In 1917, a small group of women, some of whom had just come out of purdah, began to meet regularly for Red Cross work in Birbhum, Bengal. Called upon by Saroj Nalini Dutt (1887–1925), a Bengali social reformer and early rural development activist, the members of the Birbhum Mahilā Samiti (Birbhum women's group) sewed garments and made dātuns (teeth-cleaning sticks) made from the neem tree as well as pacīsī boards (an Indian game) for Indian soldiers fighting in the First World War. Dutt, who was honoured for her activities after the war by the British Red Cross Society (BRCS), also sent a monthly consignment of sweets, condiments, and newspapers to soldiers serving in Mesopotamia. The Birbhum group, which normally focused its activities on the social and educational ‘progress’ of Bengali women, is only one of the many examples of Indian non-state humanitarian initiatives organised during the First World War. Given that these initiatives were embedded in the British imperial context and contributed to the empire's war effort, they are examples of a larger phenomenon that historians before me have labelled ‘imperial humanitarianism’.

Two decades later, Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964), the future prime minister of independent India, and by then, President of the Indian National Congress (INC), became involved in propagating and organising Indian nationalist humanitarian activities. During the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), Nehru swayed the Indian national movement to create its own humanitarian programme, which saw the collection of funds and food items in favour of Republican Spain.

The First World War generated multiple state and non-state humanitarian replies, encompassing not only material and financial donations, but also different forms of voluntary work. In colonial India, one of these relief activities was the formation and working of the ambulance corps. Staffed with (Indian) volunteers, the corps assisted wounded and sick soldiers of the British Indian Army in Great Britain, Mesopotamia and India. Corps members worked closely with, or as part of, the military. Their duties not only included the transportation of war victims but also comprised other tasks, such as nursing them, dressing their wounds, providing medical care as doctors, and interpreting and cooking for them. The male volunteers came from all over India, and depending on the nature of the corps, their religious, caste, educational and class backgrounds varied substantially.

Sources suggest that at least four Indian volunteer ambulance initiatives existed: the Indian Field Ambulance Training Corps (IFATC), the Indian Branch of the St. John Ambulance Association (ISJAA), the Bengal Ambulance Corps (BAC) and the Benares Ambulance Transport Corps. In Chapter 1 we have already read about the work of the ISJAA. This chapter sets out to analyse the Indian Field Ambulance Training Corps. Established in Britain in autumn 1914, the unit was, as far as I know, the only relief initiative organised by colonial subjects back in the metropole during the war. This does not mean that it was the only humanitarian endeavour organised by non-Westerners.

In her memoir, Ilina Sen reflects on the political currents that shaped a generation of civil liberties activists in the 1960s and 1970s, including her own journey and that of her partner, Binayak Sen. Both were members of the PUCL, having served as its office-bearers. She describes how Gandhian, democratic-socialist, and communist political traditions in India inspired a generation of young, urban thinkers and activists who sought to reimagine their role in public life. For some, this political commitment demanded a renunciation of middle-class comforts of city life, to move to and live in rural areas, immersing themselves in grassroots social movements and taking on leadership roles within emerging movements. For others, like the members of the PUCL, it meant channelling their energies from the urban centres, supporting various movements using available resources to sustain and amplify movements. Through this, a politics of allyship took shape, through creation of platforms that provided emerging movement groups visibility and voice.

As allies, civil liberties activists have often reflected on normative questions and searched for shared, general and internally consistent principles to act upon. G. Haragopal and K. Balagopal, both members of the Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee (APCLC), raised the questions in the above quote. Others like Smitu Kothari and Harsh Sethi asked similar questions of themselves and their fellow activists. They ask, for instance, ‘How are we to react to the violence that the “revolutionary” groups engage in—be it against the state apparatus, other revolutionary groups, or against a general mass of the population?’ (Kothari and Sethi 1989, 13). A second dilemma emerged from the state being both the ultimate appellate authority and the perpetrator. In the context of communal violence, where the government and the local administration might have been complicit, civil liberties groups wondered who the appropriate appellate authority should be. ‘When communal violence is at its fever pitch, do we have any instrumentality other than the state to appeal to?’ (Kothari and Sethi 1989, 14). As we can see, these questions have both a political dimension (that is, to do with strategy formulation) and an ethical one (that is, to do with developing a code of conduct for themselves). These debates helped allies understand and build their own identity. In this chapter, I analyse two recurring debates within and across civil liberties groups to understand how these debates shaped the organisational identity of ally groups.

The two excerpts cited above are just two examples among many instances where civil liberties activists have identified and positioned themselves as concerned citizens. For more than four decades, a segment of middleclass activists in India has adopted this self-identification, which is an important aspect of the ongoing normative contestation surrounding the notion of good citizenship. Despite its significance, the history, specificity and practice of this self-identification remain underexplored. This chapter examines concerned citizenship as an urban, middle-class, civil-societybased form of allyship, which has facilitated a distinct mode of collective action within the Indian socio-political landscape.