Dignity of Labour

No work is superior or inferior in itself. Work is work. It is absolutely wrong to consider any work as high or low. The work itself is a dignity. Every work has some dignity attached to it. It is improper for anybody to think that a certain kind of work is undignified or below his status. No work is mean or low. Since the very dawn of civilization man has been doing all kinds of work without any hitch and hesitation. All the religions of the world have enjoined man to do his work honestly. All the philosophers of the world have preached that no work is such as to undermine the dignity of man. “Thou shalt eat thy bread by the sweat of thy brow” was the curse of God upon the first man, Adam. God himself ordered man to work and work hard. All great men of the world have themselves acted according to this dictate of God. We in India have the example of our Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, who used to do every kind of work in his ashram. Not only he but all the inmates of the ashram were required to do all kinds of work with their own hands. Sweeping, cleaning, spinning, washing and even disposal of nightsoil was done by the inmates of the ashram. And nobody in the ashram thought that any of these things was below his dignity or would lower him in the eyes of others.
The dignity of labour means that every kind of work is dignified. It also implies that dignity can be achieved only by hard work. The dignity of labour does necessarily cover manual labour I.e., physical labour or work done with hands. Great men have said that work is worship. The spirit of the dignity of labour has been niilpluccd in India. There is a very wrong notion that labour or manual work is not meant for urban educated, rich and intellectual men ; it is meant only for rural, uneducated and poor people. This false notion is very deep root ed among the urban elite. They think that manual work is the poor man’s means of livelihood. They are so much under the influence of this false notion that