Imaginaries of Community: Business Elites’ Philanthropy and Community Development in India

Abstract

Community development, or the socio-economic transformations of local communities, has been a significant focus of ethical organizations. Variously through and in the name of CSR, philanthropy (strategic or otherwise), stakeholder management, and now development partnerships, private corporations have contributed to community development programmes in the so-called third world countries, including those in South Asia. Despite the growing attention on the subject, conceptual vagueness and lack of clarity around what or who constitutes a community persists. In this article, I explore the ways in which communities are imagined, historically. Such a historical focus, I argue, brings into relief the shifting imaginaries of the term as well as help understand why such conceptual vagueness might exist in the first place. In so doing, I draw on the history of philanthropy of the Tata Group, India’s leading multinational conglomerate, from the 1860s onwards. I offer a periodization of community and explain what prompted the Tatas to articulate these starkly differing imaginaries of community.