Thinking Civil Society with reason: Responding to some comments

There have been quite a few responses to my blog, 'Thinking Civil Society with reason'. Many comments were made in Face book and Twitter, where I post my blogs regularly, and some had even taken the trouble of personally emailing me with their thoughts. This was a pleasant surprise for me as the blog was broadly discursive. It would be much appreciated if future comments were made at the blog site, in the specified area below each post.

My intention was not to be patronising and provide an academic deliberation on the evolution of civil society and how it operates in the Indian context, but to come up with a broad idea within which the concept of civil society, as it is seen today, is situated.

The objective of such an analysis was to highlight the fact that the acrimony that is overshadowing the debate over the role of the civil society in India is actually weakening the phenomenon from within. The reason behind such an apprehension is the fact that such acrimony is not guided by intellectual necessity and is merely a personal one.

The logic behind such an observation stems from the fact that all the components of the acrimony have reached their pre-eminence because of the broader (global) discourse of the civil society being situated to replace the state in some areas of operation.

I do not think that the civil society movement is yet to get concrete shape in India. Although in its present context, the pre-eminence was a western influence but with the course of time it has developed organically cutting across the rural-urban divide. However, I do accept that at a very conceptual stage civil society was an urban phenomenon.

The mention of a weak executive is also not acceptable; since my understanding is that the Indian executive is very monolithic and hence is resistant to any structural changes at least in the power relations within the society.

Finally, I would like to thank everybody who took the time to read my blog and contributed to the debate. It is very encouraging and would definitely stimulate any future thinking.