From an earlier restricted domain of academics and planners, the term civil society has become part of everyday vocabulary in India today. As a concept, it gained political ground from the 1990s almost as a follow-up to the large-scale changes rolled out under the rubric of market liberalisation and globalisation. Besides the state and market, the large space occupied by the citizenry (often including family), is the space which redefined itself under the nomenclature of civil society.

While the democratic state got its legitimacy via elections, police, law etc, the onerous task to ensure its accountability was in the hands of media and citizen groups. Two large changes seem to have taken place in the Indian context in recent years. The so-called "mainstream media" is now very often seen as an extension of the state itself, while market (despite its distinct existence) has conflated with the state in so far as they both legitimatise each other.

It is in these crucial times that the question of state accountability has become acute again, especially when the older forms of resistance, e.g., peasant movements, trade union movements have weakened considerably. Organised labour is facing extinction amidst the vast masses of unorganised sector and there is a hegemonic consensus in favour of market led ‘liberation’. But very often the debate is also about whether the Indian civil society is striving for cosmetic reforms within the existing order of things or is it actually probing for alternatives.

Historically, citizen activism got shaped by Gandhian voluntarism in the immediate aftermath of freedom, with a purpose of ‘social reconstruction,’ very often as an adjunct to the Indian ‘welfare state’, co-operating with it rather than challenging it. Vinoba Bhave led ‘Bhoodan movement’ was in spirit of eschewing the counter-movements around land. On the other hand, the failure of peasant movements and land movements post-independence, also led to Naxalite movements (a legacy which continues) which were explicitly premised upon the denial of Indian democratic state.

One of the key aspects of the Indian welfare state was premised upon the belief that it had to set up new industries, ‘new temples of modern India’ in the famous words of Nehru. If in the process, some communities had to be sacrificed (mostly tribals and dalits), so be it. It was ‘sad, but an inevitable cost’ of development. It is a legacy which continues today under the name of ‘smart cities,’ ‘development’ and ‘national interest’.

Many of these legacies of the state’s extreme self-belief in the modernist project resulted in ‘emergency’ and eventually a larger disillusionment with the character of ‘welfare state’. The shaping of people’s movement constantly challenging the state (but using Gandhian modes of protest) on its developmental model and its patriarchal character exemplified itself in women’s movement in the 1970s and ‘Narmada Bachao Andolan’ led by Medha Patkar in the 1980s-90s.

Also read: Civil society and democracy by I.A. Rehman

During these very years, the earlier legacy of the state being supplemented by voluntarism took a more formal shape via five-year plans. Institutions like Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology (CAPART) were set up by the government to assist voluntary sector or now more formally known as NGO sector as an extension of the state for ‘rural development’. They were very often doing the work outsourced by the state, e.g., providing services, health, education (mostly non-formal), local credit, etc, often under the premise of creating models for later upscaling.

It is interesting to note that by this time ’international aid politics,’ too, shaped some of these outcomes. Most of this aid was coming from countries founded on the pillar of capitalist democratic state and they were meant to aid the political goal of defining ‘development’ from that perspective. These very countries also saw the genesis of International NGOs that initially came to India to aid the spirit of voluntarism or even charity but also with a rhetoric of finding ‘long term solutions’ for poverty.

NGOs áre often registered under Societies Registration Act 1860 or under a state amendment thereof or Indian Trust Act, 1882, or the Religious and Charitable Institution Registration Act, 1920, all of them a colonial legacy. And a vast range of players could be accommodated within that, from think tanks to CAPART, to RSS led largest non-governmental education network and till recently even Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

While some estimates suggest that there’s at least one NGO per each of 6,00,000 villages in India, another study done some years ago, estimated roughly 30,000 organisations working on what is termed as ‘development’ work.

Two final points: one, unlike the notion of civil society, which mainly came up as a middle class institution in Western democracies, this notion has seen diverse experiments and varied roles in India, middle class activism gaining traction as part of it has happened only in recent years.

Second, these notions have intermingled with each other, challenged each other and have also politicised each other in the very process. One stream of the same has led to formalisation of legal activism and the language of rights, getting a formal sanction under the previous UPA regime, through a series of rights-based acts the drafting of which was done by National Advisory Council, a formal body of activists headed by the Congress Party chief and by implication giving legitimacy to the social democratic character of Indian state.

The legacy is on a head-on-collision with an increasingly illiberal state, as witnessed by recent events of government crackdown, something that had begun under previous regime though. The other stream is staring back at its role of service provider, especially with the dangling carrot of CSR money in the face of withdrawal of traditional donors like DFID and EU.

A third stream is experimenting, haltingly, very often in óne step forward, two steps backward’ mode but directly engaging in political arena as witnessed by the rise of Aam Admi Party, an amalgam of middle class activism, people’s movements from the ground and traditional NGO activism.