Answer:

(The answer exceeds the word limit to explain the issues clearly and holistically.)

Civil society organizations in India emerged out of the twin processes of resistance to colonialism and the development of a self-reflective attitude to traditional practices that were increasingly found unacceptable in the light of modern systems of education and liberal ideologies.

In the pre-independence period, at least seven categories of associations constituted the space of civil society, viz. social and religious reform movements, Gandhian organizations, a number of self-help organizations that grew up around trade unions, movements against social oppression particularly the anti-caste movement, associations to petition the colonial government to extend English education and employment opportunities to the educated middle classes formed by professional English speaking Indians, affiliated groups of the Congress party, social and cultural organizations committed to the project of establishing a Hindu nation.

In the post-independence era, a number of civil society organizations took root both to confront violations of democratic rights and to fill the void caused by the development deficit of the state. For instance, from the late 1970s, the struggle for gender justice, the anti-caste movement, the movement for protection of civil liberties (the People’s Union for Civil Liberties; PUCL and the People’s Union for Democratic Rights; PUDR), the movement for a sound environment (the Chipko movement), the struggle against mega-development projects that have displaced thousands of poor tribals and hill dwellers (the Narmada Bachao Andolan),the campaigns for the right to food, to work, to information, for shelter, for primary education and for health, mobilized in civil society.

However, since 1990’s professional and well-funded NGOs that claimed to speak on behalf of different constituencies appeared on the scene. Though it is not that NGOs are not civil society organizations, but they are different from social associations, or movements, or citizens’ groups, or professional associations for they may not be membership-based organizations. A reading and a discussion club, for instance, is based on membership and at some point in time it has to be responsible to its constituency. Thus when such development agencies come into the space of civil society and proceed to act on behalf of citizens, it is not exactly clear as to whom these organizations have consulted and to which constituency they are responsible to. Moreover, even the agenda and mandate of these NGOs is not too clear at times.

Further, the entry of professional NGOs to civil society has brought a qualitatively different way of doing things –campaigns rather than social movements, lobbying government officials and the media rather than politicizing citizens, reliance on networks rather than civic activism, and a high degree of dependence on the judiciary rather than direct action. The campaigns run by them have mostly been successful only when the Supreme Court has intervened on the issue.

Though court interventions have helped campaigns to achieve their goals, the intervention of the judiciary illustrates the paradox of civil society mobilization. It is assumed that civil society groups have the capacity to address the state and to oblige it to heed their demands. However, the Indian state has proved more responsive to Court in junctions, compelling more and more groups to appeal to judicial activism. In part, the Court has adopted a proactive stance because the agenda of contemporary civil society mobilization is self-limiting and confined to the framework of the Constitution.

While NGOs that dominate civil society have tried to deepen democracy by focusing attention on issues that have been left untouched by political representatives- whether the issue be civil liberties, communalism, the right to food, the right to work, or the right to information- however, they have also created some new dilemmas. Firstly, NGOs are increasingly in the business of service delivery. Therefore, they are hardly in the business of acting as “a catalyst for social, economic, and political changes favouring the poor, marginalized, and disadvantaged”.

Secondly, whereas our parliamentary representatives have not proved democratic enough, organizations that seek to deepen democracy may not be representative of the political will at all. Most NGOs are manned by technical experts, who have their own ideas of what a problem is and what should be done about it. The political context of citizen politics has been transformed. It is simply no longer enough to concentrate on elected representatives, how they perform their tasks and how systems of representation can be made more democratic because non-governmental agents “stand in” for citizens, speak for them, engage in the politics of advocacy and often make and unmake policy, without ever having been in touch with the constituency they purport to represent. And they are not likely to do so because this is simply not their job and not their mandate. This really means that while NGOs may be in the business of democracy, they are not in the business of being representative, or accountable to citizens for their acts of omission and commission.

Moreover, there are limits to the NGO sector too. They are not in any position to summon up the kind of resources that are required to emancipate citizens from poverty and deprivation. Moreover, they can hardly implement schemes of redistributive justice that involve transferring of resources from the better off to the worse-off sections of society. And the non-governmental sector cannot establish and strengthen institutions that will implement policy.

More significantly, most NGOs concentrate on either one or a cluster of immediate issues, leaving the big issues untouched– the huge inequalities of resources in the country, for instance. Nor do these organizations touch on the source of powerlessness and helplessness, in, say, skewed income patterns. They just do not dream the large and expansive dreams that were dreamt of by earlier generations of social activists– restructuring existing structures of power and forging new and equitable structures of social relations.