COMPASSION
IS THE CALL OF CORONA
Much water has flowed over more than the past one month. The worldwide
toll taken by this “stubborn” virus is closing in on the half million mark
while the numbers infected has gone past the nine million mark. Of course,
optimists point out that more than half have recovered. After just under two-and-half
months of lockdown the government opted to relax it rather than to risk an
economic catastrophe in addition to the pandemic. But the dilly dallying
continues as India has climbed to the fourth place in the total number of cases
reported and is second only to the United States in the number of serious and
critical cases. This number though for some reason has remained stationary at
8944 for well over the past week. There are regular changes in the number of
new cases, deaths and recoveries but the number of serious and critical cases
remain constant.
The question arises as to whether statistics are important at all or are
they merely numbers that bear little relation to the reality. One is reminded
of the stratagem adopted by the dispensation under Napoleon the pig in George
Orwell’s satire on the Soviet Union ‘Animal Farm’. Just to give an outward show
of well-being, grain bins were filled mostly with pebbles and then topped up
with corn to make it appear as if there was no food shortage. I wish
authorities take statistics more seriously particularly in the time of a
pandemic when numbers are of paramount importance. That is perhaps the reason
why many high-ranking government officials have come down with Covid19 since
neither statistics nor contact tracing has been taken seriously enough. Experts
have said again and again that the only way to bring the pandemic under control
is to follow the virus. And if information about people who are getting
infected is swept under the carpet, the virus gets the upper hand no matter how
good it looks for us now.
However, looking at the past weeks and months what has struck me most is
the lack of compassion in people at all levels. The attitudes of many leaders
is utterly insensitive and shows complete disregard for human life. The
American president, for example, has no qualms about saying that he would
consider it a success if 80,000 people should die. It does not strike him that
it is a failure even if one death takes place. (The toll is now over 126,000,
seemingly leaving the president’s dreams in tatters!! What an exhibition of inhumanity).
The Brazilian president describes this deadly infection as just a little cold. Is
he out of his mind? At one million, Brazil now has the second highest number of
positive cases in the world just behind the US. More than 53,000 Brazilians
have already lost their lives to this “little cold”. True, for most it is just
a little cold but for some it is fatal. Many leaders in their eagerness to appear
realistic and practical have floated the idea people acquiring herd immunity.
Maybe they are trying to cover their poor response stemming from the lack of a
sense of urgency. Do they even know what this might mean in terms of loss of
lives, pain, loneliness and loss of jobs and livelihoods and economies and
livelihoods destroyed? Urgent action to save lives does not even figure in
their agenda. Clinging on to power seems to be their single-minded pursuit.
Rest is just “collateral damage.” For they seem to be sure, mistakenly though,
that the virus will leave them alone.
Over the ages India has been showing the beacon of compassion to the
world beginning with Buddha. Compassion stems from the belief here that
everything is a part of the Brahma whether it is man, animals, plants or
inanimate objects. I recently learnt of a story of compassion about Sri Sarada
Devi, known among her disciples as the Holy Mother, the wife of mystic sage
Ramkrishna Paramahansa Dev – the man who was called Master by Swami Vivekananda
and worshipped by many disciples. Sarada Devi, who outlived her husband by 34
years, belonged to Jayrambati in Bankura district of Bengal and lived there
after the death of Sri Ramkrishna – an extraordinary being whose greatness was underlined
by his simplicity and humility. Humility and simplicity also marked the life of
Sri Sarada Devi who was a very kind hearted person who tried to help people in
need without asking their caste and creed – the very essence of compassion. The
incidents that I am going to relate are about Sri Sarada Devi bring out these
very characteristics in her and should act as a guide and precept for all, whether
they are powerful or powerless, wealthy or poor, particularly at a time when we
are in the presence of a virus, sometimes deadly, that is totally
non-discriminating. She was no revolutionary but she was supremely compassionate.
