God, Gift and Charity: The Case of Zakat and Dasvandh in the Local Governance of Social Welfare Provision in Pakistan

Abstract

Existing models of gift applied to religious charities are either abstract or sometimes very limited in their applicability to understand the reciprocal relationships throughout the interconnected chain of giving and receiving charities. The paper contributes to this debate by asking: How gift economy explains the circulation of charities across interconnected spheres of local governance? And what are the implications of these inter-linkages for social welfare provisions where states are ineffective in the provision of these services? To answer these questions, the study presents the case of Zakat in Islam and Dasvandh in Sikhism in the northwest of Pakistan. In both the cases, charity is an important element of the social welfare provision within local governance structure. The findings suggest that conceptualizations of the religious charities as a triad including God, the rich and the poor are unsuitable gift models for grasping the role of charities in the local governance of social welfare provision.

Citation

Khan, M.S. (2021), "God, Gift and Charity: The Case of Zakat and Dasvandh in the Local Governance of Social Welfare Provision in Pakistan", Wood, D.C. (Ed.) Infrastructure, Morality, Food and Clothing, and New Developments in Latin America (Research in Economic Anthropology, Vol. 41), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 55-74. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0190-128120210000041003