Religiosity through Materiality: Dissecting the Politics of Philanthropy in India

The constant injunction to be involved in charitable activities has no doubt escalated the developmental mobility among Muslim communities. Through caring about society, the faithful express and enjoy the proximate conception of divinity that is often otherwise thought of as a mere ‘transcendent Being.’ Islamic institutions supported by different types of charities, such as Masjids and Madrasas, have been the bedrock of civil society, garnering the strength and power to negotiate with governmental decisions and authorities. Grounded on the general purview of religion and philanthropy, this paper qualitatively seeks to understand how charitable performances produce, cultivate, and perpetuate contemporary experiences of Indian Muslims. Particularly taking the Kerala Muslim as a field of study, one of the significant communities across India renowned for social mobility, it shows that philanthropic interventions are to be regarded as a critical component for maintaining and electrifying the Muslim consciousness and confidence in a particular Indian political context where Muslims as a minority are constantly called into question to prove their belongingness. The charitable realm has often been regarded as the potential site for interreligious exchanges and communal inclusivity.

The study posits that these engagements of Muslim organisations also reflect the ethics of neo-liberal situations where the state tries to move away from the welfare economy. Interestingly, their charitable corpus has, over the period, incorporated developmental ethics, pumping the pulp of market dynamism. The paper further argues that Indian Muslim philanthropy cannot be construed merely as an innocent act but rather as a highly political and ideological one, revisiting the questions of citizenship, social solidarity, and identity formation. Through charting out the historical trajectories and ethnographic accounts, it notes that muslim philanthropy in India is highly sectarian in nature that tend to reinforce the doctrinal difference of various Islamic groups.