Diasporic giving and village transformations

SUDEEP BASU

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EVERY kind of diasporic Indian group has its own particular relationship with India or homeland, contributing to the complexity of the diasporic experience as a whole. The differing affiliations of Indian diasporic communities and their practices of ‘giving back’ to the homeland have played a significant role in transforming the lives of co-ethnics in the original provenance of the donors. The motivations and interests of members of the Indian diaspora in helping their villages, depends on a shared sense of vulnerabilities or anxieties concerning material opportunities and maintaining self-worth among co-ethnics both at home and abroad.

Migrant connections bring new ideas and images of desirable lifestyles. Alongside, we can also observe the circulation of new technologies and infrastructure, which have never been restricted to those who live mobile lives. The major forms of diasporic charities/donations entering rural social life consist of community based amenities for drinking water, roads, institutional support for health and education etc., besides support for building religious sites, feeding the poor, providing scholarship to local schools, among others. The challenge is how to account for the changing nature of the practices of ‘giving’ to village homelands, while crafting histories of migration that do not lose sight of those ‘who did not move’ and the ways by which giving becomes integrated within transnational worlds.

Within the transformative processes of the phenomena of migrant transnationalism, we can begin to situate ‘diasporic gifting’ which lies at the core of almost every migrant journey. Such giftings can occur when migrants return to live in or visit their communities of origin; when non-migrants visit their migrant family members or through interchange of letters, videos, cassettes and telephone calls. Its impact, therefore, depends on how easy it is to transmit a particular gift, who carries the message and the receiver’s gender, class and life cycle positions. The willingness of migrants to divert such a significant, and often the greater, part of their overseas earnings straight back home can only be understood as being the result of a deep-rooted commitment to investment in their place of origin and all that it stands for.

Gujarat’s diaspora invest not in abstract concepts such as ‘India’ or Gujarat but rather in families, neighbourhoods, villages, kin, from which they themselves are drawn. Of late, there is a new trend, especially in the US among the immigrants from Gujarat, of gradually shifting part of the donation money to the local communities/organizations in the US. This is likely to be induced by the socio-cultural norms within the US where paying back to the society rather than add to inheritance is a predominant societal value.

Return migration is another feature of international migration from Gujarat. This has partly taken place in response to the emerging opportunities for professionals in the wake of liberalization and growth over the past two decades. Though small in magnitude, a return flow of people, such as NRI Gujaratis, does have an impact on the use of technology, know-how, knowledge and implementation/management practices in places of origin. Another development in recent years is the promotion of medical tourism in Gujarat. It is observed that every year many NRGs and NRIs visit Gujarat for medical treatment which contributes 25-31 per cent of the medical industry’s earnings.

 

Diasporic gifting that travels through multiple pathways also wields a significant effect on places of origin. Some remittance items travel with other items through dense networks and exchange of letters, videos, cassettes and telephone calls, bank transfers on a regular basis, particularly during festivities such as Navratri and Diwali in Gujarat’s villages. Concerns over the nature of these transactions as raised by Peggy Levitt, suggest the need to examine the differing meanings that social remittances would hold for individuals or groups who practice it in a different socio-historical context.1 In addition, is the question of the nature of ‘transnational community’ that emerges out of such articulations. Till recently there has been a one-sided focus on remittances and their direct economic consequences particularly at the household level. Less systematic attention has, however, been paid to the non-pecuniary consequences of gifting, such as impact on health, education, gender, care arrangements and social structures and ethnic hierarchies in the migrant’s place of origin.

 

In addition to involving collective fund-raising, what distinguishes these outputs emanating from diasporic donations is that they are for collective consumption, such as educational institutions and hospitals, Reverse Osmosis water plants, cowsheds, and crematoria, that are extant in Gujarat’s villages. Distribution channels through identifiable pathways for the transfer of funds towards infrastructure development via kin and community networks are critical to diaspora philanthropy. As noted by Johnson, ‘Several recent studies have underscored the fact that many individuals choose to use family and close friends as conduits for charitable gifts and social investments believing that they are the most trustworthy of intermediaries and those best able to identify local needs.’2 This trend is noticeable in Gujarat’s villages, stemming from a pride, particularly among diasporic gift givers, that the developmental needs of their village can be fulfilled via family and caste networks rather than through government assistance.

