Responsibility by Mandate

In 2014, India became the first major economy to write corporate giving into law. Section 135 of the Companies Act requires large companies to spend two per cent of their profits on social purposes, and annual spending has since roughly tripled. Yet this money is neither philanthropy nor tax: it is compelled by law but allocated by firms. *Responsibility by Mandate* reads this hybrid through sociology. Drawing on Weber, Durkheim, Mauss and Bourdieu, it treats CSR as a field in which firms, intermediaries, officials and communities compete for funds and recognition. It introduces the mandated gift and the legibility premium, the reward for work that is easy to count and report. Tracing Indian giving from merchant piety to Gandhian trusteeship, it follows CSR into districts, schools, clinics and mining frontiers, showing how it can reproduce inequalities of place, caste and gender. It closes with an agenda for reform. For students, researchers, practitioners and policymakers.