This working paper focuses on the provision of Egyptian and South Asian humanitarian aid du-ring decolonisation that saw the emergence of In-dia and Egypt as independent nation-states in the late 1940s and early 1950s.1 The authors aim to show the continuities and shifts in the relief ef-forts of the Egyptian Red Crescent and of the Hin-du Mahasabha by examining their ideas of giving and the practises they followed during the (late) colonial and the postcolonial periods. The paper starts with a short overview of the burgeoning field of humanitarian history. Our emphasis, hereby, is on the current lack of non-western perspectives on humanitarianism and its relationship with colonialism and decolonisa-tion. Following this, the paper delineates local charitable and philanthropic traditions in Egypt and South Asia that influenced the Egyptian Red Crescent and the Hindu Mahasabha respectively. Finally, we analyse the work of these organisa-tions in humanitarian crises during the period of decolonisation, paying special heed to their poten-tial politicisation and their relationships with the postcolonial governments.The paper stresses the importance of taking into account the local and regional social and political contexts in order to understand seriously multiple forms of humanitarianism. We argue that in the wake of decolonialisation, both organisations con-1 A first version of this paper was presented at the ZMO colloquium on 15 December 2016. During the colonial period British India comprised of regions that constituted two (and later three) postcolonial nation-states, i. e. India, Pakistan (and Bangladesh). Hence, the paper will use »South Asia« and »South Asian« instead of »India« and »Indian« to de-scribe historical developments in the colonial period.tinued their existing practises of relief provisions, but also had to adapt to new circumstances. Thus, they had to negotiate their relations and status not only with the newly established postcolonial governments, but also other (international) hu-manitarian organisations and actors.