Tracing the social concepts, contours
Recent times has seen
many published works on social services and social practices prevailing in
India but Shankar Pathak’s Social Work and Social Welfare, A Historical -
cultural Perspective is a lucid compilation of his published writings from his
previous two books, Social Welfare-An Evolutionary And Developmental
Perspective and the second one, Social Welfare, Health and Family Planning in
India. The author has added four new chapters in this book that includes
Bhagvat Gita, Bhakti movement, Professionalism of Social work and Developmental
Social Welfare.
For
the first time, we see an elaborate piece from a sociological perspective angle
on Arjun’s dilemma on the battlefield when faced with his own kith and kin that
has been depicted in the Bhagvat Gita. Although the helping process in the Gita
is significantly similar to social work nowadays but there are some important
differences and significant similarities that have been identified.
Shankar
Pathak says, “The process of helping is a dialog process of enabling Arjuna to
go through the mental process to grasp the problem, the situation and the ways
to tackle it and make the right decision on the battlefront. Arjuna is given
the opportunity to think, reflect and then decide, the right of
self-determination, to choose between various alternatives. Krishna does not
impose his views on Arjuna or to choose a particular course of action or
manipulate him to decide. All these is the essence of a helping process found
in the best practices of modern professional social work.”
Another
highlight in the book includes a chapter on the Bhakti Movement with emphasis
on its ideology, concept and contribution but its relevance to social work
during that period. The author takes a look at the Bhakti compositions of well
known Bhakti poets like Kabir, Purandara Dasa, Kanak Dasa as well as from a
gender perspective on women poets like Mira, Mahadeviakka, Andal and Lal Ded.
The author
says, “The Bhakti poets rejected the iniquitous social structure based on
fourfold classification of society, the high and low classifications of the
population. In fact, the Bhakti poetry use the term “Kula” which is closer to
the concept of social class or clan that is “jati”. The word “jati” is also
used by Kabir and the Vachanas of Shivasharanas such as Basava.”
Apart
from this, the author criticizes Chidananda Murthy’s long essay “Bhakti-A
protest movement” saying that this observation is debatable as he does not cite
any textual sources in support of his statement that Bhakti movements are a
form of protest against monarchy, in the sense, many of them were not prepared
to accept a human being as their master.
An
authoritative work, the book traces the evolution of social work in India right
from the ancient times to the present and also discusses the quest for
professional status and the practice of
social work in a cultural perspective. Tracing the social history or more specifically the history of the movements of the poor, the author has touched upon the study of social structure which is
basically the evolution of social welfare in India from Chapters three to seven.
social work in a cultural perspective. Tracing the social history or more specifically the history of the movements of the poor, the author has touched upon the study of social structure which is
basically the evolution of social welfare in India from Chapters three to seven.
The
author says, “If the reader is disappointed in the application of the approach,
it is not only due to paucity of time and space but also extreme paucity of
historical evidence to write reliable social history of the life and movements
of the poor. This is especially true for the ancient period and to a lesser
extent the medieval period.” A very valuable piece of work from an erudite
scholar, the book is an interesting read not only for students and research
scholars but also for people interested in the history of social work and
welfare in India which draws upon its history, traditions and practices
concisely and lucidly. Shankar Pathak has authored five books on social work
and contributed articles to the Encyclopaedia of Social Work in India (1966 and
1987) and several anthologies on social work.
By
Meera
Bhardwaj
City Express
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
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