New Alliances and Reallignment

EVER SINCE the revelations about the 2G imbroglio, the media has been lamenting the decline of public morality. Indeed, it has been able to sustain this narrative because alleged scams are being unearthed with relentless regularity. In all of its lamentations, the media is joined by a multiplicity of activists, NGOs, and public citizens, loosely described as members of ‘civil society’. The list of such voices is long, and the now fractured Team Anna—for better or worse—has perhaps emerged as one of the most visible faces of civil society engagement in recent times. Occasional hiccups faced by members of Team Anna notwithstanding, the media savvy of the India Against Corruption Movement needs to be unpacked carefully. Many of their strategies emerge out of a deeper structural shift in the place that civil society occupies in Indian politics today. What is this shift, and how exactly have civil society organisations (CSOs)—NGOs, non-profits, advocacy groups, etc—come to relate to the government and private sector today? A brief glance backwards might provide perspective on this. When Pandit Nehru declared that dams were the ‘temples of modern India’ in 1963, he articulated a vision that sought to meet three challenges after Independence. First, he worked towards the consolidation of a government that would prioritise rapid economic growth to address the welfare needs of India. The emphasis on planned economic growth was put in the service of a second ideal: the need for modern infrastructure, which would provide a material framework within which India’s masses would conduct their lives as citizens of a socialist republic. These two ideals were, for Pandit Nehru, central to the realisation of a third: the idea of liberal democracy. At its core, Nehruvian Socialism sought to create the apparatus necessary to channel the energies of India’s millions in a modern, liberal democratic direction. Regular elections, bicameralism at the centre, fundamental rights, elected legislatures, etc., were all part of this federal vision and its attempt to unify the country, without muffling India’s diversity. And in this vision, civil society was autonomous of the state. Partly for these reasons, civil society at this early stage was a localised or regional affair, directed by the energies of local groups. Few in the 1940s and 1950s would have imagined that social movements and NGOs would play a critical role in representing the diversity that was such a conspicuous fact of Indian life. There were, of course, some notable exceptions like Vinoba Bhave’s Sarvodaya Movement, but broadly, civil society from the 1950s to the late 1970s had an unstable quality and was rooted in the lives of those being directly affected. For all practical purposes, these movements had little impact on the central government. By the time Indira Gandhi became a national political figure, a whole generation had been marked by their contact with the State in some form. Many were benefited by the Nehruvian model, but others began expressing a sense of political disenchantment at the state’s inability to alleviate the problems confronting their constituencies. Some of this put a severe strain on India’s federal structure, as Indira Gandhi’s decision to declare Emergency makes clear. This political churning came at a time when India’s socialist planned economy was having to compete with alternative economic visions in the minds of India’s increasingly vocal middle class, members of which began to feel hemmed-in by India’s closed economy. As the effects of globalisation seeped into the nooks and crannies of urban life in the late-1980s, economic reforms were adopted in the 1990s. How many CSOs are there in India? Figures vary, but according to a Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation Report released in March 2012, India has staggering 3.17 million non-profits registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860, and the Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950, of which 80 per cent were created after 1990. Little is known about the activities of most of organisations, but it is fair to say that they are reshaping Indian society and culture in subtle, and as in the case of the Anna Hazare movement, not-so-subtle ways. Today, civil society is an active sphere of political engagement at the national level, propelled by a resurgent middle class. There are countless illustrations of this going back to the early 1990s. The Right to Information campaign started in Rajasthan and burgeoned into a national movement that succeeded in bringing about a constitutional legislation. After the Gujarat earthquake in 2001, CSOs have been among the most effective groups to get the state governments to provide rehabilitation services. The Right to Education Campaign had a strong civil society base; and the list goes on. Clearly, unlike the CSOs active from the 1950s to the 1970s, many that have emerged since the 1980s have much closer relationships with both the government and the heavy-hitters of India’s private sector. Whether they receive funding from the government, corporates or international agencies, CSOs are today forging new linkages in ways that were unimaginable in the Nehruvian years. The creation of the National Advisory Council in 2004 is the strongest statement of the government’s formal acceptance of a role for civil society at the central level. And the Indian government’s fondness for public-private partnerships only underscores the growing role that CSOs will play in the implementation of government’s developmental initiatives. It is patently clear that in the past few decades, the distinctions between the government, private sector, and civil society have become murkier, less discernible. The globalisation of India’s culture and economy has added an additional dimension into this mix. As we look to the future, it is difficult to discern any general relationship of causality between the four; in other words, which sphere will exercise greater authority over others at any moment is impossible to predict. But the overall result of this—and this is significant—has been the growing professionalisation of ‘movementbased’ politics, and civic engagement in general. As one looks to the future, one can only hope that CSOs will exercise constructive surveillance over the state to keep it accountable, while providing support when necessary. In their more pernicious form, however, CSOs have the potential to be hijacked and put in the service of selfish, illiberal ends.