The Killing Of Charity

When young socialists attempted to corner Gandhiji by asking him how with his great compassion for the poor, he could tolerate the rich continuing to be rich, and whether he should not make socialism an integral part of his message, he reflected and as was always his way he looked into India’s spiritual traditions for an answer. And he found it. According to India’s dharma, all the wealth, talents and good luck of which an individual happens to be the possessor, come from God, and he holds them as a trustee for the benefit of those around him—relatives, friends and fellow citizens. All these have a claim on him. The claimants are in ever widening circles around him. Necessarily as the circle widens the help expected is reduced.

 Giving is the biggest enjoyment one can extract out of one’s possessions. Tena tyaktena hhunjeethaa in Isa Upanishad was thus interpreted by Gandhiji. There should be no legal compulsion intervening in the working of this moral trusteeship. Giving ceases to be enjoyment, if it is subjected to coercion. The individual is bound to those around him as by the brahmaastra of mythological warfare. It does not tolerate the super-imposition of any flaxen or other physical rope. Compassion and traditional charity disappear if taxes and laws seek to achieve what the instinct of unity with those around one should achieve. The key to Gandhiji’s trusteeship bond between the haves and the havenots is the voluntary character of the giving, the preservation of the precious illusion of free-will. I say illusion of free-will because of the compulsions of the inner spirit and of public opinion. External physical coercion dispels the free-will feeling. Taxes and State regulations not only rob us of the means to practise compassion but rob us even of the will to practise it.

 The care of the poor which is the moral responsibility of the better-off was not neglected in the old days. But we are now giving in a different age, and one may feel that care of the needy is now so big that only the Government is able to handle it. Ralph W. Hosted in an address to a Young Men’s Forum in America dealt with this point, of course particularly having in mind American conditions:

 “I lived through the depression of the 1930s. I saw people go hungry and without enough clothing. But I never saw or read of anyone starving or freezing to death. On the contrary, in the early days of the depression, I saw the greatest voluntary response of people to the needs of their fellowmen that this nation had ever seen. Without being asked by any one, people who had less than enough to satisfy their own needs shared what little they had with those who were in a worse condition.

 “And then something happened. Someone decided that the government could do a better job of feeding and caring for the unemployed, and a vast government programme of handout was launched. What happened? The spirit of charity that brought people to the aid of their fellowmen was destroyed. The government tried to assume the mantle of Christian charity, the noblest characteristic of mankind. The poor were fed. The unemployed were given work of sorts; but the people of this country were changed. They had lost something. They had surrendered to government their moral responsibility—the thing that made them men and women—and from that we have not recovered to this day.”

—Courtesy: Freeman

  We have seen in India also that after Government began to levy high taxes to flirt big expenditure for the poor, the spirit of charity declined and now threatens, altogether to disappear. Not only because the Government has publicly undertaken all the responsibility to look after the poor but also because the people which could afford to be charitable are far too heavily taxed.

 The duty of individuals as well as of government is to provide opportunities for the poor to work and earn what they need. The care of the physically handicapped is different and should not be confused with policy in respect of the normally fit. It is not good to train poor people to feel that they have a right to be helped and may demand their welfare needs to be met. It ultimately weakens people to let them slide into this state of mind.

 “To make a government requires no great trouble. Settle the seat of power; teach obedience; and the work is done. To give freedom is still more easy. It is not necessary to guide; it only requires to let go the rein. But to form a free government, that is, to temper together these opposite elements, liberty and restraint, in one consistent whole, requires much thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful, and combining mind.” These are Edmund Burke’s words. It is on the basis of the philosophy contained in these words of the great British political philosopher that our Constitution was framed and completed in 1949.

 Part IV of our Constitution lays down what the governments that take responsibility from time to time are asked to do ; and Part Ill of the document lays down strict adherence to the essentials required for freedom. To try to fulfill what is laid down in Part IV, or anything else which the Government considers it good to do from time to time, should not be sought to be done ignoring or setting aside what is laid down as fundamental in Part Ill. To govern without taking away the essential freedoms is what Edmund Burke as well as the framers of our own Constitution visualized and desired, Efficient government with strict adherence to the rights and liberties of citizens in respect of person and property, as conceived by the framers of the Constitution, may be difficult but that is what is to be done. It may be easy to govern by snatching away freedom. It may be easy to let citizens be free to do whatever they like. But this would be anarchy and the other tyranny. To temper together the two opposite elements of liberty and restraint “in one consistent whole” requires “much thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful and combining mind”, to repeat Burke’s words. And that was what was hoped for by the framers of our Constitution by which all the leaders and representatives assembled swore to abide.

 If the activities of Government are limited to what properly belongs to government and the people are allowed, singly or in combination, to produce and trade and do business as free citizens, competing with one another and exercising their best talents, earn and save, and reinvest for further production and profitable business, there will be plenty of opportunity for employment and the spread of general happiness. On the other hand public management means waste and a burden of taxation which means for the people the direct opposite of well-being.