Civil society refers to a wide array of individuals and organisations. As per the World Bank, “the term civil society to refer to the wide array of non-governmental and not-for-profit organizations that have a presence in public life, expressing the interests and values of their members or others, based on ethical, cultural, political, scientific, religious or philanthropic considerations. Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) therefore refer to a wide of array of organizations: community groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), labor unions, indigenous groups, charitable organizations, faith-based organizations, professional associations, and foundations”.
Civil society is different from both the state and the community. It can in fact be said to occupy the space which exists between the community and the state. It is represented by those associations, the NGO’s, the individuals, academicians and intellectuals who strive for betterment of the lives of people in the areas of their operation. Since the civil society institutions exist between the state and the community they are generally seen as distant from the state and are therefore immune from the loss of credibility of the state and its related institutions. The civil society is considered complimentary and sometimes as a substitute for the state institutions. The basis of the formation of civil society is secular. Caste and kinship linkages, religion or tribal mobilization etc. are not the basis of the formation of civil society.
Democracy and Civil Society are inseparably related to each other. A healthy liberal democracy needs the support of a vibrant civil society as a check on the centralized power of the state. The perspective developed particularly in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe where the civil society emerged in contrast to the totalitarian state. The rights of the individuals, which were violated during the totalitarian regimes, were seen to be protected in the realm of the civil society. Civil society is important for those who question the state’s imposition on them. Through the civil society people make the state respond to their voices. The civil society allows every participant group to maintain its specificity, culture. It is based on the principles of freedom and equality and strives to create an egalitarian and democratic order.
CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF CIVIL SOCIETY
Concept of civil society has been widely debated and deeply analysed. Despite the diversity of its composition it has some characteristic features which are as under:
· Civil society is the realm of organised social life that is open, voluntary, self-generating, at least partially self-supporting, autonomous from the state and bound by a legal order or set of shared rules. It is distinct from “society” in general in that it involves citizens acting collectively in a public sphere.
· It is concerned with public causes rather than with personal or private causes. It excludes parochial society: individual and family life and inward-looking group activity; and it excludes economic society: the profit-making enterprise of individual business firms.
· Civil society is related to the state in some way. It tries to influence the state but does not seek to control the state; it does not seek to “govern the polity as a whole”.
· Civil society encompasses pluralism and diversity. It encompasses a vast range of organizations, formal and informal, including economic, cultural, informational and educational, interest groups, developmental, issue-oriented and civic groups.
· Civil society does not seek to represent the complete set of interests of a person or a community. Rather different groups represent or encompass different aspects of interest.
· Civil society should be distinguished from the more clearly democracy-enhancing phenomenon of civic community. Civic community is both a broader and narrower concept than civil society: broader in the sense that it encompasses all manner of associations (parochial included); narrower in the sense that it includes only associations structured horizontally around ties that are more or less mutual, cooperative, symmetrical and trusting.
Community and Civil Society
As mentioned above civil society is different from the community. Community is a group of people knit into relationships on the basis of primordial factors, i.e., religion, kin, family ties, caste, etc. These set rules for the individuals, which constitute the community. The nature of the rules of the community about the rights of the individuals and citizens show the nature of polity and society. The rules of the community are particularistic and those of the state are universalistic. If there are conflicts between the two sets of rules, the democratic edifice of the polity gets eroded but if on the other hand, the rights of the individuals in a society are in consonance with those of the state, the polity represents democratic traits. The status of the democratic rights of individuals within the society – of women, of disadvantaged groups, of minorities, etc.–depends on the nature of all the three institutions i.e state, civil society and community.
Civil society in India
The social reform movements of the colonial period and those during the national movement could very well be said to taken up by the elements which in present terms could be categorized under the term ‘civil society’. The activity remained subdued in the first two decades of the independence because people hoped that the newly born state would be able to bring widespread changes on the economic and social front. However, soon a section realized that the things were not progressing as expected. This resulted in increase in the levels of the activism in the country. The activism increased in the late 1970s. Subject of movements ranged from civil liberty, ecology & environment and discrimination and oppression of women and dalits. The movements brought to fore the new concerns and reflected the consciousness on a number of issues like the control over the resources, the right of indigenous people to preserve their culture, the transformation of the feminine concerns from the exclusive concern of the women to the concern of the larger society, and the assertion by the lower caste.
Since the last few decades, the civil society has increased its activities and has played in major role in the development of the country both in support of the state as well as in opposition to it. While supporting the state, the civil society through various NGOs has played an important role in implementing various development and welfare schemes. The civil society has also taken a stand on various issues of governance in which it has opposed the state and acted as a watchdog and a pressure group in framing and implementation of policies.
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