Project

Discipline

History of South Asia; Global History; Internationalism; Humanitarianism; World Wars; Communalism; Armed Conflicts; Red Cross

Lead
Lay summary
The research project examines the role of South Asian individuals and groups in humanitarian relief work during armed conflicts in the 19th-20th centuries. In this period, influenced by the changing nature of warfare, notions of benevolence and compassion, and religious and strategic agendas, different humanitarian initiatives to help wounded soldiers and civilian victims of warfare and civil strife were founded in Europe and North America. With the growth of international organizations and institutions, a humanitarian global community emerged that operated within national, transnational and international arenas. This project focuses on humanitarian help that originated from British India. In the early 20th century, different organizations became prominent in providing relief for victims in international crises and domestic conflicts. The project studies two interrelated developments: one, an institutional and social history of local and national political and religious-cultural associations, including women’s groups. Some of them were the Indian National Congress (INC), the Hindu nationalist volunteer organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Social Service League, the Servants of India Society, the All-India Women Conference and the Arya Samaj. Two, the project analyzes the discourses and practices of the South Asian branches of international civil society organizations, which had more or less, a Protestant Christian background. The prominent amongst them were the Indian Red Cross, the Indian St John Ambulance, the Salvation Army and the Young Men’s Christian Association (Y.M.C.A). The role of these associations is studied through five different case-studies: 1) Indian Ambulance Corps in the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902) and Bambatha Rebellion (1906); 2) Indian relief work in the First World War; 3) Humanitarian initiatives in the Interwar Period in international and communal conflicts in South Asia; 4) Indian humanitarian aid in the Second World War; 5) Help during the Partition. In order to explore the complex aims, objectives and strategies of different organizations formed in and outside of India, the foremost question is of the nature of the beneficiary, that is, who provided relief to whom. An equally important question is of the motivation that ranged from forging transnational associations to religious fraternity-help, and not least, certain incipient ideas of ‘third-world’ development. The main cluster of analytical themes that this project will deal with, therefore, consists of race, imperialism, gender, class and the mobility of ideas, knowledges and practices.

Direct link to Lay Summary

Last update: 21.02.2013

Active participation

Number	Title	Start	Funding scheme

The research project examines South Asian humanitarian relief work in armed conflicts between the late 19th and first half of the 20th century. Influenced by the changing nature of warfare, notions of benevolence and compassion, and religious and strategic agendas, different humanitarian initiatives to help wounded soldiers and civilian victims of warfare and civil strife were founded in the second half of the 19th century. The broader context of these measures was a growth of international organizations and institutions. Such organizations helped the emergence of a global humanitarian community which both operated within and transcended the institutional, territorial and ideological boundaries created on national and imperial bases. Within this international and transnational frame, the project focuses at humanitarian help that originated from British India. In the first half of the 20th century, a variety of organizations became prominent in providing relief for victims in international crises and domestic conflicts. Therefore, the project studies two interrelated developments: one, an institutional and social history of local and national political and religious-cultural associations, including women’s groups, that were either non-sectarian or belonged to the Hindu tradition; some of them were the Indian National Congress (INC), the Hindu nationalist volunteer organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Social Service League, the Servants of India Society, the All-India Women Conference and the Arya Samaj. Two, the project analyzes the discourses and practices of the South Asian branches of international civil society organizations, which had a more or less Protestant Christian background. The prominent amongst them were the Indian Red Cross, the Indian St John Ambulance, the Salvation Army and the Young Men’s Christian Association (Y.M.C.A). While discourses of ‘nationalism’ constituted a common thread amongst these organizations, changing points of reference to provide humanitarian relief - from the perspective of empire to the concurrent developments of internationalism and communalism - are conspicuously visible. In order to link the global and the local, the project analyzes the transfer of ‘western’ discourses and practices to Indian contexts and their appropriation by Indian actors. At the same time, it is imperative to critique and ultimately overcome any simplistic model of ‘diffusion’ of ideas from the West and treating India just as a passive receiving society. The project proposes to do so by closely following the ways of encounters of travelling ‘global’ ideas and models and the ways they interacted with the local traditions and practices. In the history of humanitarianism in British India and Indian humanitarian initiatives abroad, complex networks of agency, locally specific appropriations, and strategic modifications were crucial. A substantial body of work exists on organizations and movements like the Red Cross, which is regarded as a truly international association; the historiography on humanitarianism is unfortunately sparse in exploring humanitarian help in armed conflicts that was coming from the ‘third world’. In addition, existing research on international organizations has often neglected the orientation and work of their non-‘Western’ branches. Shifting the focus to humanitarian initiatives which were pre-dominantly founded and run by South Asians, the project not only addresses these lacunae in the existing historiography by adding a new regional perspective to the global history of humanitarianism. By exploring tensions between diverse political and national interests, religious motivations, and contested identities in the period of imperial globalization, it also promises to contribute to rethinking the nature of global humanitarianism as we know it today.