Civil Society Activism - A boon or a bane?

    

The last couple of decades of the previous century and the first of this have seen a quantum increase in social activism of different varieties in different parts of the world.  India has not been an exception to this.  The emergence of new media such as social networking such as Facebook on the World Wide Web, newer channels of faster news transmission as seen in Twitter and the consolidation of traditional electronic media like radio and TV in conjunction with print media that has re-aligned itself to newer demands have all contributed to information flying from one part of the world to another.  With the emergence of the new media based in the internet and the World Wide Web we now have a new category of reporter; the citizen reporter.  There is really no limit to what kind of information can be shared between people without the mediation of editorial policies or policies of selective blanking out of information.

This process has tremendous ramifications for society anywhere.  Even in the heart of the conservative world which is the West Asian and North African part there have been spontaneous social and political movements triggered on by information sharing.  The incidents in Egypt, Syria and Bahrain are all testimony to this.  In India too, the information revolution has been playing an important part in the dissemination of ideas.  Thanks to blogging, one need not be at the mercy of the editor of a newspaper or the manager of TV or radio channel to put out one’s views apart from putting out news.  This means that traditional news carriers and the State that manipulate them have fresher challenges emerging in dealing with people’s aspiration for social change, equity and equality.

This has meant that Civil Society as a concept is more empowered than it ever was before.  Even though the original meanings of civil society were very much in consonance with bourgeois liberalism and society, with the empowering of more and more people through information dissemination, civil society is now not a body that is exclusively under the control of any one class or segment of people.  This has repercussions both positive and negative.  But not having a clear class or caste contour civil society as it exists today becomes less susceptible to any form of social, political or cultural manipulation. The flip side is that it becomes difficult to judge as to how big or legitimate a group of people that is demanding something is. This basically queers the pitch as far as the concept of governance is considered.  Most democracies in the world including India are representative democracies that function on the principle of majoritarianism.   

Elected representatives have the backing of a majority of the people of the country and in representative democracy there is transference of sovereignty by the people to their representatives through the process of election.  Without the attribution of mala fides to the elected representatives, if it was considered that they are working for the well-being of their constituents and if there are some civil society activist groups that confront the elected representatives with their demands which go against what the representative believes his constituents desire, then the question of what criteria are to be used to privilege one over the other arises.

India has been witnessing this particular problem in the very recent times with Team Hazare demanding a certain kind of Lok Pal or Ombudsman to curb the menace of corruption in the country.  One can clearly see the problem that Team Hazare poses to those who want to understand civil society activism and the response of the State to it.  The latest count of members in Team Hazare is five.  On the few occasions when Hazare has fasted in support of his demand for a certain kind of Lok Pal, crowds of people numbering some thousands thronged the venues of his fast.  Of this some could be curious by standers while others maybe his genuine supporters.  Despite that the problem would be that how can a team of five people supported by an anonymous crowd of a few thousand people dictate terms to the elected representatives of the country?  This brings in the question of legitimacy.  Can civil society activism claim to be legitimate when it is confronted by the State with a response which rejects its very basis of existence?  If it can claim to be legitimate, then what are the sources that it would cite for its legitimacy?

This therefore is not just a problem, it is a problematique from which emanate many questions of legitimacy of non-constitutional institutions.  Social movements, though often described thus, are usually anything but movements.  Each instance is more akin to an agitation from a certain section of society seeking to change its status or the status of society itself but is usually met with tactical responses from the State that seek either to procrastinate or completely dissipate demands of social change.  What makes this problematique even more complex is the nature of Indian society.  Indian society perhaps has more schisms than most other societies.  Usually people are divided along lines of caste, lineage, language, religion and region.  Therefore, the desire for movement from one state of existence to another by one social group is usually nixed by another group in civil society itself, thereby giving some breathing space to the State.

It is in this context that policy and enlightened leadership gain significance and prominence.  The country requires leaders who are able to overcome pressures of fissiparous and parochial tendencies and work for the holistic good of the society.  But for that to happen, certain structures and processes which are legitimate should first come into place. How does this happen?  I have no answers yet, but I am thinking about the question.  Should I find the answer, I will post it here.