Empathy, Tolerance and Compassion towards Weaker Sections

Empathy, tolerance, and compassion are essential values in public service, ensuring inclusivity and justice for weaker sections. 

Civil servants must understand marginalized communities’ struggles, uphold their rights, and implement policies with fairness and sensitivity, fostering a more equitable, humane, and socially just governance system. 

In order to achieve the just governance system, the virtues of empathy, tolerance and compassions are essential. This is why these virtues are explicitly mentioned in the UPSC civil services syllabus.

Empathy

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Empathy is putting yourself in someone else’s place and seeing the world from their perspective. 

It is very important quality of the civil servants. It helps in the understanding problems of the people and their aspiration whom they have to serve. 

For example, Sanjukta Parashar an IPS officer who is an encounter specialist showed exemplary service to humanity when she actively assisted victims of the militancy in the relief camps. She could only do it as she had empathy towards them.

Empathy and Sympathy

It is often observed that empathy is often confused with the sympathy.  Both are not same. The main difference between sympathy and empathy is how we express and experience our emotions toward someone’s situation. Sympathy is a feeling of sincere concern for someone who is experiencing something difficult or painful. Sympathy is more of a feeling of pity for another. It is feeling sorry for someone who is hurting and in pain.

Whereas empathy is feeling emotions from other’s perspective. It is more internalization of other’s feeling in you. One can be more empathetic when one himself has gone through that situation. For example, a civil servant from the farmers family is more empathetic towards problem of the farmers

Compassion and Tolerance

The virtue of tolerance and compassion towards the weaker sections in a country like ours is a must-have for all Civil servants. 

What do you understand about compassion and tolerance?

Compassion

“Compassion is a necessity, not a luxury, and without it, humanity cannot survive”- Dalai Lama

In Latin, the word “compassion” actually means “co-suffering.” Compassion as a virtue refers to the active feeling to uplift others from pain and suffering. The essential quality of being compassionate is to take steps to elevate suffering and bring joy. The virtue of compassion in a country like ours is a must-have for all Civil servants.

A compassionate person goes above and beyond basic empathy by desiring to lessen the suffering of the other person. This places a focus on action and a desire to assist.

Strength wise: sympathy << empathy << compassion.

Thus, compassion is an even more appropriate predictor of behaviour. Mother Teresa’s decision to leave her native country and serve selflessly in Kolkata was motivated by compassion.

Tolerance

Tolerance is the ability to appreciate, tolerate, and value others who have different beliefs than oneself, regardless of their race, religion, ethnicity, or other characteristics.

It equips one with the ability to put up with or accept the existence of ideas or behaviours they disagree with. When one prioritizes important objectives over minor differences, this is achievable.

In this age of globalization, where individuals from different racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds coexist, and the world has become more multicultural and diverse, it is crucial to promote mutual love and affection as well as tolerance and harmony. Societies cannot sustain their long-term peace and commitment to one another without tolerance and harmony.

Examples to better understand the concept of tolerance:

• Accepting People’s Traditions and Religions
• Accepting LGBTQI+ People
• Integrated Schools
• The practice of Free Speech
• Accepting People’s Right to Live in the Way They Want
• Accepting People’s Political Stances
• Accepting People’s Behaviours
• Inclusion of Sub-Cultural Groups

Example of Tolerance and Compassion towards Weaker Section

1. Sankaran (1934–2010) an Indian civil servant, social worker, and the Chief Secretary of the State of Tripura, is known for his contributions to the enforcement of the Abolition of Bonded Labour Act of 1976, which abolished bonded labour in India. He is known as ‘The Peoples IAS Officer’.

A government employee from Kozhikode, popularly known as “Collector Bro,” founded “Compassionate Kozhikode”. This organization have been successful in cleaning ponds, feeding the needy, helping and improving lives after floods, and engaging the young in the improvement of society.

Mother Theresa has often been referred to as an embodiment of tolerance and compassion. Her selfless work for the poor and weaker section to date is inspiring and spoken of.

An IAS officer posted in the Umaria district of Madhya Pradesh removed the air conditioning from his office to shield about 100 malnourished children from the scorching heat.

How can these values be fostered?

One can inculcate tolerance and compassion for the weaker section by:

• The teaching of Buddhism’s four noble truths can help.
• When practising loving-kindness meditation, you must focus on positive thoughts.
• Visit an elderly home or a slum.
• IAS probationers are sent to “Bharat Darshan” with the same purpose of appreciating India’s diversity and developing compassion towards others.

His Holiness, The Dalai Lama, in his teachings, said, “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” Rightly so, compassion almost always leads to an affirmative result and is of paramount importance to each and every one.

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