This week had two significant landmarks in the evolution of capitalism. The first was the 21st Century equivalent of storming of the Bastille: an Indian entrepreneur, Mittal, transforming a cloistered Europe, by taking over its prized possessions.

But the second story needs even more attention in India. This was Warren Buffet’s decision to give away 85 per cent of his fortune, estimated at almost $35 billion. While Indian capital is evolving in its ability to compete and take on the world, will it also inaugurate a new era in genuine and effective corporate philanthropy?

While capital should do is what it does best, generate wealth and create jobs, the role that philanthropy played, not just in the social legitimation of capital, but also in the creation of a vibrant culture and society, cannot be underestimated. Whether we like it or not, in India, capital will be held socially accountable and it could take a leaf out of the books of Soros, Gates or Buffet.

India had a golden age of corporate philanthropy from the turn of the century to Independence. The Tatas, the Birlas the Sarabhais not only created genuine trusts, but also first-class institutions.

The conditions under which this philanthropy emerged were complex: the idealism of the nationalist movement; the asceticism of early capitalism which frowned upon conspicuous consumption; and even some unintended prodding from the British, as the correspondence between Jamshedji Tata and Lord Curzon testifies.

After Independence, while individual giving continued, serious corporate philanthropy did not engage the public imagination. After liberalization and Indian capital’s coming of age, there are new patterns of philanthropy emerging, especially from the new economy sectors, as the Premji and Infosys Foundations testify.

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