Also among the listeners were peacocks of Indian businessmen and top government officials, including Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who pioneered India’s modern economic reform without any known western pressure. But for frequent sobs heard from women delegates and the sounds of men folk blowing nose to hide their emotions, the Vigyan Bhavan hall heard with pin-drop silence Karan Singh’s rich voice quoting from Vedanta that teaches the world the fundamentals of wealth generation and real happiness, which are to work selflessly for others.

In Sankhya Yoga of Bhagavad Gita, the Lord says: “Thy right is to work only, but never to its fruits; let not the fruits of action be thy motive, nor let thy attachment be to inaction.” Act with devotion. But, don’t get attached. Stay balanced in both success and failure. Wretched are they whose motive is the fruit for own enjoyment. Surrender the fruit to the Creator (and to his creation, the nature and the society). Take refuge in wisdom. Generate wealth for the society which alone has the right to wealth. Work for the pleasure of the work alone. Let your action or inaction not be motivated by the joy of success or the pain of failure. What a wonderful teaching!

Ironically, 25 years later, the world’s second richest couple, Bill and Melinda Gates, and the third richest businessman, Warren Buffett, all Americans, came to India on a reverse mission — to preach the wealthiest of Indians the virtue of sharing wealth with the less fortunate in the society. Not many of the country’s super rich were appeared to have been impressed. Most of them have been more into making more money and taking away more from the society and the government than into giving away something truly worthwhile for those underprivileged. For instance, two out of the world’s top ten richest persons are Indians. While most of the other billionaires are in the news for philanthropy, the two Indian super-rich are making waves for building super-luxury residential edifices and buying latest versions of private jets, choppers and yachts, all for themselves.

Mexican telecom tsar Carlos Slim Helu, presently the world’s richest man with an estimated family fortune of $74 billion, has given to his country the most modern art museum and donated his vast art collection worth several hundred millions of dollars to the museum. In inimitable Mughal emperor Shahjahan style , Carlos Helu named the art museum after his beautiful wife, Soumaya. William (Bill) Gates, the world’s second richest man worth $56 billion, donated till date $30 billion on account of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to run a variety of charity programmes across the world to combat tuberculosis, polio, poverty, malnutrition and AIDS. The world’s third richest, Warren Buffett, has committed 80 per cent of his personal wealth of $50 billion to various charities – from healthcare and education to poverty contraction – across the world. Buffett is the biggest champion of charity by the rich across the world out of their own personal fortune.

For Frenchman Bernard Arnault, the world’s fourth richest boasting a personal wealth of $41 billion, philanthropy is religion. But, no one can match the wisdom of the $39.5-billion Larry Ellison of the US, the fifth richest, who has committed 95 per cent of his personal treasury to charity. The seventh richest, Amancio Ortega of Spain, with a personal fortune of $31 billion, and Brazil’s Eike Batista ($30 billion), the eighth richest, achieved iconic stature in their respective countries for participation in scores of social, educational health and cultural development programmes. Christy Walton of the US, the 10th richest, with a family fortune of $26.5 billion, is the world’s biggest woman philanthropist.

In a sharp contrast of attitude, India-born steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, the world’s sixth richest, having a personal fortune of $31.1 billion, is in the news for building a $ 50-million ‘eco mansion’ on the outskirts of London which will have ‘zero’ carbon footprint. Similarly, Mukesh Ambani of India, the world’s ninth richest boasting a personal wealth of $27 billion, was the talk of world for his lavish $2-billion 27-storey mansion overlooking the Arabian Sea in South Mumbai’s highly eco-sensitive Malabar Hill region displaying every possible material comfort. The mansion was inaugurated last year in the presence of a select list of celebrity guests from India and abroad. Ambani’s father, the legendary late Dhirubhai, was born in a poor Gujarati family, who, in his teens, worked as a petrol pump helper at the British port colony of Aden in West Asia. Mittal’s father, Mohan Lal, too was born in a poor family in Rajasthan.

In a way, the Mittals’ and Ambanis’ reflect the general attitude of India’s increasing numbers of rich and super-rich, who rarely part with their personal wealth for social cause. Their business corporations, however, donate to tax-free charities from corporate funds or shareholders’ money more to protect their industrial units from community ire than love for society. Most of these units were located in rural and tribal areas, displacing thousands of poor dwellings and polluting the environment. Such donations are often touted as the so-called corporate social responsibility (CSR) effort. Ironically, Indian public companies, deemed or listed, are against mandatory spending commitment in social responsibility programmes. They have strongly opposed a parliamentary group suggestion to incorporate a provision in the proposed Companies Act to ensure companies earmark at least two per cent of their annual corporate profit on CSR programmes.

However, it would be wrong to suggest that Indians as a whole are anti-charity and social work. On the contrary, it is the common man and the poor who kept the spirit of philanthropy alive for generations in keeping with the teachings of Bhagavat Gita, Koran and Sufi-ism, Bible, Zohrastrianism, Buddhism and Jainism, which all propounded the virtue of giving-away for the benefit of the underprivileged, the undernourished and the sick. Their donations, big or small, are rarely tom-tomed. Seeking publicity for making donations for a good cause is considered a sin in many religious scriptures. Tax refunds rarely motivate such donations. Low profile charities such as Bharat Sevashram Sangh, run by a group of socially-motivate monks mostly with small donations, are doing yeomen’s service to the society by providing disaster relief to even remotest parts of the country faster than any other agency.

To India’s pride, its poor billion are the most lion-hearted when it comes to giving donation for a good and urgent cause. Some do it by cash, whatever they can afford, and others in kind through physical participation or even voluntary donation of organs. Their involvement sans personal agenda and propagation is rarely known and talked about in public. Unfortunately, Bill and Buffet may be unaware that for the country’s neo-materialist upper class and rich, charitable trusts are increasingly becoming conduits for converting black money into white and vice versa. These trusts are emerging as a big source of corruption and illegal money transaction.(IPA Service)