Everyone wants to go to heaven and yet no one wants to die. I don't know who said it but perhaps this is the best quote I have come across. It captures the essence of human greed. It can be argued that there is no greater truth than death. The fact that one dies at some point is fascinating. Most of your life, you don't feel you will become old and feeble, dependent on someone's support to eat, drink and move around. Yet, you see so many of these people. They perhaps also carried this notion at one point in their life: that it happens to others, not to you.It all began with my meeting an acquaintance, a seasoned politician from one of the largest parties of the country. As it turned out, he has been minister on two occasions. The Nepali context makes it even more interesting: he has been addressed as mantriji (Mr Minister) and his wife matraniji (Madam Minister) ever since.
What intrigued me most about the politician were his rings, in eight of his 10 fingers. In no way, at least going by his physical appearance, was there anything to suggest he was a person who believed his fate (and his future) was tied up with those stones. And with every significant event in his life, be it national elections or local elections or while staring a new business, the number of rings increased. This I got to know from a close confidant of his. I wondered what he would do after two more events.
The reason I was prompted to write is neither because of his rings nor his beliefs. It was his use of the phrase 'social service'. Throughout the conversation he kept mentioning how he had spent decades of his life to serve and uplift the poor. In other words, his full time profession was called 'social service', not politics.
Abraham Maslow, the psychologist who came up with the theory of hierarchy of needs, made it clear that there's no limit to human desire. Once you know that you have met your physiological needs and you have a secure future, you crave for social recognition. That I think is an apt observation. Why else would people so dedicated to uplift the downtrodden through social service not resist the temptation of putting up their face in every news channel?
I believe a true social worker finds a way to hide from the limelight. They go about doing things quietly. And I am sure there are hundreds of them.
I believe there is no such thing as 'pure social service'. The moment one mentions social service, I always see a vested interest. We hear about big business houses donating to disaster-affected families. It goes without saying that they extract four times the benefit from this subtle advertisement.
Interestingly, as I sat to write this piece I had an 'introspective effect'. This was when I realized that I was no different. I have been involved in quite a handful of "social services".
For almost seven years now I have been engaged with Hawaii-based medical missions who come to Nepal to hold free surgical camps. After having helped not a few but hundreds of people I recently sat down to update my Linked-In profile. I do not know why but I could not help but mention that I have been coordinating such medical camps. Somehow that did not seem right but I couldn't delete whatever update I just had made.
Perhaps the motivation for writing on this subject was due to my recent encounter with one of the most successful persons. He was addressing a small group and he started by saying that he had plans to build a road as a part of CSR in a place where he was opening the best private school for differently-abled persons.
He was clear it should not be perceived as social service. Once we build a road, locals will appreciate our effort and that would translate into the appreciation of the value of the entire land. He was saying that as a businessman, he was here not to serve anyone but to make money! I could not help but admire his brutal honesty.
Once I was leading an alumni organization in the capacity of its president. One of the programs we ran was Nationwide Scholarship Program. The fund we generated would typically come from people with whom we had close networks. Many things were left unsaid but deep down we knew every donor wanted to be mentioned somewhere and we wanted to build our own profiles of running a successful program.
The kind of communication we would have, between the donors and we the organization, was not about performance of recipients of scholarship as much as it was about their profile not being properly updated in webpage that profiled the 'donors'. Some did not like the pictures and wanted them to be replaced.
I am not arguing that we have to do everything in hush-hush. Rather it's the mystical powers of hypocrisy that is baffling. Imagine someone making a post in Facebook and the person not going back to see the number of 'likes' earned!
I wonder what a world would be like if everyone come out to tell everyone of their real motive. If it's anything else apart from 'social service' I am sure one would not have much hesitation. Business people would say they are out to 'make money'; singers would confess to trying to 'sell records and make money'; doctors would 'take care of the sick and make money' and so on. To my ears they would certainly sound more honest than those who harbor the delusion of doing 'social service'.
Hiteshkarki@gmail.com
Related story
Governance in Social transformations in Nepal
