ABSTRACT
Gift-giving (or donation) is an integral part of global humanitarian action as it provides the resources, both cash and in-kind, to ensure continued aid momentum. Not only do individual voluntary donations make up a significant proportion of the total income of some of the world’s largest humanitarian organisations, they also demonstrate that a donor has had some level of engagement with the organisation and the associated cause. Their action is not disinterested, and the result of donation is certainly not ineffectual. Therefore, as stakeholders in the emergency and development process and actors in the wider humanitarian complex, individual donors and their impulses to give must be scrutinised. Of course, it is important not to lump all donors together, as they are influenced by a myriad of culturally contingent pressures, wants and needs. This chapter will specifically focus on the regulation and organisation of charitable giving in modern India.
