Civil Society

I have been following the recent protests against corruption spearheaded by Anna Hazare with some confusion. The demand for participation of 'civil society' in anti-corruption vigilance is the cause of discomfort for me. Who decides who is a representative of civil society? In a democratic society, isn't all of us part of civil society and isn't our elected representatives the members representing civil society?

Partha Chatterjee of Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta and Columbia University has written about the need for a new conceptual framework of "political society" for a country like India. http://epw.in/epw/uploads/articles/12162.pdf. I pick a quote from this article here...

"...It would be a mistake, however, to think that the result is a convergence of the Indian political system with the classical models of capitalist democracy. The critical difference, as I have pointed out elsewhere, has been produced by a split in the field of the political between a domain of properly constituted civil society and a more ill-defined and contingently activated domain of political society [Chatterjee 2004]. Civil society in India today, peopled largely by the urban middle classes, is the sphere that seeks to be congruent with the normative models of bourgeois civil society and represents the domain of capitalist hegemony. If this were the only relevant political domain, then India today would probably be indistinguishable from other western capitalist democracies. But there is the other domain of what I have called political society which includes large sections of the rural population and the urban poor. These people do, of course, have the formal status of citizens and can exercise their franchise as an instrument of political bargaining. But they do not relate to the organs of the state in the same way that the middle classes do, nor do governmental agencies treat them as proper citizens belonging to civil society. Those in polit ical societ y make t heir claims on government, and in turn are governed, not within the framework of stable constitutionally defined rights and laws, but rather through temporary, contextual and unstable arrangements arrived at through direct political negotiations. The latter domain, which represents the vast bulk of democratic politics in India, is not under the moral-political leadership of the capitalist class.

Hence, my argument is that the framework of passive revolution is still valid for India. But its structure and dynamic have undergone a change. The capitalist class has come to acquire a

position of moral-political hegemony over civil society, consisting principally of the urban middle classes. It exercises its considerable influence over both the central and the state governments not through electoral mobilisation of political parties and movements but largely through the bureaucratic-managerial class, the increasingly influential print and visual media, and the judiciary and other independent regulatory bodies."

Isn't this an interesting take on Civil Society?

Ever since the British left, we as a nation (are we a nation?) have been finding it difficult to introspect inwards and need scapegoats for our troubles. Depending on our political persuasion we blame Paksitan, IMF/WorldBank, MNCs, USA etc etc. The latest goat is the political class. Is it very hard to accept that as a people we don't care much about setting up common rules and following them for the benefit of everyone? One look at our roads would give you the answer.

Our "democratic" politics has been a politics of negotiation for special entitlements and privileges. When people vote for cash to elect their representatives, why are we so indignant when our representatives demand cash for votes?

While being at it, may be Anna Hazare should fast in Tirupati too to stop bribing Balaji for special favours.