Article By: Aman Kumar (Participant- Satyarthi Summer School 2025)
There is a silent revolution waiting to be recognised today. It is not driven by capital flows or geopolitical power but by a force as old as humanity itself that is compassion.
Growing up in rural India, I witnessed compassion as the unseen force holding life together when systems failed. Whenever someone in my village fell severely ill, neighbours came together.. some arranging transport, others organising blood donors or sharing money without hesitation. When a family faced a tragedy, people paused their own lives to stand by them, cook their meals and care for their children. No one asked if it was their responsibility. They simply acted because they saw each other as an extension of themselves and they felt the pain and suffering of affected people.
These everyday acts rarely make headlines. Yet they reveal a deeper truth about who we are. It is compassion that sustains communities when institutions falter.
As a youth from a small village, I often ask: What if compassion was placed at the heart of how the world functions? Not as an afterthought in speeches but as a guiding principle of our economies, technologies and governance. Today, we speak of universal rights and global development but rights without compassion remain words trapped in documents while people continue to suffer invisibly.
Look at the world around us. We have identified that our only home Earth is hurting from our actions. Climate crises, resource depletion, extinction! Signs are everywhere. Yet systems continue to escalate tensions, prioritising profits over sustainability and power over peace. It is impossible not to ask: Why can’t we collectively pause to reflect on how we live? Why can’t we reimagine systems that choose peace and shared prosperity over short-term gains for a few?
Many of today’s crises like child labour, environmental degradation, gender violence, forced migration are sustained not because of lack of knowledge or policy frameworks alone but because compassion is often absent in how decisions are prioritised and implemented. This is not to dismiss resource constraints or systemic complexities. Rather, it is to recognise that compassion strengthens these systems by rooting them in dignity and equity.
Compassion is a force of action rooted in mindful problem solving. During my visit to Bal Mitra Grams in Rajasthan as part of the Satyarthi Summer School 2025, I saw this compassion come alive through the young child leaders. They did not see the children of their village as just classmates or neighbours but they saw them as their own brothers and sisters. Interacting with these child leaders taught me more about leadership, courage and compassionate problem solving than any conference or high-level discussion ever could.
First, they developed awareness by recognising the struggles around them like children missing school, broken toilets, unsafe drinking water or girls being forced into child marriage. Then came the connectedness where they realised that their dignity and happiness were tied to the dignity and happiness of every child in their village. It nurtured feeling and they felt the pain of these injustices as if it were their own suffering and they realised that their dignity and happiness were tied to the dignity and happiness of every child in their village. Finally, this awareness, connectedness and feeling led to action and they stood together to enrol out-of-school children back into classrooms, demanded clean drinking water and repaired toilets and courageously stopped child marriages by convincing elders with respect and reason.
Their compassion was a powerful moral force that transformed their feeling into purposeful action. It was driven by the simple yet profound belief that no child should suffer when we have the power to stand together and change it. This is what compassionate problem solving looks like when we feel another’s suffering as our own and act mindfully to create solutions. Their story shows what is possible when compassion drives collective action at the community level but what if the same spirit guided our national and global systems?
For my generation, compassion is not an optional virtue. It is practical, political and transformative. It is practical because it addresses immediate human needs. It is political because it redefines power as service. It is transformative because it turns bystanders into changemakers.
Imagine if compassion guided technological innovation where instead of just racing to create the next fastest smartphone, we prioritised building affordable medical devices that could detect diseases early in remote villages like mine. Imagine if it shaped urban planning, designing cities with shelters, clean water points and dignified workspaces for migrant workers who build those cities but often sleep hungry on pavements. Imagine if it underpinned international relations where peace negotiations focused not only on borders and power but on ensuring that children in conflict zones can sleep safely, go to school and dream without fear.
Compassion, if embraced as a guiding principle, could transform our world from fragmented ambitions to a shared future rooted in dignity for all. True compassion recognises that every life carries equal worth, regardless of caste, class, gender, religion or nationality. For rural youth like me, this is not theory but daily reality.. we survive only because we stand together when no one else does.
This vision is neither utopian nor simplistic. It is an invitation to integrate compassion into our institutions.. education systems that teach dignity before competition, economies that measure success by uplifting the most vulnerable, governance that listens to every human being without discrimination.
Perhaps the greatest power of compassion is that it does not require wealth or privilege to practise. It asks only for the courage to see others as ourselves and to act accordingly.
But that world will not build itself a compassionate world. It calls upon each of us.. in our homes, schools, workplaces, and communities.. to choose compassion as our way of life.
Because in the end, it is not the power we hold that defines us but the compassion we practise and it is this choice that will decide whether the future we leave behind is fractured by indifference or united by dignity.
About the Author: Aman Kumar is a social entrepreneur and youth leader focused on using technology for social impact in India. He is one of 25 global changemakers selected for the Satyarthi Summer School 2025 under the Satyarthi Movement for Global Compassion. He is recipient of State Youth Award by Govt. of Uttar Pradesh and India’s Most Valuable U-Reporter Award by UNICEF India.
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