Civil Society Organizations can be defined to include all non-market and non-state organizations outside of the family in which people organize themselves to pursue shared interests in the public domain”.

Body:

Examples include community-based organizations and village associations, environmental groups, women’s rights groups, farmers’ associations, faith-based organizations, labour unions, co-operatives, professional associations, chambers of commerce, independent research institutes and the not-for-profit media.

Need for an active civil society:

• Citizens have the right to scrutinise the work of their representatives.
• To publicise acts such as infringement of civil liberties and failure of governments to provide a reasonable standard of life for the citizens.
• Article 19 of the constitution provides for the democratic right to protest as part of the freedom of expression.
• The right to participate in an activity should not be restricted to politics and elections alone.
• Without this right, democracy becomes an illusion.
• So civil society cannot be conceptualised independent of the state.

Civil society’s functional contribution to good governance

• Watchdog: against violation of human rights and governing deficiencies.
• Advocate: of the weaker sections’ point of view.
• Agitator: on behalf of aggrieved citizens.
• Educator: of citizens on their rights, entitlements and responsibilities and the government about the pulse of the people.
• Service provider: to areas and people not reached by official efforts or as government’s agent.
• Mobilizer: of public opinion for or against a programme or policy.
• The ways include: Right to Information Act, Consumer Protection Act, Citizens Charters, Whistleblower protection, e-governance, Democratic Decentralisation, Public Interest Litigation, etc

Role of Civil Society:

• In a large developing country like India, there are numerous gaps left by the government in the development process. These are the gaps that civil societies try to fill in modern India.
• Supplementing the government effort to provide health care to citizens, and by raising awareness in society about issues like child and maternal malnutrition
• A number of NGO’s like Childline India Foundation, World Vision, Arambh India have played important role in raising awareness on child sexual abuse.
• In the last 20 years, a very large number of NGOs in India have been active in the area of environmental protection.
• The NGOs have often been helped by the judiciary whenever the government of the day has proved unresponsive.
• The engagement of civil society and the media in educating citizens about the evils of corruption, raising their awareness levels and securing their participation by giving them a ‘voice’.
• Civil society can influence policy and project formulation through membership of committees and submission of memoranda.

Conclusion:

Pressure groups, NGOs and CSOs form the backbone of democracy. The state must respect the articulation of the politics of voice and not just the politics of the vote. The promises of democracy can only be realised through collective action in civil society. A democratic state needs a democratic civil society and a democratic civil society also needs a democratic state. They mutually reinforce each other.