Page 130 - SocialHarmony

134 Social Harmony

When I was working in Morbi, a devastating flood in the
Machhu River caused huge destruction and killed numerous
people. It was a heart-wrenching tragedy. We, the volunteers of
RSS, went there in groups and worked for five-seven days
cleaning the debris, removing dead bodies, organizing
cremations and providing food for the flood-stricken people.
Some perverted people would allege that RSS workers were
only there to lay their hands on the jewellery and other valuables
found on the dead bodies. Our country is full of such perverts –
I come across almost a dozen of them daily. I often wonder where
they concoct such allegations from – maybe we should make a
dictionary of such allegations.

I will not take names, but a very well-known person once
stopped our volunteers who were carrying the dead body of a
child and asked them why they were doing this job when the
military, police, members of Lok Rakshak Dal, villagers or even
his family members were not doing it. The young RSS volunteers
stared at him and asked him that if they did not do it, who
would? Whether we are from Amreli, Surat or Valsad, this
calamity has stricken our society. If we don’t help our suffering
brethren, who will? Such a feeling of unity inspires human
beings to serve others.

Most people serve with an underlying sense of pity. All of
us may have written essays on, “I helped a blind person to cross
the road,” when we are asked to write about some service
rendered. Is everybody in the village blind that 300 children
need to help them cross the road? But we write because we
have to write. Empathy cannot be created by mere writing, one
must feel the pain. We must visualize ourselves in their situation
and feel that they are our own, instead of feeling pity for them.
The feeling of pity only satisfies our ego. We have to realize
that they are a part of our society and develop a feeling of
belonging instead of pity. This is a collective social responsibility.
If one house is burning in a village, the whole village will rush
to extinguish the fire, even if they do not have good relations
with the victims, because there is a feeling of social
responsibility. Likewise, everybody is a part of the society and