Socially responsible business in India: has the elephant finally woken up to the tunes of international trends?

This paper critically examines the two recent Indian initiatives—the National Voluntary Guidelines on Social, Environmental and Economic Responsibilities of Business 2011 and the Companies Bill 2011—aimed at promoting corporate social responsibility (CSR) in India. The examination is made having regard to similar attempts by several other countries to introduce CSR into corporate laws. The paper also investigates whether the Indian proposals really do have a distinctly Indian identity, as claimed by the government, and whether Mahatma Gandhi's trusteeship theory can be employed to develop an Indian approach to CSR. It argues that an Indian (or Asian) approach to CSR may fail to work in an era where companies operate globally, and the core of what socially responsible business entails is fast becoming a commonly accepted currency at the international level.