Incentives for Organized Social Service

Women, biographies, and philanthropic inspiration in nineteenth-century Bengali periodicals

“…This enterprise not only made global information accessible to Bengali society but also boosted reading and learning. 17 Carey Anthony Watt (2005) talks about the late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century increase of information about international developments:From the 1890s onward dramatic increases in telegraphic and postal facilities served to accelerate the flow of information into the subcontinent. […] [T]he number of periodicals — indicative of the proliferation of India’s associational life (associations tended to start their own periodicals) — grew seven-fold between 1890 and 1912 […].…”

“…[…] [T]he number of periodicals — indicative of the proliferation of India’s associational life (associations tended to start their own periodicals) — grew seven-fold between 1890 and 1912 […]. (Watt, 2005: 32−33)…”

“…The idea of philanthropy in Bengal largely consists of these concepts of sebā and dān , which have existed both in religious and secular forms. 27 Carey Anthony Watt (2005) points out certain problems inherent to the idea of indigenous charity, calling the Hindu religious concepts of dān, sebā , and dharma “traditional”. 28 First, charity is not an organized effort and is mainly individual and unsystematic.…”

A nuclear cyberia: interfacing science, culture and ‘e-thnography’ of an Indian township’s social media

“…Yoga may be of indigenous heritage, but it is also linked to modern notions about health, science and medicine that have been testified throughout the world (see Alter, 2004). Such practices inscribe the subject into a framework that enforces not just a regulatory discipline but a disciplined culture of a postcolonial order that looks outwards as much as it does sideways and inwards to the wellsprings of indigenous traditions (see Watt, 2005). Meditation too with its roots in autochthonous spiritual practices serves the supreme purpose for the brain to perform to its full capacity, no doubt a valuable asset in nuclear research and development.…”

Book review: Ashwini Tambe. 2019. Defining Girlhood in India: A Transnational History of Sexual Maturity Laws

“…How, in other words, did an international discourse that racialized Indian girls as objects of civilization and development shape a caste and class politics of social hygiene, reform and development in India? Indeed, the argument has been made that what distinguishes middle-classness in India is precisely the performance of this sort of social work: being the doer rather than the receiver of development (Watt, 2005). Much as in the case of ‘slumming’ cultures among middle-class girls of Britain (Koven, 2006), the project of social work in India was driven by middle-class women (Caplan, 1985) and was widely instituted as an integral part of the school and college curricula for girls.…”