Philanthropic Organizations and Community Development

Abstract

Philanthropic organisations are engaged in diverse welfare and development works including community development in India. A substantial number of these organisations are faith-based organisations (FBOs). While religion impacts people in many ways, religious tenets and practices have shaped, and in many cases strengthened, much of philanthropic activity. This paper focuses on the socio-economic change impacted by a philanthropic organisation called Bettiah Parish Society, successively managed by two FBOs since 1745, for the development of a Christian community, located at Bettiah, West Champaran District, in the State of Bihar, eastern India. The two FBOs were the Capuchin Mission Society (1745–1921), and the Patna Jesuit Society (1921–2000). The paper explores the influence and impact of these two external, goal-oriented FBOs on the 265-year-old Bettiah Christian community in Bihar. Aside a brief discussion on the missionary agents and their religion-induced ideologies, vision and motivations that seem to have goaded them engage in philanthropic works, the main discussion will be on the second aspect, namely the impact of their philanthropic action on the recipient community. The overall impact was (1) the construction of a Christian community (the Bettiah Christians) from among disparate convert groups, formerly belonging to different Hindu castes, and (2) changes in the socio-economic structures of the community through development aid and education. I have used an inter-disciplinary method for this study, relying much on historical, sociological and anthropological data, collected during a field study in 1998, and again in 2010.