGO for that matter. I am not saying its only the Bachchans or the king khan.
The Ambanis, the Premjis, the Mittals are continuously in the Forbes list of most wealthy billionaires. Apart from occasional charities, I have not heard them doing anything for the country. Instead the Ambanis build "international schools" for the richie riches of Mumbai. How many schools they have built for people who can not afford to send their kinds to govt funded schools because they don't want let go the daily wage of the child worker who feed the big family.
Mr Mittal flys his guests to a french castle for his daughters wedding, treats them to imported wines, imports flowers from Thailand for the decoration, but how many malaria vaccines he has supplied to the poor in India. Doesn't it sound embarrassing to call himself an celebrated Indian in front of the world ?
Mr Reddy, Mr Carnegie or Mr Rockefeller were also religious. They would have had probably built a gold coated church for Jesus if they had wanted to. But instead, they donated there entire wealth to the human cause. And rightly so Bill Gates and Warren Buffets have committed all , yes all of their wealth to human cause. Sure, we Indians boast of a rich history, rich cultural heritage. Sure, we claim education started in Nalanda and we invented the Zero. Sure we did. But we still lack in the education of loving a human being. We can donate 42 crores to a temple, but we fail to pay the right wage to the workers who spend their entire life making us rich.
I understand, corruption is everywhere. Greed is human nature. Show off is the other side of man's pride. But are we forgetting we are humans after all? The most intelligent species on earth. Are we forgetting, 45% of Indians still make under $1 per day and can not pay for a decent meal every day ? Are we forgetting a large number of our children can not afford school even today when we are announcing to the world that our GDP grows at 9% per year?
Mr Reddy, I believe you have the common sense to understand that you have just donated the 32kg Gold to the God who already holds tonnes of Gold in HIS locker which to my opinion does not even save one life and saves one children childhood. However, the donation surely gave you a place in history as the highest donor to the temple. But you should know, 42 crore would have actually opened a couple of schools, feed thousand hungry stomachs, saved some lives from AIDS and malaria. That would have been the right donation. That would have made you the real devotee in front of God.
I still have hope that we will learn from lives of Baba Amte and the like and someday understand the true worth of being a human being after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment