|
|
|
June 20, 2004
EXCERPTS: Helping the young help themselves
Baba Pyare Lal Bedi writes about Lahore’s most famous philanthropist, Sir Ganga Ram
As the years went on he began to realize more strongly than ever that education was not enough — it was also highly necessary to provide work, or show avenues of possible development to the students who qualified themselves. The lot of the educated unemployed always attracted his sympathy. “Enclosed a letter from that unfortunate...” he wrote to his friend Jawala Parshad. “Just see what things are coming to. This man, having taken an MA in mathematics, is now struggling for a crumb of bread. If you can do anything for him, just do it for humanity’s sake.”
His interest in the unemployed was not merely passive, and he was always on the lookout for new avenues of employment for them.
The more thought he gave to this problem, the more he was impressed by its gravity, and he felt more and more convinced that the path of the future was far away from the service track. He often used to say that if young men who came out of colleges really showed a capacity to turn to practical use the scientific knowledge which they acquired and if they had the requisite energy, there was an unlimited field of work, useful both for the individual who did it and for the country. He did not believe in inherited wealth, said one of his journals, because he thought that men of intelligence, ability and energy should create capital. This was one of the reasons why he gave the greater part of his acquisitions to charity and did not think of leaving more than a reasonable proportion of his heritage to his sons.
Sir Abdul Qadir, once minister of education in Punjab, relates the following story in his reminiscences: “Once a friend of mine whose son had got his degree wanted me to introduce the young man to Sir Ganga Ram in the hope that, with his resources and influence, Sir Ganga Ram might help him in finding some good employment. I did as I was desired, and took the young hopeful to Sir Ganga Ram. His advice was characteristic. He said he would ask the young man to start life in some humble sphere of trade, commerce or agriculture, regarding his degree merely as a grounding for the work before him. He illustrated his meaning by telling us that he suggested to a young man some time ago to start a bakery in any big town where he might cater for such Hindus who wanted bread, biscuits and pastry, but who could not, owing to religious or sentimental scruples, go to a European or Muslim bakery, such as already existing. He told us that the young man took his advice, and had a flourishing business. He also told us that he had collected booklets from England and America suggesting means of starting in life, to people with limited resources and capital, and that young man about to enter life could study them with advantage at the reading room he had established. He added that he had ordered the man in charge of the reading room to cut from various newspapers all notices advertising any vacant jobs, and to paste them on a board for the information of those in search of employment. By this simple device, I understand hundreds have been helped to find employment.”
So he began to take an interest in individual cases, and from the individual, as he always did, he went to the general, and organized his ideas into a society. This led to the foundation of the Hindu students’ career society in 1924. In his anxiety to provide necessary facilities for the study of promising Hindus who were handicapped by lack of funds, he donated scholarships for the vocational institutions only, tenable in 25 technical schools and colleges all over India. He never gave scholarships for institutions outside India, and he never encouraged men to take to professions, which might have the brand of respectability but which could not give them bread within a reasonable time. He expected all to repay the grant made to them, and his main idea was to help the largest number of students with the smallest amount of capital.
Still more typical of the spirit of its founder was the Sir Ganga Ram Business Bureau and Library. The institution was devoted solely to the work of placing every facility in the way of educated young men to select their own careers and was the only one of its kind in India. He was always thinking of the problem of turning the machine-made products of modern Indian education into earning, useful, independent members of society. Started in 1924, the institute encouraged and created love for manual work of all kinds and gave young men the latest news of openings in industrial, professional and commercial lines and careers.
Ganga Ram was now seventy-six, and he had given away more than three million rupees, but, in his own mind, his charities were not complete until, in April 1927, he opened the Hindu Apahaj ashram. When he had given the blessing of food and shelter to his servant Kalu in his old age, he had realized that he was only a representative of a class — the class of men and women who find themselves left stranded by life as they grow old and infirm, who have no home to which they can go, and nobody to look to to provide their daily food.
His own home, Ganga Niwas, so dear to him, meant nothing to him if he could not feel that others too had the boon of a friendly roof, somewhere to rest their tired head after a day’s work well done. It was in this way that he conceived the idea of an ashram for the old and the infirm. To this project he gave deep thought and personal care, and ultimately decided on a site on the Ravi Road. Two acres of land were bought, and an ashram was constructed at a cost of Rs1,50,000. Here all who were destitute could get shelter, food, and clothing, and the doors were shut to nobody save those who were professional beggars or who had some infectious disease. Some invalid children were also admitted to the ashram, and a special matron was employed to look after them.
Well-fed and decently clothed, the inmates pass their last days in peace and contentment in this ashram, which is situated next to the Widows’ ashram, the institution nearest to his heart. There they can read and listen to the music that is provided, for them, there they can pray and talk and rest in peace, unconcerned for their bread. For those who are ill, medical care is available and doctors from the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital visit them regularly.
Typical of his many quieter charities is the “Poor Hindus’ Relief Fund”, which was really a consolidation of his many private charities to those who were in need of money but could not take advantage of an institution. The money was mainly given to widows and children, and the pension rarely went to more than Rs 5 per month, although in exceptional cases it went up to Rs15. In this way nearly five thousand rupees a year was given out.
To his silent giving, there was no end. Hundreds came to his door, and few if any were turned away unprovided for. In periods of scarcity and high prices, particularly high wheat prices, he opened relief shops. From his early service days he had distributed warm clothing and blankets to the poor on a large scale
It was not as a speaker that Sir Ganga Ram will be remembered, but as a doer and a giver. Words meant little to him except as so much raw material which he had to use, in order to express himself when it became necessary to do so. In many ways he made his influence felt, and few knew of the amount or depth of his charities. Many families which had seen better days received from him handsome help, regardless of what community they belonged to, and the money was given and accepted in the spirit of true friendship.
A very near friend of his is responsible for a story about a European officer who had helped him in the early years of his career. “Eventually when Ganga Ram visited England for the second time to further certain projects of irrigation, he told me privately that there he had heard that the above-mentioned European officer who had patronized him had lost all the money which he had collected while in service, and afterwards as a contractor in Punjab and the Bombay Presidency and had been compelled to go to a poor house notwithstanding the fact that he had two sons holding high offices in India or elsewhere.
“On hearing this, my friend approached his old patron and related to him in a most respectful manner how he had become a millionaire after leaving service, and begged him to allow him to settle a decent pension for him for the rest of his life.”
For his servant he had the greatest affection and in all his friendships he was guided by deep feelings of loyalty for those who had at any time helped him or done him a service. He never forgot a good turn. In a country conspicuous for its bad treatment of domestic servants, he behaved as few others have done. In his will the income from three squares of land was set aside to be divided among all his servants in their lifetime, and in his private fund were many who had served him and been amply rewarded.
Ganga Ram’s loving thought for those who had been in personal attendance upon him and who had accompanied him throughout his life put the cap on the grace and beauty of his giving. Beneath the associations and institutions that he founded, the facade of his charities, ran the stream of his giving, still and deep and refreshing, bringing joy to all those who stood in need. The money that Ganga Ram earned he called “mother’s milk” since it came from the land, and like mother’s milk he sent it again to the poor and the helpless, the unprotected and the worn.
Excerpted with permission from
Harvest from the Desert: The Life and Work of Sir Ganga Ram
By Baba Pyare Lal Bedi
Research and Publications Centre, National College of Arts, 4 The Mall, Lahore-54000. Tel: (042) 731-1018
Email: rpc@nca.edu.pk
Website: www.nca.edu.pk/rpc
ISBN 969-8623-07-8
305pp. Rs375
|
|
|
|
