PHILANTHROPY AND SOCIAL INVESTMENT IN INDIA

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PHILANTHROPY AND SOCIAL INVESTMENT IN INDIA
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PHILANTHROPIC CONTEXT

• 200 years of colonisation
• 60 years of independence and democracy
• 43 years of a closed, socialist economy
• 17 years of rapid globalisation, liberalisation
  and unprecedented economic growth
• A society deeply divided on many fault lines
• Class, religion, caste, gender, ethnicity, region
• Large, diverse, vibrant, evolved philanthropic
  and social sector

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SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND PHILANTHROPY IN INDIA

• Pre-independence faith-based charity and
  religious reform movements
• Gandhian ethos of the freedom movement
• Decades of social movements
• Gender, caste, labour, students, land-reform
• Secular, development-oriented NGOs since the 80s
• Localised, community-based grassroots
  organisations and movements
• New emerging diaspora and corporate philanthropy
  with a technocratic world-view
• And citizen activism in the middle-class

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21st CENTURY INDIA

• Sees itself as an emerging regional and global
  power
• Would like to forget its begging bowl past and
  the other 19th century India of starvation,
  female infanticide, farmer suicides, separatist
  struggles and abject poverty
• Indulge in the new-found freedoms of mass
  consumerism
• Superficial modernity overlaid on a deep-rooted,
  endemic, feudal, patriarchal culture
• Growing polarisation and fragmentation of society
• Increasing impatience with the pace of change and
  recourse to violence on all sides
• Resurgent religious intolerance
• Increased regulatory constraints on the
  non-profit sector

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GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT

• Re-structuring of global institutions
• Cross-border solidarity
• Trade
• Indigenous rights
• Racism
• HIV/AIDS
• Environment
• Civil society protection and representation
• International advocacy
• Alternate models of economic, social, political
  and cultural justice

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• Rio Think global, act local
• Porto Allegre Another world is possible
• In the face of
• Growing global and domestic inequalities
• Global challenges of disease, terrorism
• Global environmental crises
• Threats to democracy and civil society
• Trans-national market forces and media

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ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE

• IF WE CAN
• THINK LOCAL BUT ACT GLOBAL