Social Responsibility (சமூக கடமை)

Following couplets stress the basic duty of rich to have compassion to help the needy, in time. All great persons give back to the society which made them wealthy, not as benevolence, but as duty. Here, the stress is on the wealth earned by honest hard work. The sage not only advises distribution, of wealth but also earning it with rightful means. If the wealth was earned by unethical ways, then, even the benevolent act can not be considered as noble. The same message was delivered by Mahatma Gandhi who declared that ‘end cannot justify means’.

The philosophy of this Kural is reflected in the present movement by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet who have not only committed their enormous wealth to the poor and are also on the campaign, to exhort other rich people to donate at least half of their accumulated wealth. They have succeeded in convincing more that 50 wealthy people in the USA to follow their foot steps. Mr. Bill Gates once in lighter vein, remarked that while in the morning he attends meetings to earn money, in afternoons he attend meetings to spend it usefully. I believe he has eloquently summarized the whole philosophy of his life with these golden words! Even in India, many companies and founders of companies like Narayana Murthy of Infosys and Aziz Premji of Wipro have established trusts to help the poor. Reliance Industries have taken positive steps to improve many villages by adopting them. Tata Steel from the very inception adopted the principle of serving the society in all possible ways like establishing hospitals, schools and instituting scholarships for the bright students.

The couplet insists on the wealth distributed to reach the most deserving rather than just throwing largesse to all and sundry. An important point to be noted here is that these people take care to ensure that the amount is spent for a specific purpose like, say eradication of polio,AIDS, or malaria in developing countries, education and nourishment for the poor students and establish a system of monitoring and control to ascertain the progress to prevent leakage of wealth reaching undeserving corrupt hands. Benevolence is the hallmark of their motto. Corporate philanthropy and inclusive growth by government have gathered momentum in recent times.

தாளாற்றி தந்த பொருளெல்லாம் தக்கார்க்கு

வேளாண்மை செய்தற் பொருட்டு ( 212)

 Thalatri Thantha Porulellam Thakkarkku

 Velanmai Saithar Poruttu

  
  பெரிய மனிதர்கள், நேர்மையான, கடின  உழைப்பால்  தேடி அடைந்த  பொருளை,   தகுதியான தேவைப்படுபவர்கு உதவுவதர்க்காக மட்டுமே பயன்  படுத்துவர்.

 All Benevolent people earn wealth by working hard in righteous

 ways and consider themselves as custodian of it to help the needy

 (and not to amass it for selfish interests)