28 Women and Civil Society

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1.1 Introduction

 

According to the United Nations, ‘civil society’ is the “third sector” of society, along with government and business. It comprises civil society organizations and non – governmental organizations. A civil society is comprised of groups or organizations working in the interest of the citizens but operating outside of the governmental and for-profit sectors. Organizations and institutions that make up civil society include labor unions, non-profit organizations, religious, and other service agencies that provide an important service to society without or with very little in return. Civil society is sometimes referred to as the civil sector, a term that is used to differentiate it from other sectors that comprise the functioning of a society. For example, the three sectors of society are: the public sector, which is the government and its branches; the private sector, which includes businesses and corporations; and the civil sector, which includes the organizations that act in the public’s interest but are not motivated by profit or government. Since women members of the society are primarily engaged in the unorganized and non-profit sector, civil society is a best representation of their struggles for rights and collective voice, capability and strength. Therefore, women’s role and participation in civil society is a major achievement, an achievement that initiated and gave thrust to women’s movement against patriarchal domination and subjugation; towards gender justice based on equality and equity principles and women empowerment as human capital and agency.

 

1.2 Defining Civil Society

 

Numerous academics and practitioners have offered definitions for civil society based on their research and experiences. The most commonly used definition was created by CIVICUS, which conceives of civil society as the arena outside the family, the state, and the market, which is created by individual and collective actions, organizations, and institutions to advance shared interests (CIVICUS, 2011; PRIA et al., 2012). This definition has been widely accepted in different platforms, since the definition represents civil society in its ongoing evolution, growing problems and diversity of identities. A proposed definition that captures its current form is “an ecosystem of organized and organic social and cultural relations existing in the space between the state, business, and family, which builds on indigenous and external knowledge, values, traditions, and principles to foster collaboration and the achievement of specific goals by and among citizens and other stakeholders.”

 

Civil society within this context comprises qualities associated with goals, relationships, contextual experiences, values, and informal and formal structures. In recent times, the different typologies of civil society are:

  • Civil society organizations (CSOs) comprising faith-based organizations, and community-based organizations that have an organized structure and mission and are typically registered entities and groups.
  • Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), which provide assistance to people for little or no fee. NGOs fall into the category of civil society because they are not operated by the government, are very often reliant on donations, and tend to be comprised of volunteers.
  • Another example of civil society at work is civic groups, such as the Clubs, Associations, Networks.
  • Online groups and activities, including social media communities that can be “organized” but do not necessarily have physical, legal, or financial structures.
  • Social movements of collective action and/or identity, which can be online or physical in existence.
  • Labour unions and labour organizations representing workers and their needs and interests.
  • Social entrepreneurs employing innovative and/or market-oriented approaches for socially and environmentally responsible outcomes.
  • Family may also be considered as a civil society group as it voluntarily contributes to wellbeing without expectation of any return.

 

1.3 Emergence of Civil Society in India

 

Civil Society in India emerged in the era of Indian National Congress (INC) leadership in freedom struggle to create a nation-state in the post-colonial period of democratic functioning and establishment of a welfare state in order to create a Indian model of development based on equality of all citizens irrespective of caste, class, ethnicity, religion, gender and other socio-cultural-economic-political-subaltern divisions.

 

Another reason for the emergence of civil society in post-colonial India was a direct response to 1960s drought and famine and 1975s national emergency – which led to mass alienation from the authoritarian state (Mencher 1999; Sengupta 1999; Ebrahim 2003). This national crisis gave birth to the emergence of voluntary organizations aimed to protect the civil liberties of citizens (Oommen, 2005; Gudavarthy 2008). Social movements emerged as organized civil society shaped up in different forms to protect different identities, resolve different issues, and safeguard different needs and interests of the diversity of Indian populations. These movements historically represented Social Reforms, Women’s Emancipation, Feminist Activism, Grassroots Environmental and Livelihoods Protection, Alternative Income Generation, Right to Education and Information, Cleanliness and Saving Girl Child in the contemporary society. These social movements marked the turning point to situate non-government or voluntary organizations in macro-level policy-making in a democratic Indian society (Baviskar 1995; Roy & De 1997 & 1999, Mander & Joshi 1999; Tharoor 2000; Oommen 2005).

