Serving the Nation

Watt, Carey Anthony

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195668025.001.0001

Cited by 102 publications

(15 citation statements)

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“…96 Even though earthquake relief was a departure from the Seva Samitis' regular function to provide social services such as education, 'unofficial policing' during melas, disposal of corpses and distribution of medicines, the organisational capacities deployed in emergency relief during epidemics and famines proved useful. 97 The support of Malaviya and the Seva Samiti ensured funds and manpower from both the local and 'national' branches of the established social service organisations.…”

Section: Towards 'National' Reliefmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Local to National Politics of Relief

2023

Acts of Aid

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According to the official narrative of the aftermath, as discussed in the previous chapter, the government's ability to act swiftly was partly hampered by destroyed infrastructure and administrative chaos. Under these circumstances, the colonial government focused on security rather than mobilising personnel for rescue operations. As a result, the government's organisational goals, preparedness and leadership in terms of organising disaster relief appeared limited and inadequate. It is in this space of weakened governance that Rajendra Prasad, with support from other leading INC members, began organising relief operations, resulting in the formation of the BCRC, a committee formed with the purpose of collecting funds and organising relief.Disasters as exogenous shocks to which a political system must respond become political in their aftermath. The politicisation of the event tends to increase, rather than decrease, as the affected society moves from emergency response through recovery and reconstruction phases. 2 As a part of the politicisation of the relief process, new organisational patterns often form to deal with the sudden disruption of a disaster. 3 The BCRC was formed in response to the need for relief and built upon established networks of local politicians and relief organisations. This chapter addresses how political space and relief after natural disasters can be used for meeting political ends, arguing that for the INC, the BCRC served as a tool for nation-building and a practice in state formation where the Congress proved its ability to take on governance-even under extreme circumstances. The criticism of the colonial government was not directed at its incompetence and failure in disaster management, but at the systemic failure of the colonial governance in the Indian state. The BCRC, as a 'non-political' relief committee,

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Section: Towards 'National' Reliefmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Local to National Politics of Relief

2023

Acts of Aid

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“…Colonial recasting of 'native charity' in the idiom of common good and public utility began to chime with the politics of religious and community reforms animating late nineteenth-century South Asia. 75 As Hatcher and Kasturi show in this volume, emerging religious, civic, and caste associations joined colonial critiques of traditional modalities of religious giving to call on the economic resources and time of a newly constituted modern public to support cultural enlightenment, religious reform, and social progress. 76 The call of socio-religious reformism was answered in earnest by established commercial or banking elites, but also by the emerging urban middle class, constitutive of a novel aesthetic of self-making, individual and collective agency, and public visibility.…”

Section: Colonialism Modernity and The Making Of Charity And Philanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Charity and Philanthropy in South Asia: An introduction

Osella¹

2018

Mod. Asian Stud.

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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.

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“…As Carey Watt has argued, such collective acts of educational philanthropy gradually supplemented traditional Hindu forms of charitable donation (dana), which came to be viewed as wasteful, indiscriminate and inefficient. 96 The 'public good' or 'rifah-e 'am' emerged as the new key concept of associational philanthropy. By the 1880s, voluntary associations calling themselves Anjuman-e Rifah-e Am had been established in Lucknow (more below), Allahabad and several other places in north India.…”

Section: Education and Philanthropymentioning

confidence: 99%

Associational culture and civic engagement in colonial Lucknow

Stark

2011

The Indian Economic & Social History Review

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Despite their importance in forging notions of civility, civic engagement and political participation, nineteenth century voluntary associations have received little attention in the growing body of literature on the rise and nature of civil society in India. This article explores the mutually constitutive relationship between voluntary association and middle-class formation through the example of the Jalsah-e Tahzib (est. 1868), the first voluntary society in colonial Lucknow. A cross-communal alliance of Hindus and Muslims, representing the city's traditional service elites and new professional classes, the Jalsah provided a secular forum of discourse and action to an emerging middle class in search of self-determination and empowerment. In investigating the association's public-sphere activities, its role as a self-styled intermediary between the colonial state and its Indian subjects and its transformation from a literary-cultural society into a politically vocal body, I argue that voluntary association afforded a space for cultural self-assertion and critical participation eminently suited to the aspirations of the new hybrid middle class. In highlighting the vernacular character of Indian associational culture, the article seeks to demonstrate how a more rigorous engagement with the vernacular archive will provide a better understanding of the social and intellectual networks that created the fabric of Indian civic life.

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Serving the Nation

Cited by 102 publications

References 0 publications

From Local to National Politics of Relief

From Local to National Politics of Relief

Charity and Philanthropy in South Asia: An introduction

Associational culture and civic engagement in colonial Lucknow

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