{"id":221,"date":"2018-07-24T12:33:35","date_gmt":"2018-07-24T12:33:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/socp4.epgpbooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/?post_type=chapter&p=221"},"modified":"2019-05-06T11:37:31","modified_gmt":"2019-05-06T11:37:31","slug":"221","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/socp4\/chapter\/221\/","title":{"rendered":"Intervention and impact of civil society in India"},"content":{"raw":"
\"epgp<\/a>\r\n<\/span><\/div>\r\n
\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nIntroduction<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n

In the following module titled The Intervention and Impact of Civil Society in India<\/em><\/strong>, the author aims to explicate the notion of Civil Society, by referring to various scholars who have theorized the term. In an attempt to further explain the concept of civil society, the section is followed by looking at how civil society is understood in contemporary times; to understand the ongoing paradigm that the current understanding rests on. Some commonalties are drawn from the Habermasian notion of Public sphere. As previously mentioned, the concept and term Civil Society is a western concept; it has evolved in the Western political philosophy. So, the succeeding session would give a bird\u2019s eye view of the application of this term in the Indian context, after which a small section is dedicated towards delineating the historical roots of civil society in India, and what constitutes membership in Indian civil societies, given their hierarchical and divisive nature. Towards the end of the module, the author endeavours to give a brief overview of the debates around the digitalized era that the Indian civil societies are a part of. Given the digitally mediated lives we lead, it still needs to be seen whether civil societies benefit from such an arrangement. Or is it all noise and no activism but only \u201cslacktivism\u201d?<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Civil society <\/strong>as a concept, has numerous theories allocated to itself. Nonetheless, there is no consensus among theorists about its meaning, as yet. Urry and McIlwaine, state that civil society generally inhabits the space between the state and the household. (Urry 1981;\u00a0 McIlwaine 1998). Use of the term \u201cCivil Society\u201d is not limited solely to academic circles. The definitions of the term found in two popular dictionaries mentioned subsequently allude us to the popularity of the term used in common parlance. According to the Dictionary.com\u2019s 21st century Lexicon, Civil Society is defined as a) the aggregate of non-governmental organizations and institutions that manifest interests and will of citizens or b)individuals and organizations in a society which are independent of the government. 1 Occasionally, the notion of Civil society is applied to the more usual sense of \u201cthe<\/p>\r\n \r\n

1 http:\/\/dictionary.reference.com\/browse\/civil+society?r=66elements such as freedom of speech, an independent judiciary, etc that make up a democratic society.\u201d2<\/span><\/p>\r\n \r\n

However, the meanings and interpretations of what constitutes a Civil Society have been subject to change over a period of time and are open to contestation. In the following section, readers will be acquainted with how the concept of civil society came to be theorized until now. From this supplementary reading, students will learn to;<\/span><\/p>\r\n \r\n

1)\u00a0 examine how the concept of civil society developed in the western tradition of political thought;<\/span><\/p>\r\n

2)\u00a0 The questions around the applicability of the concept of Civil society in India<\/span><\/p>\r\n \r\n

Oommen (2004) has laid out the three phases (incarnations) in enabling us to understand the notion of civil society, and how it came into being. The following section will begin by setting out Oomen\u2019s articulation of the three incarnations of the civil society, followed by several other scholars<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n1)\u00a0<\/strong>Theorisation of Civil Society<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n

In the first incarnation<\/em><\/strong>, civil society was distinguished from primitive societies by many anthropologists, such as Richard Puttenham in 1589. Seventy five years later, Hobbes published Leviathan<\/em> which was regarded as the political counterpart to Puttenham\u2019s anthropological discourse. A century after that, Adam Ferguson ( the father of modern Sociology) wrote An essay on the History of Civil Society.<\/em> This text contested that Europe had already attained civil society, the loftiest position in the assumed hierarchy of societies.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Thus, as one can observe, civil society is the space which occupied the premier position among the multiplicity of societies.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

In the Second incarnation<\/em><\/strong> of civil society, two intellectual lineages were acknowledged;<\/p>\r\n\r\n