 

Post-colonial India witnessed the emergence of a wide range of NGOs, including those that emerged to remove the chronic levels of poverty that had resulted in the famine and drought of the mid-1960s in India. Moreover, a number of NGOs mushroomed in the post-emergency period to protect the civil liberties of people and to advocate for human rights. In this section, I first trace the growth trajectory of NGOs in post- colonial India (Mencher 1999; Ebrahim 2003) and then move to the emergence of voluntary organizations that rose as a direct result of people’s distrust of the state in the post – emergency period, leading many to form associations to protect civil liberties and human rights (Sengupta 1999; Gudavarthy 2008).

 

While many NGOs, the government and policy makers in the 1960s and 1970s worked to achieve the “basic needs” of the poor, the 1970s and 1980s saw the emergence of the mantra of “participatory development” amongst development planners. The reasons behind this were the large scale dissatisfaction with centrally planned development strategies that failed to reach the intended beneficiaries, firstly due to the excessive emphasis on the creating large industries that was characteristic of the initial First and Second Five Year Plans and the failure of the trickle-down theory, which led to the realization that development below had greater chances of being connected with peoples needs and realities (Ebrahim 2003).

 

During this period there was an increase in the interaction of NGOs with international funding agencies like- who started dictating the course of India’s development within the new socio-political climate in the globalized world. International agencies such as the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank, which initially worked with the government and its agencies, have extended funding, partnership and collaboration with NGOs for successful project implementation. Since, Indian citizens have been subject to not only poor centralized planning, corrupt leadership, but also bad governance, resulting widespread and endemic violation of human rights and basic needs for survival. Decentralized NGOs are expected by these international and multilateral organizations to play a larger role by transforming realities in remote comers of the country. The post-liberalization phase synergized market-based economic reforms with the notion of ‘good governance’ (governance characterized by transparent, accountable and participatory decision-making) (Ebrahim 2003). At this juncture increasing roles were shifted from governmental actions to civil society organizations (example- development and rights-based NGOs) as per international funding agencies perceptions of them as more efficient, capable, committed, and accountable than the autonomous and all-powerful state machineries.

 

Indian society is heterogeneous and plural marked by a wide variety of ethnic, religious, regional and linguistic groups. Therefore, civil society in India is a public space of contestation between individual and state and between elite and poor. According to Alam (2005) most people in India have only nominal rights and even less of a capacity to seek or even have access to the public sphere. Though they are not “qualified” in terms of being able to fully use their freedom of expression, yet they want to be a part of the public sphere by making rational demands to the state, which they do not however have the ability to engage with in a sustained manner. Civil society’s success depends on the broad extent to which it has been able to develop the disempowered common men and women of India to empowered citizens breaking out of traditional social norms and practices.

 

1.4 Role and Participation of Women in Civil Society

 

In a patriarchal society like India where the male head of the family centralizes all power of control and authority to make decision for the family and its female members of all age groups, ‘gender issues’ will therefore still remain as a unique problem within the vicious cycle of socio-economic-political hierarchy. According to 2011 Census, the sex ratio in India is a shockingly skewed at 940 females per 1000 males, while it is 946 in rural India and 900 in urban India. Moreover, inequalities stemming from a patriarchal society, though manifested deeply in the private domain, but do spill over into the public domain, embodying females members of the society as less valued and attach less significance to their roles and contribution inside family and outside communities or larger societies. Resulting inequalities and differential treatment towards girls and women by men folks across generations have created intensive and extensive problems for women in India today – sex ratio, lack of education, dowry, child marriage, child trafficking, rape, exploitation, wage gaps and compensations, poverty, poor health and sanitation, violence against women, and many other latent infestations.

