Family and Society · Sub-pillar 7.4
Community and belonging
Neighbourhood bonds, protection against loneliness, and the culture of volunteering, seva and giving.
What is community and belonging?
Community and belonging is sub-pillar 7.4 of the 47 BH framework for a developed Bharat by 2047, the fourth of six sub-pillars under the Family and Society pillar. It asks about the bonds between neighbours, about protection against loneliness, and about the culture of volunteering, seva, or selfless service, and giving.
Why it matters for 2047
Between the family and the state lies the community: the neighbours who notice, the temple or mosque committee that feeds, the resident association that fixes the drain, the stranger who stops to help. Rich countries have learned that when this middle layer thins, loneliness and its costs rise even as incomes do. India still has it, and the question for 2047 is whether it keeps it.
Seva is one of India's distinctive contributions to how a society can work. Giving time and money without expectation of return, through langars, temples, mosques, gurdwaras, churches and a thousand informal channels, is practised by hundreds of millions. It rarely appears in economic statistics, but it holds up much of what the statistics measure.
Loneliness is the quiet risk of development. As families shrink, children migrate and cities grow, the elderly in particular face lives without company. A developed Bharat would be one where belonging survives prosperity.
Where India stands
- 26th
of 142 countries was India's rank in the CAF World Giving Index 2024, with 65% of adults having helped a stranger, 41% having volunteered time and 38% having donated money in the previous month; India's score of 48 was above the global average of 40.[1]
- 90.3%
of Indians aged six and above took part in socialising, community or religious activity on a given day in 2024, spending 138 minutes on it; the time spent fell from 130 to 125 minutes a day per person between 2019 and 2024, according to the Time Use Survey.[2]
- 5.7%
of Indians aged 60 and above lived alone in the first Longitudinal Ageing Study of India, with the highest shares in Tamil Nadu and Nagaland; loneliness was most intense among the widowed, separated and divorced.[3]
- 1%
of the day, about one minute per person, was spent on unpaid volunteer and trainee work in 2024, down from 2 minutes in 2019, according to the Time Use Survey; most seva in India happens inside religious and community activity, which the survey counts separately.[2]
India's community life is dense by any international standard. Nine in ten people spend time with others, in community or in worship every day, two in three have recently helped a stranger, and two in five have volunteered, placing India in the top fifth of countries for giving. [1][2] Few elders live alone compared with rich countries. [3]
The drift is slow but visible. Time spent with others fell between 2019 and 2024 while time with media rose, formal volunteering is tiny and shrinking in the time-use data, and the elderly living alone are concentrated in exactly the states where development is furthest along. [2][3] India has no national measure of loneliness at all. [3]
A note on the numbers: the World Giving Index is compiled by a British charity from Gallup polls of about 1,000 people per country and asks about the previous month; the Time Use Survey is official and large but records minutes, not the quality of ties, and classifies much of what Indians would call seva under religious or community activity rather than volunteering; LASI covers only those aged 45 and above, with fieldwork in 2017-18; there is no official survey of loneliness or neighbourhood trust, and 47 BH will add one if the national statistics office begins to ask.
On the 47 BH report card
Every 15 August, 47 BH reports how far India has come on each sub-pillar. For this sub-pillar, the headline indicators are:
- Share who helped a stranger, volunteered or donated in the past month (CAF World Giving Index).
- Time spent socialising, in community and in religious activity, and on volunteering (Time Use Survey).
- Share of elderly living alone and share reporting loneliness (LASI).
- A national measure of loneliness and neighbourhood ties (to be sourced when one exists).
Two lenses on community and belonging
City and village
47 BH asks whether the belonging of a village, where everyone is known and no one is anonymous, can be rebuilt in a city of strangers. Resident associations, religious congregations and migrant networks are the city's answer; whether they reach the newest arrivals and the oldest residents is the test.
Learn, avoid, protect
- Learn
- What can India learn from countries that treated loneliness as a public health problem, that funded community spaces and local associations as infrastructure, and that measured belonging in their national statistics so that its loss was noticed in time?
- Avoid
- Which mistakes should it avoid, such as assuming community will survive urbanisation without effort, letting religious and community life become sectarian rather than shared, or replacing seva with professional services and losing what made it work?
- Protect
- What of its own should it protect, such as the langar and the community kitchen, the festival committee and the mohalla, the tradition of seva that gives without asking, and the expectation that neighbours are responsible for one another?
What this sub-pillar does not cover
Each topic has one home in the framework. These related topics sit elsewhere:
- Loneliness and care in old age as a health question: Health: Healthy ageing
- Life satisfaction and purpose: Values: Wellbeing and purpose
- Trust between people and in institutions: Values: Trust
- Taking part in public life, from voting to the gram sabha: Values: Civic sense and participation
- Harmony between communities: Family and Society: Social fairness
Questions about community and belonging
How generous are Indians?
India ranked 26th of 142 countries in the CAF World Giving Index 2024: 65% of adults had helped a stranger, 41% had volunteered and 38% had donated money in the previous month, for a score of 48 against a world average of 40. [1]
How much time do Indians spend with their communities?
90.3% of people aged six and above took part in socialising, community or religious activity on a given day in 2024, for 138 minutes on average; per person, that time fell from 130 to 125 minutes a day between 2019 and 2024, according to the Time Use Survey. [2]
How many elderly Indians live alone?
5.7% of those aged 60 and above, according to the Longitudinal Ageing Study of India, with the highest shares in Tamil Nadu and Nagaland and the lowest in Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Delhi. [3]
Does India measure loneliness?
Not nationally. LASI asked older adults about it and found loneliness most intense among the widowed, separated and divorced, but there is no regular national survey of loneliness or neighbourhood ties, which is why 47 BH lists one as a measure to be added. [3]
Why is community a development question?
Because the richest countries have found that prosperity can arrive with loneliness, and that rebuilding community is harder than keeping it. India still has what they lost. Keeping it through 2047 is as much a development goal as any road or school.
Sources
- Charities Aid Foundation, "World Giving Index 2024", September 2024, based on Gallup World Poll data. https://www.heakodanik.ee/ru/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/09/wgi_2024_report.pdf
- Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, "Time Use Survey 2024", press release, 25 February 2025. https://mospi.gov.in/sites/default/files/press_release/PR_TUS_25022025.pdf
- Longitudinal Ageing Study of India, Wave 1 (fieldwork 2017-18), released January 2021; living arrangements and loneliness as reported by Down To Earth. https://www.downtoearth.org.in/health/lonely-twilight-highest-rate-of-seniors-living-alone-in-tamil-nadu-nagaland-75346
47 BH cites every figure so that it can be checked. If you find an error, it will be corrected openly and the date below will change.