By the early 2000s, the Bhansali family faced a deeper question: How do you support communities so remote that they barely exist on India’s development map? In these geographies, development efforts often struggled, not due to lack of intent, but because the solutions weren’t always aligned with the cultural context, lived realities, or deep-rooted social dynamics of tribal communities.   

This recognition led to the founding of TIDE (Tribal Integrated Development and Education Trust) in 2003. Guided by the belief that every community deserved to live with dignity and self-reliance, TIDE grew steadily across 16 states and nearly 9,000 villages, with its strongest footprint in Assam across 11 districts.  

From the beginning, TIDE’s work rested on the same systems thinking that guided the Bhansali Trust: health, education, and livelihoods were deeply interconnected, and meaningful change required understanding how they shaped one another in daily life. They focused on training local staff who could understand the rhythm, language, and customs of each village and worked with community leaders and women’s groups to co-design interventions that were practical, frugal, and wholly owned by the communities themselves.  

More than 1,800 paramedical workers trained by TIDE brought basic healthcare directly to people’s homes, treating over 1.3 million patients every year for common healthcare services. For many vulnerable families that might otherwise walk miles to reach a clinic, TIDE has made healthcare an accessible, affordable service. From physiotherapy centers serving people with paralysis to tele-psychiatry programs linking rural patients with psychiatrists in Mumbai, TIDE’s health initiatives bridge critical gaps. Preventive programs that tackle alcohol addiction, screening for diabetes, or distributing mosquito nets and eyeglasses have helped communities stay healthy before illness takes hold. 

As access to healthcare improved, TIDE also continued to strengthen its efforts in education and livelihoods. In Gujarat’s tribal belts, over 2,500 women’s self-help groups collectively saved INR 16 crores, freeing thousands of families from high-interest debt and allowing them to invest in kitchen gardens, fruit trees, or small enterprises. These income sources, in turn, kept children in school and families resilient during shocks. TIDE also provided supplementary nutrition to over 1,000 malnourished children, pregnant women, and TB patients, supplying an additional 400 calories of affordable, natural food a day. 

TIDE’s presence in remote tribal regions reflects an intentional choice to serve communities that are often harder to reach. Progress in these areas demanded deeper listening, cultural sensitivity, and long-term presence. By addressing health, income, and education together, TIDE has created a holistic framework for wellbeing that strengthens people’s capacity to care for themselves and their communities. 

A long-time supporter and well-wisher of the family, Vallabh Bhanshali (Co-Founder, ENAM Group, Mumbai), observes the significance of TIDE’s commitment. “As Mark Twain said, ‘mad is often just unusual’. In the same vein, in the case of tribals, almost 9% of our population, we arrogantly call them backward because they are unusual. It is wrong. Tribals love nature and preserve it and that sustains us. They live frugally, know how to be happy even in adversity. Things we don’t know. Helping them with the few necessities they don’t have is therefore, a great, humane action. My hats off to them. The Bhansali family’s work with such communities stems from a deep respect for this wisdom, and a willingness to engage with deference without judgement. It is divine humility in mitigation of urban arrogance.” 

For 60 years, the Bhansali family’s work has shown that rural development is neither quick nor linear. Even the most committed efforts encountered barriers: fragile public systems, deep social hierarchies, migration, cultural norms resistant to change, and the sheer difficulty of reaching families scattered across vast and vulnerable geographies. Their journey was shaped as much by these constraints as by their successes. What set their approach apart was not immunity from challenge, but the way they responded to it: with patience, practical problem-solving, and a willingness to stay present long after the first intervention had been made.  

Across the Bhansali Trust and TIDE, progress emerged slowly – a clinic that stayed open despite a shortage of doctors, a women’s group rebuilding savings after a season of crop loss, a teacher who persisted despite early dropout. Each step forward required navigating local dynamics, earning trust, and working within systems that did not always move at the pace of need. As Ashok Bhansali reflected, change endured only when it was built with communities, not imposed upon them. He shares the guiding philosophy that has shaped Bhansali family’s giving over the years: “to give love and respect to the people for whom we are working.”  

These experiences hold valuable insight for India’s emerging philanthropists. Impact does not come from scale alone, but from the capacity to listen, adapt, and work with the grain of local culture. What distinguishes their approach is not scale alone, but the manner in which the work was done: by drawing on local leadership, staying present long enough to understand context, and building institutions that communities could eventually steer themselves. As India looks toward 2047, these lessons matter. The country’s future will be shaped not only by how much is invested, but by how thoughtfully it is done – whether philanthropy helps build institutions that endure, strengthens trust where it is fragile, and expands opportunity to places that remain distant from the mainstream of growth. The Bhansali family’s journey offers a realistic and hopeful blueprint: development that acknowledges difficulty, engages with it, and advances anyway; philanthropy that is ambitious yet grounded; and a belief that the dignity and agency of every community must sit at the centre of India’s next chapter. 

No wonder then, that their outcomes endure: a health worker who continues to serve her village; a women’s group that keeps families out of debt; a student who completes her education because support systems held firm around her. It is because the Bhansali family have committed wholeheartedly to caring, duly and deeply, and in a way that keeps the hearth burning in India’s heartlands.