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Charity and Philanthropy in South Asia: An introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 March 2018

FILIPPO OSELLA
FILIPPO OSELLA*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Sussex, UK Email: [email protected]
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Extract

There are no reliable figures to help us measure the volume of charitable donations in South Asia but, according to the 2014 World Giving Index, Sri Lanka is ranked ninth in the world for the charitable efforts of its citizens, while other South Asian countries figure in the top 75 out of 135 countries surveyed. According to the same index, India comes first in the world for the overall number of people donating money to charities and volunteering for social causes; Pakistan is ranked sixth for the number of charitable donations; India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are within the top ten countries for the number of people who have ‘helped a stranger’ in the 12 months prior to the survey. According to a 2001 survey by the Sampradaan Centre for Indian Philanthropy, among members of the A–C socio-economic classes, 96 per cent of respondents donated annually an average of Rs 1,420. The total amount donated was Rs 16.16 billion. Two surveys conducted in West Bengal and Sri Lanka suggest that South Asians across the social spectrum contribute readily to charity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 52 , Special Issue 1: Charity and Philanthropy in South Asia , January 2018 , pp. 4 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Jon Mitchell, Jock Stirrat, Ritu Birla, Saeyoung Park, Valentina Napolitano, Magnus Marsden, Atreyee Sen, and Syed Mohammed Faisal for their comments on early drafts of this introduction. My sincere appreciation goes also to two anonymous reviewers whose comments and suggestions have helped me to sharpen my arguments and clarify my assumptions. My biggest thank you goes to Sumathi Ramaswamy, without whose insights, criticisms, encouragements, and editorial inputs this introduction would have been much poorer. However, I am solely responsible for the arguments and ideas discussed in this article.

References

1 Started in 2009 by the United Kingdom-based Charities Aid Foundation, the Index measures the number of people giving money, volunteering time, and helping strangers in 135 countries.

2 CAF, 2014, https://www.cafonline.org/docs/default-source/about-us-publications/caf_wgi2014_report_1555awebfinal.pdf, [accessed 6 December 2017].

3 SICP, Investing in Ourselves: Giving and Fund Raising in India. Sampradaan Indian Centre for Philanthropy, New Delhi, 2001.

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16 In his reading of Mauss's seminal theorization of gift giving, Parry argues that ‘while Mauss is generally represented as telling us how in fact the gift is never free, what I think he is really telling us is how we have acquired a theory that it should be’ (Parry, ‘The gift’, p. 458). For critical studies stressing the inevitably ‘interested’ nature of contemporary philanthropy, see Silber, I., ‘Modern philanthropy: reassessing the viability of a Maussian perspective’, in Marcel Mauss: A Centenary Tribute, James, W. and Allen, N. (eds), Berghahn, Oxford, 1998, pp. 134–50Google Scholar; and Herman, A., The ‘Better Angels’ of Capitalism: Rhetoric, Narrative, and Moral Identity among Men of the American Upper Class, Westview Press, Boulder, 1999.Google Scholar

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19 Charitable donations to the Battuti Fraternity of Treviso, for instance, were rewarded with indulgences that would shorten the donor's time in purgatory (D'Andrea, D. M., Civic Christianity in Renaissance Italy: The Hospital of Treviso, 1400–1530, University Rochester Press, Rochester, NY, 2007Google Scholar). See also Rosenthal, J. T., The Purchase of Paradise: Gift Giving and the Aristocracy 1307–1485, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1972CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Henderson, J., Piety and Charity in Late Medieval Florence, Chicago University Press, Chicago, 1987Google Scholar; Psotles, D., ‘Small gifts, but big rewards: the symbolism of some gifts to the religious’, Journal of Medieval History, vol. 27, no. 1, 2001, pp. 23–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Nichols, T., ‘Secular charity, sacred poverty: picturing the poor in Renaissance Venice’, Art History, vol. 30, no. 2, 2007, pp. 139–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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27 See, for example, McCarthy, K. D., American Creed: Philanthropy and the Rise of Civil Society, 1700–1865, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2003CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Haskell, ‘Capitalism’. See also Rajak, D., In Good Company: An Anatomy of Corporate Social Responsibility, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2001Google Scholar.

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38 Ibid.

39 Ibid., p. 168.

40 Ibid., p. 277.

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42 Historians have explored extensively pre-colonial Hindu kingship, as well as its transformation resulting from the expansion of Muslim polities, and colonial penetration. Amongst the most inspiring work, see especially Stein, B., Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1980Google Scholar; Appadurai, A., Worship and Conflict under Colonial Rule: A South Indian Case, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1981CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Price, P. G., Kingship and Political Practice in Colonial India, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996Google Scholar; Dirks, The Hollow Crown; Bayly, S., Saints, Goddesses and Kings: Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society, 1700–1900, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004Google Scholar.

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118 Ciotti, ‘Resurrecting seva (social service)’.

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