DEVELOPING A GENEROSITY QUOTIENT: Can India do better?

http://www.speakingtree.in/spiritual-blogs/seekers/self-improvement/developing-a-generosity-quotient-has-the-time-come-for-india-to-do-better   [18.05.2015]

The thought of Gates and Buffett donating away a substantial part of their earnings running into tens of billions of dollars has always baffled me. It still does. Those phenomenal figures are even more difficult to comprehend for an everyman like me who lives a modest urban life.

A woman our family knows who had for a while worked for us, now resides in a semi-pucca two room house in the rural outskirts of Pune. She and her husband toil all day long on their measly one acre farm for a living. Yet, when i go visiting her once every few months, she being my ‘rakhi sister’, i have never returned without the boot of my car stuffed tight with produce from her farm! I know fully well she cannot financially afford to give me all of that but yet she will insist simply because her generous heart affords to part with it. Many of us in our lives thus far lived may have come across a similar experience atleast once.

The two paragraphs above are extremes in their economic disparities and there could be a zillion examples in between.  But, the question really is: Are Indians a people generous?

I once asked a Buddhist monk to define generosity and he said “Generosity according to Buddhist texts is the undefiled and stain-free intent to give and actually give; to be able to give not what one doesn’t want but to be able to part with what one would rather have. One can be termed generous if one donates wealth, saves life or even give spiritual teachings”.

The most recent (2014) global survey on World Giving Index (WGI) places countries such as Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Trinidad & Tobago, Bhutan, Nigeria, Kenya, Jamaica, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan way ahead of India! The sum total of GDP of all these nations may well fall short of ours alone. Yet, how is it that they score so highly over us when it comes to giving. India stands at position 69 on that list. What is it that drives citizens of poor nations to be big givers? Sounds oxymoronic, doesn’t it? But that’s not the trend. That very list has some of the wealthiest countries in the world right on top too. Surely therefore it must be something more than just being a rich or poor a nation that drives the noble desire to give.

There are no simple answers. It could be one based on the nation’s religious tilt (Buddhist, Christian and Islamic nations are way up on that list) or it could simply be one of general attitude developed at a young age through parenting and schooling that moulds the heart towards or away from generosity. It may well be a particularly powerful experience or situation a person may have undergone to mould his/her mind towards giving. 

One needs to first define ‘giving’. According the WGI the act of giving is classified as having either:

• donated money to an organisation?
• volunteered time to an organisation?
• helped a stranger or someone they didn’t know, who needed help?

Back to the big global givers. Why is it that there is no such ‘breaking world news’ of Indian givers? On and off one has read news of the Tatas and Premjis in their giving best and such news warms the cockles of one’s heart and brings a smile on the face. But there are a thousand more billionaires who have made their billions respectfully who don’t find mention, covertly nor overtly. Before the knives are out one is not discussing CSR here. Why? Simply because CSR is not really about innocent giving, we all know that. There is a quid pro quo involved; one of ‘we will take up such and such cause in return of which we will get so and so tax benefit or whatever’. Such giving has a motive or agenda behind it and therefore is seen to be ‘contaminated’. Less said of most NGO’s the better. 

The Indian Middle Class today is numerically and financially a robust one. Traditionally it has been so. Temple hundis have been raking in offerings - and still do - faster than they can be counted and accounted for. More powerful the presiding deity more the moolah that pours in. Yet, when it comes to the same donors for making a donation to a specific cause which is perceived to concern them less, they will shy away. Is the game of giving about a quid pro quo with god then? And then what happens when the domestic help, the watchman or the driver asks for an ‘advance’ or some monetary help? How easily we find ourselves giving excuses. Even if one does end up giving, it is a gesture of ‘meherbani’ rather than the joy of giving/helping which envelopes the act. The thought of ‘if i give, it will serve a possible future purpose’ arises in our minds. Pure and uncontaminated giving from sheer kindness doesn’t come to us urban Indians easily. Let’s face this fact smack on: we are a society which is increasingly ‘me, my family, my friends’ centric and rest of the causes and beings don’t seem to matter much. Our hearts and minds seem to be getting myopic.

But things seem to be sporadically changing. There have been some heartening instances where crowd funding has served worthy causes. People, largely comprising the youth, have begun to understand the reason or rather that there need not be a reason to give. Just give. It’s no wonder that India has leaped almost 25 places on the WGI rankings over 2013 figures. 

Surely we can do better and be right up on that list only if we can improve our national attitude towards pure generosity by imbibing it at a young age in our homes and schools. This decade i believe, belongs to ramping up India’s Generosity Quotient. 

(Remember: Generosity is first of the Six Paramitas (Transcendental Perfections) in Buddhist teachings. Others being: Discipline, Patience, Diligence, Meditation and Wisdom)