Diginity of Labour Comp
DIGINITY OF LABOUR
‘Work is worship' is one of the truest proverbs. The idea contained in the saying is this that all labour, manual or otherwise, is full of dignity and nobility. It equals work with prayer. It emphasizes the point that empty verbal prayers are not as valuable as real achievement in any fields.
Many people in the present generation, however, have a mistaken idea that manual labor is the means of the power man's livelihood and has something undignified about it. The higher and the middle classes in our country are apt to look down upon the manual work done by the poorer classes to earn their daily bread.
Though in these hard days when the struggle for existence is getting keener and keener, the old ideas about respectability are fast giving place to new ones, yet educated young men are still very slow in appre¬ciating the dignity of labour. They would rather starve than earn their living by honest labour by taking to humble pur¬suits like dairy-farming, poultry farming etc., in which illit¬erate people have so far been generally engaged.
Now, when we talk of dignity of labour, we mean manual work such as has to be done by the cultivator, the artisan or the craftsman. But why should physical labour is regarded as less respectable than mental labour? Is not the very pro¬duction of food we eat dependant on the hard and tough labour of the farmers.
The problem of good supply is the most vital question of the day in our country. All other questions arise only after this question has been satisfactorily solved. But such is the hold of customs and old practices in our society that the man who works continually day and night, in sun and rain, to produce the corn which keeps us alive, is looked down as mere 'labour' by the self-styled 'higher' classes.
In the western countries and the U.S.A., people do recognise the dignity of labour. There is no servant class in the West. The people of the higher classes, ladies and gentle¬men, have to do their
‘Work is worship' is one of the truest proverbs. The idea contained in the saying is this that all labour, manual or otherwise, is full of dignity and nobility. It equals work with prayer. It emphasizes the point that empty verbal prayers are not as valuable as real achievement in any fields.
Many people in the present generation, however, have a mistaken idea that manual labor is the means of the power man's livelihood and has something undignified about it. The higher and the middle classes in our country are apt to look down upon the manual work done by the poorer classes to earn their daily bread.
Though in these hard days when the struggle for existence is getting keener and keener, the old ideas about respectability are fast giving place to new ones, yet educated young men are still very slow in appre¬ciating the dignity of labour. They would rather starve than earn their living by honest labour by taking to humble pur¬suits like dairy-farming, poultry farming etc., in which illit¬erate people have so far been generally engaged.
Now, when we talk of dignity of labour, we mean manual work such as has to be done by the cultivator, the artisan or the craftsman. But why should physical labour is regarded as less respectable than mental labour? Is not the very pro¬duction of food we eat dependant on the hard and tough labour of the farmers.
The problem of good supply is the most vital question of the day in our country. All other questions arise only after this question has been satisfactorily solved. But such is the hold of customs and old practices in our society that the man who works continually day and night, in sun and rain, to produce the corn which keeps us alive, is looked down as mere 'labour' by the self-styled 'higher' classes.
In the western countries and the U.S.A., people do recognise the dignity of labour. There is no servant class in the West. The people of the higher classes, ladies and gentle¬men, have to do their