Philanthropy in India

I am often asked: "Why do you have to work in India?  India is a democracy and is doing extremely well economically. There are at least 55 billionaires in India. Why don't the people of India give to the millions of people who live on less than $1.00 per day?"

There was an article in the Globe and Mail on Wednesday August 24, 2011 that is the best explanation I have come across.  The article answers the questions far better than I could, and so I am including a large part of this article written by Amrit Dhillon (Freelance writer in India).  I hope it helps you to understand that which, on first look, seems not to be understandable.

For the wealthy, enjoying the fruits of rapid economic growth, charity begins - and stays - at home. .....................

India's growing list of billionaires.....are enjoying the fruits of India's rapid economic growth but have been slow to take up philanthropy.......

Rich Indians prefer to leave their money to their sons and daughters.  The reasons for this lack of charity are complex, but one could be the bias in Indian society toward favouring the family over the wider community.  If, for example, a cousin or nephew needs money or a job, people will go all out to help, but when faced with a beggar or urchin at the traffic lights, will studiously avert their faces.

India's new super-rich and middle class prefer to give only when they get something in return.  They donate generously to temples, mosques and Sikh gurdwaras because they seek to procure their personal salvation.  It is to these temples that billionaires and Bollywood stars troop to please the gods and receive a blessing in return for their donations.

While these temples are so fabulously rich they make the Vatican look like a pawnbroker's shop, anyone running a charity in India has a hard time.  An acquaintance who runs a home for destitute widows outside New Delhi struggles to persuade affluent Indians even to pay for cows so that she can provide the widows with mild.

The culture of philanthropy has yet to take root in India.......

A second reason for this parsimony could be a deep insecurity.  Perhaps, when they know around 600 million of their fellow citizens live on less than a dollar a day, well off Indians living on islands of affluence, are fearful that, one day, through a twist of fate, they too could sink into the sea of poverty around them.

There are plenty of examples of this primeval insecurity.  Corrupt Indians never take just "enough" bribes to buy a house or send their children to university.  They go on and on accumulating because whatever they squirrel away is just never enough for a rainy day."........

But the insecurity argument might just as easily apply to middle-class families where, if the breadwinner loses a job or falls sick and runs up a huge hospital bill, the risk of sinking into financial trouble is real.  It cannot, however, explain the stinginess of the seriously rich.

A more plausible explanation, suggested by Mr. Jhunjhunwala, is that the super-rich are not yet ready to give because they are still preoccupied with getting. 

The new wealth is just a generation old, acquired over the past 20 years since India embarked on liberalization.  Perhaps new money has to become old money before philanthropy can be taken up.  So we'll have to give rich and selfish Indians the benefit of the doubt ... for the moment.