Does a plural civil society matter? Reflecting on the varieties of associational life in India

ABSTRACT

Civil society is increasingly being viewed as the domain of communicative rationality; a sphere where the collective ‘we’ emerges and acts to affirm the Kantian ideals of human dignity and equal respect. In these normative accounts, the civil does not simply supplement the existing institutions of constitutional democracy, it embodies the very idea of democracy, albeit in its ideal form. This article engages with this conception and examines whether the civil should be considered as the domain of ‘universal reason’, in which ‘rational’ individuals act to realize the goal of equal rights for all. Not only is the empirical reality quite different, it is indeed desirable to make space for the plural and the diverse within our conception of the civil. Drawing upon the Indian debates and experiences, it is argued that the civil domain is internally differentiated and often deeply fragmented. The task of securing basic rights for all takes many different forms; individuals and collectives that pursue this goal do so with different conceptions of the self and different understanding of the political and economic system. One needs to recognize this plurality for it is the co-presence of deep differences – with regard to assessments, judgments, forms of collective action – that sustain democracy and make civil society central to the democratic imaginary.

KEYWORDS:

• Civil society
• democracy
• liberal theory
• development
• human rights

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In this imagination, civil society was perceived to be a network of associations existing ‘independent of state’ (Taylor, 1997, p. 96); or non-government, ‘non-party’ initiatives and political processes that enable people’s voice to be heard and effect change in policies (Kothari, 1984).

2 Jeffrey Alexander, for instance, recognizes that civil society represents a ‘utopian ideal that has never been fully realized … and never will be’, yet it is this tension between the ideal and the real that ‘produces the potentially liberating dynamics of contemporary life’ (1998, p. 8).

3 A society ‘with only individuals (citizens) on one side, and the nation (or the state) on the other would not only difficult to live in, but also difficult to conceive (Béteille, 1996, p. 14).