Awakening the “Dead Hand”: Liquid and Solid Properties

Chapter 6 explores how new development projects, while filling trust coffers, may undercut and fragment the charitable obligations of the trust. As accusations of corruption plague the BPP, other smaller Parsi trusts with lands are receiving donations from Hong Kong to undertake development projects. This chapter places Parsi trusts and built space in Mumbai within global networks of philanthropic capital flows and blockages. As several trusts in Mumbai struggle to maintain their assets as their corpus funds run out, monies have been sought and secured from wealthier coreligionists. With this beneficence often come differing views on how charitable funds should be spent. This chapter offers an analysis of the liquidity of capital outside the world of private finance and into the communal worlds of religious charities. It explores how the charitable trust, and the circulation of its obligations, generate new geographies of community across the city and the global diaspora.