The transformation of Gujarat’s rural economy brought about through international migration has reconfigured a sense of village belonging. In an era of travel and dispersion, villages and ‘villageness’ have continued to be a pole of identification and mobilization for various social and public causes. A spatialized perspective of the village is pivotal for understanding the social logic of villageness. It enables us to visualize the village as part of a regional canvas of marriage alliances, market transactions, labour circuits and horizontal solidarities/ exchanges between sub-castes. Any remittance flow to the village does have an immediate resonance within the extended hierarchical system of endogamous marriage circles called ‘gols’.3 Many of the facilities (schools and hospitals) provided for in one village are availed of not only by residents of the village but also by neighbouring villages which are part of the ‘gols’.

 

The efficacy in keeping the national or regional optic/effects of transnational flows into origin countries, while important in itself, should not divert attention from the need to take into account the effects of tangible/intangible resource flows into specific places of origin, such as a village or a town. In many instances, the village remains the peg around which representations of the self and the world are forged. Assertions by diaspora residents of the moral superiority of the place of origin furnish the means to resist exclusionary tendencies in arrival places and to valorize their status vis-à-vis kith, kin and local leadership in places of origin.

For instance, we see the importance the Gujarati diaspora places on the construction of a crematorium and the desire to be buried or cremated in one’s place of origin. The relationships between those who left and their fellows back home remain bonded within what Carling calls the ‘moral economy of migration’.4 Those who left remain under the scrutiny of those who stayed behind, and any misleading behaviour is promptly mocked as a result of their contacts with foreign lands.

 

What is visible and illuminating from the nature of diasporic giving practices in Indian villages, particularly in Gujarat, is the fact that donations to temples or other religious establishments continue to predominate. The commonest and widespread forms of religious giving, including diasporic ones, are placing coins, milk or food grain at the feet of an idol in the temple, giving alms to beggars, offering of grain or rice to the departed, offering raw or cooked food or dakshina to gurus, priests and mendicants. The tradition of also giving food grain to birds and animals (pinda dan – offerings to the deceased) is evident in the building of chabutaras meant for feeding birds as seen in most villages and crematoria and mortuary rooms.

Another tradition observed in most villages is giving freshly cut green grass to cows. An example of diasporic giving that is marked by sectarian religiosity is that of the Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) with its increasing spheres of influence and activity in Gujarat and elsewhere since the turn of the 21st century. Though what they call ‘seva’, founded on Hindu ideals, stands testimony to the effects of a renewed diasporic zeal and activity, the exclusionary and divisive tendencies that they engender cannot be altogether ignored.

What is held in high esteem by rural folks is gupt-dan, pinda-dan for earning punya (virtue), despite the overt material benefits emanating from gift giving practices. Some of the common structures found in Gujarat’s NRI villages, such as gates, community halls, schools and hospitals, built out of these giving practices, are resplendent, evoking memories of past journeys, of trials, tribulations and triumphs abroad. They acquire a social life of their own generated from the kind of associations forged around them. These architectural artefacts are seemingly more objectified, visible, durable and imbued with symbolism. What do these giving practices achieve? How can dan be used properly?

 

Classically, the act of philanthropy and ‘dan’ in order to gain merit has to be based on the need of the recipient and worthiness.5 Complexity arises when we understand the phenomena of ‘dan’ both from the point of view of the recipients as also from that of those who do not receive. In classical ‘dan’ mode of giving, the anonymity of the donor, who is unaware of the recipient of their donation, works well provided the worthiness of the recipient is carefully checked. This is rarely the case since it is observed that a majority of the recipients of remittances in Gujarat’s villages are those who are not in need (non-migrant members of the dominant caste communities who have members abroad) and are therefore considered unworthy by non-migrants. Therefore, the gift does not merit being called a ‘dan’ or philanthropy, particularly when the givers are generally intensely suspicious of the temple priest or temple foundations.

Yet, religious organizations continue to be important destinations for donations from NRIs, despite the fact that donations to religious charities are not eligible for tax deduction, except a limited purpose deduction for renowned religious places under section 80G(2)(b) of the Income Tax Act. Religious gift giving of the kind that we know as ‘dan’, held enormous politico-economic significance in the ancient and medieval ages, which is evident in the huge landed estates donated to temples.

