Human Dignity

Due to Murlidhar’s fearless stand against a Britisher’s abuse of an Indian bride, Mahatma Gandhi had called him as ‘Abhay Sadhak’ (seeker of fearlessness). However one night, when he saw a leper - a mass of flesh with no trace of fingers and sores in place of eyes and nose - he fled! Later, feeling ashamed he returned, picked up the leper, gave him food and took care of him until he died.

Murlidhar went on to grow in his fearlessness as Baba Amte. He devoted his life to the care and rehabilitation of leprosy patients, even allowing his body to be used for experiments to grow leprosy germs. However, he would say, ‘I have cured the leprosy of the body, now I must cure the leprosy of the mind.’

The sad reality of prejudiced fear has been seen once again. In a school in South Goa, parents are insisting on the removal of HIV positive orphans. The reasons for such inhuman demands are many. Lack of proper information about the dreaded disease has been further damned by wrong information by a few who are supposed to allay fears. But most pertinent is the trepidation that we feel for the one who we identify as someone like us.

The late Baba Amte would have articulated the need ‘to cure the HIV of the mind’! We know that the HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) may or may not lead to AIDS (Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome) - a chronic, potentially life-threatening condition. However, the HIV of the mind will lead to the death of humanity itself.

We can overcome the fear by uniting many ways. The first is to have the right facts. Secondly, deliberated reason must challenge the notion of the afflicted person being condemned by fate. To empathise with the person and their family, all we need to ask is, ‘what if it was us?’ But most importantly we need to remind ourselves of our duty towards the survival of human dignity.

Facts, reason and empathy will ensure human dignity
when they ‘unite to impact’ our true sense of duty!

                              

- Pravin K. Sabnis

Goa, India.