Santbal A Saint with a Difference

Author(s): T U Mehta
Publisher: Navjivan Prakashan Mandir

Page 84

young persons of the town felt ashamed at their own failure to act. They joined Santbal and started to clear the town with spades and other useful instruments.
These young persons were organised into batches and the work of total cleansing was divided under the guidance of Santbal. The cleanliness of the town gave it quite another appearance. When the youth went to clear the streets of Jain locality, and as the layers of dirt and garbage were removed, they found in the damp under layers, a whole mass of insects and worms simmering in mud. Jains protested against their removal under the belief that these thousands of creatures would be killed and they would incur
in. The volunteers said let the sin be their own burden. They removed all these vestigial unhygienic habits and the cholera was controlled in the town. That year even malaria was controlled.
In his evening prayers Santbal explained how meticulous Jain scriptures were in giving minute instructions for the disposal of garbage and observation of public hygiene. He said real sin was incurred in creating conditions in which insects, germs and worms were created and in not developing proper civic sense.
Santbal passed that Chaturmas at Viramgam, and his work in saving the town from the attack of cholera and subsequent malaria earned him the love of the whole population - Hindus, Muslims and Jains. When he left the town at the end of Chaturmas people arranged a big function, gave him a warm send off with tears of love. In reply he said he did not deserve any of these things and that the real credit should go to the Saints like Gandhiji from whom he had taken lessons of public service. What he was doing was merely a piece of atonement for the sin which the society had incurred in not developing proper civic sense.
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