Monday, November 1, 2010

Charity: losing its sheen?

Charity has been part of many a religious texts. According to dharma shastra of hinduism, charity should be anonymous and selfless. It was based on principle of left hand not knowing what right hand was doing and vice versa. Donations were anonymous and were genuine. Over the years , the selflessness and anonymity is being replaced by selfishness and publicity.
With the end of soviet era and the fall of communism, the states turned more capitalist. The global south or the 3rd world soon adopted to the western models of export led intensive growth and hoped for a trickle down of benefits to pull people out of poverty.
But the heady cocktail of corruption, redtapism and nepotism was too large an absorbent to let anything trickle down to the lower strata of society.Democracies turned into plutocracies. The result was a growing and diversifying divide. From a primitive rich poor divide, today we have the caste divide, the digital divide and so on. Humanity has been dissected and trisected according to the whims and fancies of the opportunist politicians.
All these have lead to a growingly selfish and sinful society. Surprisingly a major change is occuring in this world of narcists. One mister Gates suddenly got enlightened and opened up the gates of his bank account to let the wealth flood into the global south and help in bridging the very divides that companies like his created. Even in war torn countries like Iraq and afghanistan, the capitalists are leaving no stone unturned to publicise their brands.
Lord Blalaji of tirupathi today receives gifts amounting to crores of rupees from affluent people amidst full media glare. Donation which was once a low profile anonymous event has not become a PR event. Such has been the commercialisation/westernisation in our society.
India had assumed to itself a socialist pattern of society in 1970s , but this seems to be fast changing into a opportunist society where every activity is performed based on a cost benefit analysis.

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