Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another’s position. Compassion literally means “to suffer together or co-suffering.” It is defined as the feeling that arises when you are confronted with another’s suffering and feel motivated to relieve that suffering. Buddhism teaches the practice of compassion, called karuna. Compassion and empathy are fundamentally different but are closely related i.e. :

• Empathy is the feeling of awareness towards other people’s emotions and an attempt to understand how they feel while compassion is when those feelings and thoughts include the desire to help. So, empathy precedes compassion.
• Empathy is putting oneself in someone else’ shoes to understand what they are going through, but compassion spurs one to action. For example: empathetic people may cry with the person experiencing a loss or if something unfortunate happens but a compassionate person would rather do something to alleviate/reduce the other person’s suffering.
• While empathy is a very internal feeling, compassion moves outwards as it compels us to dive into another person’s environment and offer help, without concern for ourselves or the cost involved.

Importance of having compassion towards weaker section in administration:

• Civil servants are the agents of change. Compassion is ranked as one of the great virtues for civil servants which has bearing upon the functioning of the administration and society. Compassion drives the civil servant to help people and ensure the welfare of people.
• Compassionate people often have other positive traits like generosity, kindness, and understanding. Compassion makes a civil servant lead with not only head but also heart. It gives rise to active desire to alleviate the sufferings of others.
• Compassion ensures a people-centric, humane, accommodative administration. It makes administration sensitive and responsive to the needs of every citizen, thus contributes to efficient service delivery.
• Compassion helps in getting a better understanding of ground realities and grass root problems and hence helps in better planning. It also establishes mutual trust and coordination between society and administration.
• A civil servant with virtues of compassion will make him help the needy and weaker sections of society even if he may have to deal with external pressure. It helps civil servants to earn the trust of the public, which enhances his confidence, gives a sense of satisfaction, and energy to work harder.

The very purpose of a ‘civil servant, is to cater and serve the people to the hest of their abilities, Without a compassionate attitude, neither the civil servant, nor the section of society that they work for, would be happy. Thus, civil servants must have compassion for an effective, efficient administration and better implementation of the laws, schemes and government programmes.