Social Governance: The Emergence of Civil Society Activism in India

As the democratic space in India seeks to bridge the democratic deficit in the c
ountry by blending government with governance, a coming of age of the civil soci
ety in the country seems to be asserting its presence in the public sphere, in i
ts constructive as well as not-so- constructive roles. The remarkable emergence
of non- state actors in the social governance of the country and its new found r
elevance as strong pressure groups for articulating public interests, grievances
and even outrage have been significant developments in the evolution of democra
tic texture of the country.
Notwithstanding the fact that the Non Governmental Organisations ( NGOs) became
popular in India only in the 1980s, the voluntary sector has a longer history i
n India. Even the great Gandhian experiment of ushering in social reforms during
the national movement harnessed the power of civil society through a dedicated
team of social volunteers, led by Mahatma Gandhi.
Post-independence, voluntary organizations tried to fill in the gaps left by the
government in the development process, as these groups organized handloom weave
rs in villages and dairy farmers into cooperatives through which they could mark
et their products. The volunteers also addressed other important dimensions of d
evelopment by organizing literacy camps, night classes for adult illiterates etc
.
However, diversification, formalization and specialization of the civil society
organizations, in form of systematically working NGOs was a phenomenon which was
witnessed in India as late as 1980s. These NGOs broadly took three forms, depe
nding on different orientations, area of work and sectors they worked for. First
ly, there were traditional development NGOs, who went into a village or a group
of villages and ran literacy programmes, creches for children and clinics, enco
uraged farmers to experiment with new crops and livestock breeds that would brin
g more money, helped the weavers and other village artisans market their product
s and were associated with other such activities. Many voluntary organizations
of this kind are working robustly in India for decades, the treatment centre for
leprosy patients run by Baba Amte in central India is a great example of such a
n organization.
Apart from the first kind of organizations, a second group of NGOs can be ident
ified as those who researched a particular subject in depth, and then lobbied wi
th the government or with industry or petitioned the courts for improvements in
the lives of the citizens, as far as that particular subject was concerned. An e
xample of such an NGO is the Centre for Science and Environment. CSE was activel
y instrumental in picking up sample of well water and then submitted the results
of the chemical analysis to a court because the organization had not been able
to get the factory to change its polluting practices by any other means. This wa
s a display of environmental activism through sustained articulation of public i
nterest.
There exists another category of NGOs in India and in pursuit of its objectives
it is more oriented towards activism and the aggressive modus operandi of these
volunteers projected them as activists. The third groups were those volunteers w
ho saw themselves more as activists than other NGOs did. They prodded the politi
cal and administrative machinery, petitioned the bureaucrats and alerted the med
ia whenever they found something wrong and so on. This third group of NGOs saw a
ctivism as their primary means of reaching their goals, because they did not bel
ieve they could get the authorities to move in any other way. Perhaps the best-k
nown example of an NGO in this category is Medha Patekar led Narmada Bachao Ando
lan (Save Narmada Campaign), an organisation that opposed the construction of a
series of large dams in a large river valley of central India.
However, the nature of these NGOs is not strictly defined and they can play diff

erent roles in response to the demands and nature of their social agenda and soc
ial conscience.
Being a representative democracy, the need for effective civil society vigilance
as well as social governance cannot be overstated. Unlike the participatory dem
ocratic devices like referendum, India s representative democratic paradigm does n
ot offer mechanisms of articulating public interest. Civil Society organizations
as well as media are of great importance in addressing this profound democratic
deficit.
Social governance has acquired centrality in context of the challenges that deve
lopment administration faces in India. There are many NGOs which work in areas w
here the governmental efforts prove inadequate. Particularly, NGOs in India have
extended their helping hands in supplementing as well as the complementing the
governmental efforts to improve the grim situation in the health and education s
ectors. Addressing the key deficiencies in the education sector, NGOs have playe
d an important role -- running special classes at night for children whose paren
ts send them out to work, running special classes for girls and so on. By and la
rge, governments have been supportive of such initiatives by NGOs, and there is
need for more NGOs dedicated to the education sector in India.
Civil society organizations have made their presence in the health sector also b
y supplementing the government effort to provide health care to citizens, and by
raising awareness in society about issues like child and maternal malnutrition,
which is perhaps more important than adding a few more clinics. The NGOs have a
lso battled social evils in the area of healthcare, like the neglect of the girl
child, which can degenerate into a grotesque manifestations like female foetici
de or infanticide, and they have also worked on addressing the social agenda of
women emancipation and empowerment. Lobbying by NGOs played a crucial role in ar
ticulating the need for laws for banning sex-determination tests.
Environmental activism by some civil society organizations have also left its im
print on the environmental concerns, discourse and policies in India. Whether it
is the celebrated Chipko Movement of Sunderlal Bahuguna, or campaigns led by en
vironmentalists like Sunita Narain or environment scholars like Vandana Shiva,
the core concerns of environmental degradation have been effectively articulate
d by civil society in India.
The civil society organizations today represent, articulate and lobby a wide ran
ge of interests and concerns, ranging from issue of child labour to the issue of
the shelter of the urban poor, from AIDS prevention to rights and duties of dem
ocratic citizenship like the RTI. However, there has been an insidious emergence
of fund- gathering NGOs, diverting the huge funds received from various organiz
ations in India and abroad for distorted motives, often for making profits. To a
n extent, the mushrooming of such fake NGOs has undermined the credibility of ci
vil society organizations and runs contrary to the sublime work ethics that sust
ains robust civil society in any country. Moreover, the fashionable activism as
a fad of wear-on-my sleeves activists , professional contrarians and look at me
bodies do not augur well for the ethical centrality that characterizes the vigor
ous civil society movements.
As the custodian of the social conscience of the democratic citizenship and as
an active participant in the social governance, civil society has asserted its
place in our public discourse and it is getting increasingly instrumental in mou
lding our democratic structures. It has its role cut out in straightening the cr
ooked timbre of our developing democratic society and exceed the Hegelian perspe
ctives on role of civil society. However, it has to be vigilant against people a
nd groups that threaten to undermine the intellectual integrity, the moral centr
e and the dignity of service that sustain civil society as a vibrant participant
in the social governance.

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