Misguided philanthropy

The nouveau riche scions of a family business consulted this scribe to know what aspect of life of the poor needs the philanthropic support the most. They were full of passion to serve the ailing and the destitute. To their utter surprise, I pointed out no new philanthropic project for them.

I explained that there were already innumerable public welfare organisations endeavouring to extend the lifeline to the downtrodden. In fact, after suggesting a few names, I advised them to join any of them of their choice and reinforce them with their human force and financial support as the welfare organisations that are already working are observed appealing for funds and volunteers. Their deadpan faces, now, revealed as if my suggestion had snuffed out their passion.

A few days later, I received their long voice message that they had launched their own philanthropic campaign. The reason? Self-exhibitionism. Because behind every billboarding philanthropy exists a self-fulfilling egoistic desire of becoming a welfare celebrity. This desire gains proportions of a morbid feeling in this age supersaturated with social media where posts, likes, shares and adulatory comments inflate one's ego. Contrarily, the effacement of show-offy self in charitable acts is canonically a prescribed prerequisite.

The gravamen of my argument that must have hit the young visitors' Achilles heel was that charity must begin at home. I asked them whether they knew the salary of the guards or watchmen of their factories. It would be far less than the government recommended minimum wages.

Furthermore, the people who deserve their philanthropy the most are the workers who, despite being underpaid, toil for the success of their business. A manna-in-the-wilderness pay rise or a bonus can win the owners the sincerest dedication and prayers of workers. In addition, the doubts whether the philanthropic help is reaching the deserving people would be alleviated as the workers' actual financial health is never hidden to the owners.

This is the age of strained familial relationships. The most difficult philanthropic act is to help out our financially vulnerable near and dear ones. Often, our children's first cousins who can't afford higher education are never helped because of siblings' internecine jealous competition.

A little cynic might it be that the haves utilise what is surplus to their needs and luxuries. The spirit of charity, however, stipulates that the help must peck at one's savings.

Sometimes, the charity is misguided when it targets short-term goodness instead of aiming at something bigger and longlasting.

A student whose father had died when the student was just a child reminisces about his school days. A thought provoking revelation he made. At school whenever he was punished to stand in or out of the class for not doing homework, the principal on the round came to hug him considering it an act of immense goodness to shower kindness on an orphan.

Not only this, he gave him regularly the money which the student used to spend on frivolous activities. The student started being lax in studies, emboldened by the privilege of being the principal's blue-eyed boy.

The principal's myopic sympathy fated him to be a rickshaw driver. The student sighed: "I needed the fatherly sternness more than the motherly cuddling."

Are the income support programmes, public kitchens, and air ambulance not the acts of misguided state responsibility towards the impoverished? The 12th-century philosopher Maimonides, specifying eight degrees of charity, awards the top rank to "the donor [who] gives the recipient the wherewithal to become self-supporting".

Jerome K Jerome's short story, The Angel and the Author - and Others, themed on the intentions behind charitable acts, highlights the right prioritising:

"But if all this charity is, as you say, so useless; if it touches but the fringe; if it makes the evil worse, what would you do?"

"I would substitute Justice," he answered; "there would be no need for Charity."