“The best among you are those who bring greatest benefits to the rest of the mankind” – Prophet Mohammad (SAW)
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others” – Mahatma Gandhi
Since ages, people have been living together sharing common interests and culture and forming societies. Diversities of various characteristics are found in all the societies of the world. One important aspect in which this diversity is found in societies is “income”. All societies can be stratified into different strata on the basis of income.
In India, the government launches many schemes from time to time to provide financial support, food, shelter, etc, to the poor. Some of the schemes which the Government of India has implemented are Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, under which LPG connections are provided at concessional rates to women of 80 million Below Poverty Line households, Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awas Yojana to provide housing for all by 2022, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana for financial inclusion of all people in India. People in most societies provide social, moral and financial support to the poor. The poor have been living in harmony with rich people in societies and different charity systems like Bayt al-mal have also been providing financial support to them since ages.
Some people make charity for gaining publicity, though. However, most people do not do charity for publicity. We highlight the shortcomings of society but we never appreciate the good of the society. We don’t sense or see the humanity existing in most of the societies because most of the people do help and provide support to the poor or persons in need without the intention of publicity, and they don’t upload it on social media platforms.
Recently, a girl of Sopore town jumped into river Jhelum and her body is yet to be recovered. Since the time she has jumped into the river, I have seen a large number of posts from so-called journalists and intellectuals on social media platforms blaming the people of Sopore for not providing financial and moral support to the family of the girl when she was alive. The posts were like, “Wake Up Sopore”, “Murder of Humanity”. Citing Imam Ali, they said,
“Distribute your wealth amongst the poor, destitute and the needy, help others to the best of your ability and be kind and sympathetic to human beings”.
I being a resident of Sopore town know the ground reality of how much of financial support is provided to the weaker section of our society by people here, as per their abilities. Some find it easy to spread false information on social media platforms without knowing the truth. All those who spread false information should at least verify the truth. Charity should be done in such a way that it helps the needy persons. Doing charity for publicity can have negative impacts on the needy.
Poverty is not the lone reason of commuting suicide as rich people commit more suicide than the poor do. There are various reasons of committing suicide, like neurological problems, being alcoholic, stress, mental illness, etc. The data on suicides published in 2019 by the World Health Organization revels that South Korea, which is a developed country, has a suicide rate of 28.6 persons per 1,00,000 persons, which is the fourth highest in the world. Russia, which is also a developed country, has a high suicide rate of 25.1 persons per 1,00,000 persons, while in developing or underdeveloped countries like Syria and Iraq, the suicide rates are only 2 and 3.6 persons per 1,00,000 persons respectively.
The data of 2019 shows that poverty is not the main reason of suicides. Also, the data of 2022 published by the World Health Organization reveals that 5% of people in the United States of America suffer from depression, while the percentage of depression cases in developing countries like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh is 4.10%, which is less than that in the United States of America.
Whenever a poor person commits suicide, the so-called intellectuals leave no stone unturned in blaming the society.
Without knowing the truth, social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc, are flooded with posts blaming the society for the suicide committed by the poor. Some people who post on social media platforms are ignorant about the situations, but many do it with the intention of gaining publicity. Whenever we upload posts to blame the society in which the incident occurs, without knowing the truth we forget that these incidents could happen in our own societies as well. We can’t prove or disprove all the things on social media platforms. Everyone has the right to have his/her opinion about the incident, but no one has the right to tarnish the image of any society by spreading false propaganda for the sake of publicity.
The writer is a student of Economics Honours at Government Degree College Sopore. lu***********@***il.com