Trickle-down theory
Sagarika Ghose
December 07, 2010
First Published: 22:34 IST(7/12/2010)
In the season of scams and sleazy tapes, human compassion has blazed
like a meteorite. Wipro chairman Azim Premji's $2 billion donation to
Indian primary education could become a turning point in the
relationship between rich and poor in post-Independence India. Ratan
Tata, Anand Mahindra and NR Narayana Murthy may have given millions of
dollars to Harvard University, but Premji has donated over R8,000
crore to primary schools in rural India.
The biggest donation ever in the history of philanthropy has not gone
to business schools or to religious establishments or to higher
education. Instead it has gone to the youngest Indian citizens and
called on them to dream the impossible dream. It is a donation that
has invited tiny feet to abandon the slushy dirt tracks and run to
school and then climb the staircase of destiny. Premji's donation will
fund 100 schools over the next five years, train teachers and invest
in technology to create quality modern education at the lowest levels
of development. Premji has promised more money in the future. Let the
jingoists shriek all they want, but here is a Muslim corporate leader
who has made India the holy land of his mission and his endeavour.
Premji's act has brought philanthropy to the centre stage. In the
heady era of the 'I-don't-care-I-want-to-party' mindset, India's
philanthropic and charitable traditions have fallen by the wayside.
While western pop icons like Bob Geldof, Sean Penn, Madonna and
Angelina Jolie are distinguished by their commitment to sharing wealth
and becoming voices of the disaster-struck, India's popular icons are
marked by their endorsement of brands and jockeying for IPL teams.
There are notable exceptions like Shabana Azmi's recent support to the
Ek Jodi Kapda campaign or Rahul Bose's work among tsunami victims. But
its difficult to find a Bollywood star who would lend his services as
passionately and as self-effacingly to a disaster- struck area as
perhaps actor Sean Penn's humanitarian work for the victims of
Hurricane Katrina.
Historian Kancha Ilaiah believes that spiritual traditions determine
motivations towards philanthropy. The bania notion of 'gupt dhana' or
hidden wealth has meant that wealth has been hoarded, not openly
shared with the needy as a way of enriching society, as an act of
individual conscience or even as an act of worship. The Christian
belief that god exists among the poor and the suffering is not as
central to the Hindu way of thought where poverty is often seen as bad
karma of a previous birth. Great charitable works have been done by
religious foundations like the Sathya Sai and others, but often ritual
donations to temples and priests have taken the place of focused
development-oriented wealth-sharing.
In the 1950s and 60s, the Birlas and Tatas led the way in the setting
up of many educational and cultural institutions. But today's
prevailing culture of unabashed display has meant that the elegance of
the old wealthy families, where money implied low key taste and
discreet good living, is hardly practised. The Ambani billion-dollar
home, valued at R4,000 crore or Lakshmi Mittal's famous $60 million
wedding for his daughter are, at one level, signals of the arrival of
Indian business on the world stage, but from the point of view of the
aam aadmi, they stand out as symbols of flamboyantly displayed wealth,
wealth as shock treatment rather than wealth as healer.
The profits of India's new billionaires have not kept pace with their
philanthropic works. While there are local development initiatives in
RIL's Jamnagar, announcement of facilities for poor patients in the
Ambani hospital, these are only a fraction of the mega profits of
India's top businessmen. Firms that are committed to the building of
human capital, or building brain power have fared better. There is,
for example, the Akshay Patra scheme of Infosys, the rural school
network of the Mittal group and HCL Infosystems' Vidyasagar scheme. No
doubt, suspicion and hostility of the bureaucracy towards corporates,
lack of public-private partnerships in key sectors like education have
curtailed society building initiatives. Yet a grand gesture of
generosity of the heart has been missing. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates
asked US billionaires to give away 50% of their wealth to charity. But
in India, we want to pamper our own children and our next generation
too much.
Three years ago, in a message to India's rich, Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh had advised that they should shun wasteful lifestyles and
conspicuous consumption like ostentatious weddings. The prime minister
said that every rich person should do more to help ordinary people,
instead of creating lifestyles that plant resentment in the minds of
the have-nots. "India has made us," the prime minister said, "let us
build bharat." A return to a Nehruvian-style austerity may be
impossible in a market economy. But can there be any doubt that in a
country of the poor, the rich do have a duty to be a little low-key
about their wealth?
As the economy grows at above 8% and more money than ever before
becomes available, let each one adopt a sector where we can be a drop
in the ocean, be it health, education or environment. In 1991, we
underwent a collective mental transformation. It was a psychological
overhaul. As the economy changed, making money was no longer seen as a
sin and we ceased to be hypocritical about the human urge for material
improvement. As a nation, we became healthily unapologetic about
generating wealth, generating jobs and generating much-needed revenue
from business.
But now we can't let corruption and selfishness take away from
achieving the 'good life' in every sense of the term. Let each of us
take a pledge of philanthropy, that even if we can't do as much as
Premji, we will become a country where India's privileged are known
worldwide as India's hands-on care-givers.
(Sagarika Ghose is Deputy Editor, CNN-IBN)
*The views expressed by the author are personal
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