Rotary Club of Arunoday Howrah was enchartered on the day of the birth of the Rotary International. This itself has been a very fortunate coincidence. Rotary, the term engendered in itts principle of rotation and the fact that rotation is the basis of all the universe. Without going into the sciences of roation and revolution we would at least like to believe that the cycle of fate, belief, and life itself is a rotatory function, that involves its own ups and downs, incidents and accidents and is enmeshed in the whirlpool of life. So to be with each other while we rotate is the chief objective of Rotary. Alexander had famously said that we come to fill up our fists with joy, but we go having given it up all. And the pleasure that giving involves is like no pleasure at all. Tagore would later, much later proclaim in his poem ‘Kripan’ how a beggar who had given a beggar a single farthing returns with all the treasures of the world. That is the magic of Rotary. In the rotational sorrows and joys of life, Rotary would truly stand by a human being as human being, as said Shakti Chattopadhyay ‘Manush hoye manusher pashe darao’. For mankind is truly in need of help, in need of a hand, and all the people clinging on to the crevices of society need a hand to lift. And one never knows when that gift will be returned.
Rotary calls itself a network of 1.4 million’Global Neighbours’and Rotary Club of Arunoday is just blessed to be a part of this humongous neighbourhood and partnership. Here there is leadership, but no leader is greater than the people he leads. Because leaders here are never permanent. The rotate with time and every rotarian is a leader by right and a friend by vocation. It has been more than 110 years of this passion, courage, sacrifice and bonding. The responsibilities are shared by one and all, eqitably. It 46,000+ clubs join hands to do the following:
• Promote peace
• Fight disease
• Provide clean water, sanitation, and hygiene
• Save mothers and children
• Support education
• Grow local economies
• Protect the environment
In the current pandemic that has ravaged the whole world in a span of three years and how many more to come, it is also a part of the Rotray mission to fight, give support and stand by the families affected. Not only financially, but also medically, with a good amount of emphasis on mental health and well being. Rotary has also previously fought Polio, Conducted free Heart surgeries and eye camps. Mental health camps should also grow as a new vision to the Rotarian set up.
Under these circumstances, we the members of Rotary Club of Arunoday, have pledged to stand by all other Rotarians, in times of dire crisis and helpplessness. Especially when West Bengal, in the perspeective of International rotary has been clouded by merciless cyclones, time and again, destroying the poor and depleting the very environmentally significant Sunderbans, ecologically critical to the preservation of natural health.
The word ‘Arunoday’ is derived from the word ‘Arun’ meaning sanguine red and ‘Uday’ meaning rise. This sunrise that we are about to call for os a new one, nestled in the fringes of the unknown. For most of our members want to give back to society, what they have got, mostly a medical fraternity, however, so far unintroduced to the veritable concept of Rotary. We are hopeful newcomers taking baby steps towards a huge goal, for we intend to be involved with Rotary that is International, it’s mission being ‘We provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through our fellowship of business, professional, and community leaders.’
With increasing globalisation and the world seeing a never before example of unity through the pandemic, the vision that Rotary has is to make the globe one. When we say Arunoday, we mean it as a sunrise for all Rotarians and non-Rotarians across the world. Unlike other commmunity clubs, that are non-inclusive, or social clubs that help in socialising, Rotary is an inclusive Club that promotes diversity, cultural, social, and global, across language barriers and time barriers and borders that are imaginary lines. It is a club that promotes benevolence and sacrifice across borders and boundaries.
Envisioned by one attorney from Chicago, on the 23rd of February 1905, Paul Harris,it was a founded so that people from all walks of life could creatively engage and exchange ideas. When one does that, history is proof, that over time, it evolved into a club of humanitarian service. With faith in this we would like to begin this new club, where dynamic people from all walks of life, from doctors, to teachers, to hoteliers and mariners might join hands to see a new sunrise and be neighbours to the worldwide Rotary that already exists. If only 16 years after the foundation of Rotary it could have spread over six continents, we can hope to be enmeshed in it soon enough.
Rotary has never been daunted by big goals. The fight against Polio began in 1979 with a project to immunize 6 million children in Phillipines and lo! And behold! Polio now remains an endemic in only two countries – down from 125 in 1988. We can see such a future maybe for the threatening Coronavirus someday. It never hurts to dream. If not, we could at least ensure better security, safety and mental health for corona victims. It was Rotary that initiated sanitary napkin vending machines, It has been Rotary covering up street dwellers every winter, it has been Rotary that has given millions of people employment in terms of vocational service.
Recalling what Alexander from Macedonia had said years ago, Rotary has two mottos ‘Service Above Self and One Profits Most Who Serves Best’.
One never comes to benefit from Rotary and a Rotarian once is always a Rotarian. There is no such thing as ex-Rotarian. Rotary goes on, on its cycle of change and well-doing. In 1911, the second Rotary convention, in Portland, Oregon, USA, approved He Profits Most Who Serves Best as the Rotary motto. The wording was adapted from a speech that Rotarian Arthur Frederick Sheldon delivered to the first convention, held in Chicago the previous year. Sheldon declared that “only the science of right conduct toward others pays. Business is the science of human services. He profits most who serves his fellows best.”
The Portland gathering also inspired the motto Service Above Self. During an outing on the Columbia River, Ben Collins, president of the Rotary Club of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, talked with Seattle Rotarian J.E. Pinkham about the proper way to organize a Rotary club, offering the principle his club had adopted: Service, Not Self. Pinkham invited Rotary founder Paul Harris, who also was on the trip, to join their conversation. Harris asked Collins to address the convention, and the phrase Service, Not Self was met with great enthusiasm.
At the 1950 Rotary International Convention in Detroit, Michigan, USA, two slogans were formally approved as the official mottoes of Rotary: He Profits Most Who Serves Best and Service Above Self. The 1989 Council on Legislation established Service Above Self as the principal motto of Rotary because it best conveys the philosophy of unselfish volunteer service. He Profits Most Who Serves Best was modified to They Profit Most Who Serve Best in 2004 and to its current wording, One Profits Most Who Serves Best, in 2010.
In a world, crumbling in selfishness, disease and disorder, cocooned in a shell, in a world post-covid, where even children do not play, adults do not interact, where everyone is afraid of everyone else, fearing a spread of disease and death, it is all the more important for Rotary to actively involve itself in serving above the self and promoting safe interaction. It is important for the fellow members to join Rotary :
• International citizens
• Development of communication and leadership
• Globalisation
• Exchange of social, cultural and intellectual faculty
• Equality of men and women
RC Arunoday Howrah also aims at achieving this gender equality that rotary Clubs at large often lack. We already have a handful of female and dynamic Rotarians, successful in their own fields and ready to serve. They abide by the Four-Way Test introduced in 1932 by Rtn. H.J. Taylor:
• Is it the TRUTH?
• Is it FAIR to all concerned?
• Will it build GOODWILL and better FRIENDSHIPS?
• Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
The Club is sans any history of its own, we are new participants in the neighbourhood of humanity. We however do not lack experience since we have with us senior Rotarians who intend to build anew. With their guidance and our joint and honest proficiency, we hope to make Rotary Club of Howrah, a club for community, fraternity and above all a new sunrise of humanity.