Shiromanipur was a village neighbouring Jayrambati. Its population was
predominantly Muslim who traditionally were silk cultivators. Though India had
been a major producer of silk for centuries, it had fallen on bad times due to
stiff competition from China and Japan. This also affected sericulture (called ‘toont’
in Bengali) in villages like Shiromanipur which impoverished the cultivators.
As a result, many of them had turned into thieves and highwaymen known as
dacoits. But surprisingly many of inhabitants of Shiromanipur including those
who indulged in thievery and dacoity held Sri Sarada Devi in high esteem and
devotion since she appreciated their predicament and did not adopt a holier
than though attitude. She not only treated them with great affection and love
but also made sure that whenever they came to her house, they did not return to
their village on empty stomachs. In addition, she plied them with many gifts of
food and other stuff. Knowing the hard times that the Shiromanipur Muslims had
fallen upon, she insisted on employing them to build her new house in 1914-15, dismissing
fears expressed by many villagers including her own relatives.
Amjad was one such silk farmer turned dacoit who would visit Sri Sarada
Devi often at times carrying vegetables for her grown in his patch of land.
‘Toonte dakat’ was his notorious nickname. One day he brought a hand of bananas
as an offering for the temple that Sri Sarada Devi happily accepted, overruling
the objection of a woman devotee asked why should the offering of a bad man be
accepted. But despite knowing of his devotion, Sri Sarada Devi never tried to reform
Amjad into a pious man as usually happens in many stories. He continued with
his ‘badman’ ways though it must be said in his defence that he never molested
Jayrambati, perhaps out of regard for the Holy Mother. She refused to condemn
him to the nether worlds just because he was a dacoit. Once when he showed up
after a long interval, Amjad explained that he could not come for some days as
he had been rounded up for cattle rustling. Sri Sarada Devi accepted this in a
matter of fact way, only replying that she was wondering why he hadn’t turned
up for such a long time and now she understood why. When she was told some
years later in Calcutta (now Kolkata) that he had been arrested by the police
for dacoity, her only reaction was: “Oh, and I thought that at least he knew all
about dacoity.” She even looked after his wife Motijan Bibi and his mother
Fatema Bibi when Amjad was in lockup. Incidentally, Amjad succumbed to a sword
wound he suffered during a dacoity raid sometime after the death of the Holy
Mother. It takes a liberated soul like her to accept human beings for their
intrinsic worth rather than sermonising to them.
No wonder other Muslim inhabitants of Shiromanipur held her in high
esteem and some even considered her to be a Pir or Dervish as was recalled many
years later by Roshan Ali Khan, who too was a resident of Shiromanipur, in an
interview in 1993 to Prof. Taritkumar Bandopadhyay. (Shree Shree Mayer
Padaprante, Udbodhan Karyalaya, Kolkata,2001, p. 657-661). remembered the kind
and compassionate ways of Sri Sarada Devi when he met her a number of times in
the company of his uncles Mafeti Sheikh and Hamedi Sheikh. Roshan Ali also
related a mystic vision of the Holy Mother that Mafeti Chacha experienced. Mafeti
Sheikh had gone to Sri Sarada Devi’s house to gift to her some vegetables grown
in his garden. She was in prayer and so he decided to wait. As he waited in a
corner of the veranda of her hut and watched her at the prayers, it seemed to
him as if the Holy Mother was levitating a few feet above the prayer mat. As
soon as he called out to others to see the miracle, the vision was no longer
there. “She was no ordinary mortal – she must have been a pir or a dervish.”
True Sri Sarada Devi
was no ordinary mortal. In addition to being compassionate she was courageous
and never hesitated to act in accordance with her conviction. If what is
recounted here looks like it showed her compassion only towards Muslims only,
that is by no means true. She was compassionate no matter what the faith. When
Swami Vivekananda fired a Hindu cook for pilfering stuff from the kitchen, the
Holy Mother saw to it that the man got the job back as she knew that he was a
poor man with many mouths to feed and no other means of making a living.
