Charity and Philanthropy in South Asia: An introduction

Abstract

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.

The politics of gifts and reciprocity in South–South Cooperation: The case of India's Covid‐19 diplomacy

“…The famous epic the Mahabharata (300 bce to 300 ce ) importantly held that only the charitable distribution of wealth ( artha ) enabled men to fulfil their dharma (duty), necessary for the attainment of moksha (salvation), the goal of most Indic faiths. Ideas of dana have developed in conversation with other forms of charitable, non‐reciprocal exchange, such as bhiksha (alms), dakshina (ritual payment), the Islamic zakat (annual obligation to give charity) and the voluntary sadaqa (Osella, 2018 , p. 3), as also contemporary forms of philanthropy embedded within the logic of capital accumulation and prosperity (Bornstein, 2009 , 2012 ).…”

Actual and potential gifts: Critique, shadow gift relations and the virtual domain of the ungiven

“…Turning to philanthropy: If on occasion the ‘extreme’ generosity displayed by various wealthy individuals can been taken to demonstrate the insufficiency of governments that cannot or do not give, evidencing lack of care for their vulnerable citizens (Osella, 2018: 32), unsurprisingly the giving actions of wealthy individuals are equally open to partonomic and/or taxonomic critique. Take Jeff Bezos, founder of the Amazon corporation and reportedly the richest individual in history, who has been the subject of commentary highlighting a deficit in philanthropic commitment.…”

“…17 The form of wealth given over, or shared here, then, is not money but rather blood. 18 While a very different modality of gift from those discussed above, its focus on upliftment as a dutiful contribution to civic life, alongside its generality and anonymity (such gifts are directed untraceably to anyone in need), mean it might be glossed as ‘expressive of charitable or philanthropic dispositions, and indeed be analysed as such’ (Osella, 2018: 8). For though the principal stated reason for the promotion of voluntary donation is the requirement to improve the safety of donated blood, its anonymity connects it to the kind of giving that is widely favoured in a host of other contexts both within and beyond India in which philanthropic action is considered to be both modern and moral only when directed untraceably to anyone in need.…”

“…3 Further, our concern is less with the kind of gift-giving that entails obvious signs of reciprocity or a sense of a cycle than it is with contributions made in order ‘to support the upliftment of individuals and communities […] that might be glossed as expressive of charitable or philanthropic dispositions’ (Osella, 2018: 8); what Maurice Godelier (1999: 5) has called the ‘modernised’ gift, which if it creates a bond at all is one that is ‘between abstract subjects’. Of course, no neat distinction exists between the charitable gift and the ‘gift that makes friends’ (Mauss’s foundational text was after all ‘an exploration of the paradoxical character of the gift’ (Laidlaw, 2000: 620)), and Godelier’s modernised gift may not be so modern after all, given its overlaps and parallels with longstanding gift modalities in various local contexts (Osella, 2018: 8). Nevertheless, the sorts of gift that ‘create, maintain and strengthen various social bonds’ (Yan, 2005: 246) are not our main focus, even if the concepts we explore may be revealingly applied to them.…”

Religiosity and its others: lived Islam in West Africa and South India

“…This move does not privilege practice over theology, or vice versa, but rather underscores how ways of being Muslim are crafted, imagined and experienced in relation to historical political and economic transformations which simultaneously constitute and transcend ethnic‐religious boundaries, as well as those between secular and religious spheres. As such, the notion of lived religion points us towards appreciating the historical and contemporary circulation of practices, aesthetics and theologies, not only within and between religious traditions, but also across different social fields (see Soares 2005; Osella 2018). However, rather than attempting to establish lines of causation between social fields, in our understanding of lived, everyday religion we intend to draw out – in time‐honoured anthropological fashion – the contingent historical milieus in which particular modalities of moral reasoning and practical action develop.…”