 

In this precarious Indian social condition, ‘civil society’ has given the ‘other half of the population’ the right to struggle for freedom by breaking gender stereotypes and stigma, by collectively representing their common concerns and problems, organizing into activism and movements to protect their needs and interests, and broadening solidarity within themselves and outside communities and culture through participation in real context or through social media. Livelihood movement like- Narmada Bachao Andolan and Chipko Movement; domestic violence movement like- Anti-Arrak Movement; women’s representation like-Uniform Civil Code, and the reservation of seats for women in Parliament and state legislatures; alternative income and micro-credit generation like- entrepreneurship and self-employment – have been possible only through women’s collectives under civil society organizations like community based organizations (CBOs) and self help groups (SHGs).

 

Although, both the state and the voluntary organizations have not worked sufficiently enough to sensitize citizens about the importance of protecting the girl child and empowering women; therefore India still has wide gender gap. As far as the State is concerned, it is due to political patriarchy that rules for safeguarding the interests of Indian men and not disrupting or challenging the traditional social conditions by giving privileges to women citizens in the fear of losing mass vote bank – men. Therefore, Indian Governmental schemes are tokenistic approach to women’s development than an integrative approach towards gender development. As per voluntary organizations are concerned, it is partly due to their financial dependence on international funding agencies and their preferred choice of development in India in midst of world trade politics. Most of these funding agencies consider women as only a component in development so that there is a rational precondition for spending of international aid and continuance of debt collection by developed country from developing or under-developed country. None of these reasoning can be excused and officially or unofficially more active and conspicuous roles should be adopted, supported for implementation to make sure that the girl child and prospective woman in her life-course receives right environment for her growth and development and thereby resulting in national economic growth and development.

 

Be it in the form of grassroots movements that emphasize on the rights of people or advocacy groups that focus on public policy, or even in the form of removing laws that violate the basic rights of people, the state has to be more alert and responsive to the needs of the ordinary citizen (the common wo/man in R.K. Lakshman’s word); while civil society needs to be an alert watchdog that monitors government functioning and empowers citizens and develop their capacities to help meet their own needs and aspirations, instead of relying solely on the state.

 

1.5 Summary

  1. Civil society as a ‘sphere’ between the family and the state.
  2. Civil society as an ‘institution’.
  3. Civil society as the ‘third sphere’ – the other two being the state and the market. As per the last definition, civil society referred to those institutions that are directed neither by powermotive nor by profit motive. It is a sphere which is predominantly guided by the common good of the society and that is motivated by service and well-being of the other.
  4.  Women empowerment is not about getting educated, finding a job, challenging patriarchy or becoming economically independent; it most importantly is to pursue what a woman wishes to pursue in her life separate from her family, as an individual. The life stories of many Indian girls and women show their incredible courage and how they lead a dignified life in the face of patriarchal control and cultural stigma.
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Web links

  • https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/civil_society
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_society
  • https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228542327_Feminist_Politics_in_India_Women_ and_Civil_Society_Activism
  • http://www.statsvet.su.se/polopoly_fs/1.129706.1364285702!/menu/standard/file/berglund_c ivil_society_in_india_oct_2009.pdf
  • https://ideas.repec.org/p/sch/wpaper/161.html

References:

 

  1. Brown, L.D. and Jagananda (2007). Civil Society Legitimacy and Accountability – Issues and Challenges, HauserCenter for Non-profit organizations and Civicus.
  2. Giffen, J. and Judge R. (2010). Civil Society Policy and Practice in Donor AgenciesINTRAC
  3. IBON International (2010). Primer on the Development Effectiveness of Civil Society Organizations.
  4. OECD (2009). Civil Society and Aid Effectiveness – Findings, Recommendations and Good Practice. Better Aid Series.
  5. Banerjee N. (2006). A note on capabilities that contribute to the success of non-governmental organizations. Discussion Paper 57P. Maastricht: ECDPM. http://ecdpm.org/publications/note-capabilities-contribute-success-non-governmental-organisations