Diasporic giving has also led village folk to invoke what in common parlance is called ‘gupt-dan’ (secret donation) which is particularly revered and extolled. Guptdan is ‘mobilized as a counter to the quite familiar public accusation that India does not possess a socially favourable "giving culture"… Dan may thus be invoked online as a response to the hurt national sentiments of the religious patriot; its public life consisting of claims that dan is frequently not public.’6

 

The original free, emotive, spontaneous spirit of giving between donors and recipients is constrained when donations are routed through trust/NGOs, since selectivity in terms of target beneficiaries enters into the scenario. The sheer volume of funds and the size of organizations at times ensure that the end users from different social backgrounds utilize the facilities. Nevertheless, the more marginalized and poor are sometimes unable to benefit, despite attempts by trusts to provide free meals and concessions. However, when the receiving trust does not spend the money in the way the donor wishes, the giver is disappointed or at best embarrassed, as observed from conversations with return migrants and residents.

The anxiety over the worthiness of the trust/association is ever present. Yet, the donor’s distrust towards formal institutions in India is underscored by the fact that many individuals choose to use family and close friends or trusts from their own community or caste as conduits for charitable gifts and social investments, convinced that they are the most trustworthy of intermediaries and thus best able to identify local needs.

 

We do find how most focused and strategic forms of diasporic giving in and through trusts/associations, such as educational medical trusts found in most of Gujarat’s villages, are seen to have trustees and members belonging to a single caste (Patidars in most instances). As a result of diasporic giving, trusts and organizations gain the character of a caste association. In such a scenario, a particular social project fails to inculcate a sense of collective ownership across different social segments in a village. The significance of such acts of donating and implementing lies not only in the question whether caste or minority groups in a village are adequately represented in schools and whether they have access to medical care or not, but also in the symbolism that reconstitutes status/prestige hierarchies around the axis of migration/non-migration.

Clearly, few individuals have the capacity and will to give repeatedly and freely without any expectation of external reward. We also find competing claims by groups who seek to have a share of the diasporic offerings in both material and non-material terms that places the givers in a situation of resentment, particularly when realities on the ground are contrary to their expectations. Diasporic philanthropy evokes the structure of a free gift, disembodied giving ingrained even in structured, regulated forms of giving between individuals or groups as donors and groups (trusts) as recipients in rural settings. We find very few instances where diasporic donors pressurize recipients back home to follow their dictates and conditionalities attached to gifts and donations. At the same time, the recipients too make no overt claim to the donor but only suggest that this may be done for the welfare of the village. There are no apparent overt or coerced obligations; it is left open to interpretation on both sides.

 

This introduces an element of uncertainty in the exchange, one that is purposefully nurtured to make the bond between the diasporic donor and recipient more enduring. Finding an able leader in a village setting who could in a way transcend caste affiliations and work for the benefit of migrants, their families back home and the non-migrants alike, will always be a challenge. Acts of labour, such as taking part in the construction and maintenance of infrastructure and resources, which the recipients who stay behind in the village engage in, constitute a sacrificial act,7 for it sends a signal to the diaspora about the ‘selflessness’ of those ‘left behind’ who still care for their co-ethnics abroad and their village. It serves as a reminder to the diasporic donor to periodically respond to the oblique requests from their co-villagers back home.

This ‘sacrifice’ on the part of those staying behind is articulated and put to practice through productive works in and through trusts/associations for better education, health facilities and sanitation. The sacrifice on the part of those staying behind, morally challenges the donors to continually respond with more gifts, one that produces powerful affinities, sentiments and values, which are at once religious, caste based and developmental.

 

Footnotes:

1. Peggy Levitt, ‘Social Remittances: Migration Driven Local-Level Forms of Cultural Diffusion’, International Migration Review 32(4), 1998, pp. 926-948.

2. P. Johnson, Diaspora Philanthropy: Influences, Initiatives and Issues. The Philanthropic Initiative Inc. and the Global Equity Initiative, Harvard University, 2007.

3. D.F. Pocock, Kanbi and Patidar: A Study of the Patidar Community in Gujarat. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1972.

4. J. Carling, ‘The Human Dynamics of Migrant Transnationalism’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 31, 2008, pp. 1452-77.

5. Jacob Copeman, ‘The Gift and Its Form of Life in Contemporary India’, Modern Asian Studies 45(5), 2011, pp. 1051-1094.

6. Ibid.

7. Jamie Cross, ‘The Coming of the Corporate Gift’, Theory, Culture and Society, 2013, pp. 1-25.

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