Of Humanity

C. V. G. Krishna Murthy

God bestowed the noble qualities of benevolence, compassion, the power of discrimination between good and bad and a strong urge for serving the fellow persons thus making the human being the ‘Supreme’ of all creation. But in the present times, these values are almost vanishing.

All religions preach the gospel of service to humanity. Gautam Buddha renounced his kingdom and all other material possessions and went out to serve the poor, the sick and the suffering. The lady with the lamp, Florence nightingale, served the wounded, sick and the disabled. Mother Theresa stands as a beacon light for service to humanity.

The Bhagavadgita expounds ‘Nishkama Karma’ which is known as ‘disinterested service’ with no material gains. The Red Cross society is an organization founded on the noble principle of humanity. Ramakrishna mission maintains that service to humanity is service to God. Swami Vivekananda strongly expresses by saying, ‘He alone lives who lives for others, the rest are more dead than alive’.

In the modem times, ‘self-centeredness’ has replaced the idea of service to humanity. The increasing number of old age homes in India is a sequel of inhuman treatment meted out to the parents by their children.

The corporate educational institutions are more interested in minting money without due care for the overall development of the students enrolled. While boasting about the number of passes by the institutions some students who lag behind develop a feeling of frustration. The corporate hospitals are devoid of humanitarian ideal. The exploitation of the patients by the corporate hospitals can be minimized if the government hospitals provide good treatment with sophisticated equipment.

The inadequate supply of essential drugs and sophisticated equipment in government hospitals may result in the increase of mortality of patients. The people thus lost trust in the treatment given by doctors and frequently they are humiliated and manhandled. Consequently, the doctors resort to strike causing maximum harm to sick patients. Sometimes, after exhausting all types of crude treatments, the patients are brought to the government hospitals. The doctors cannot help the patients with incurable diseases. Is there any yardstick to determine the negligence of doctors? If so, some system should be evolved to spot this. The causes for this ‘inhuman episode’ should be thoroughly investigated and those should not be allowed to be precipitated.

The question of humanity applies not only to doctors but also to all the persons and agencies involved in it. The ideal doctor gives the correct medicine to cure the ailment. ‘Aushadhi Jahnavi Thoyam, Vaidyo Narayano Harihi’ is an ancient saying applied to the medical profession. The medicine given by the doctor is like holy Ganges water and the doctor is equated to god incarnate.

The travellers in aeroplanes are threatened by the hijackers. The terrorists take devilish pleasure in wholesale killing of human beings. In the name of idealism of erasing inequalities, some groups of persons resort to mass scale killing of innocent people. Are we really progressing in the modem scientific age? The cinema presents violent scenes and mass-scale killing and the fine sensibility of humanity is lost by the viewers.

The mounting traffic accidents pose a question whether the people and the government are really serious in finding ways and means to avert them. Sometimes, the accident victim is not cared for by the passers-by due to fear of police harassment. There is a need for change of the forensic law. The busy traffic on the roads should make it a point to give way to Ambulance vehicles and Fire engines for saving the lives thus exhibiting a true sense of humanity.

The education curriculum should introduce lessons in the textbooks highlighting the virtuous quality of humanity. The ideals of benevolence and compassion are to be ingrained right from the childhood. Swami Vivekananda in his trumpet voice declared that ‘As long as a single person lives in poverty and ignorance, I hold every man a traitor’.