NGO Research

History of Non Profit in India

NGO have a long history in India. In the past, people in this country have been found to have provided help to others in trouble. Since centuries there exists the tradition of voluntary service to the needy and helpless in the country. In the beginning, these services were rendered by people motivated by their religious feelings.

They believed that service to people would be the service to God and, therefore, would be a means to attain spiritual salvation and sometimes to atonement for any sinful act. Spirit of charity and altruism guided the voluntary action in the past, which had found expression in diverse forms even outside the formal established religious channels ( Punalekar, 2004: 33). Many people including rulers have trod the path of service to their fellow beings and adopted it as their life mission (ibid.).

The help and support used to be individual, sponta-neous and transitory. It is around the late 18th and early 19th century that associations and organizations were being formed to render such activities in a more organized and permanent profile (ibid.)