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Today is Buddh Purnimaâthe 2558th birthday of Lord Buddha. On this occasion, some reflective meditation is in order.
After 10 weeks, the electioneering for parliamentary elections has come to an end in India. While actual results will be known after two days, the results from exit polls have predicted a winner already.
During this entire period, Indian civil society has engaged with formal political process in several ways.
First, in the eyes of many traditional political leaders, the new AAP party is an off-shoot of civil society. Many of the candidates from AAP party are active in civil society organisations and networks. As the campaigning gained momentum, many citizens active in myriad civil society groups and peopleâs movements from around the country joined the campaign process of AAP candidates in several constituencies. This was most visible in âpremiumâ constituencies like Varanasi and Amethi.
Second, many civil society activists prepared issue papers to engage political parties to include these agendas in their manifestos and public positions. Such issues comprised of a wide spectrumâwater, health, education, housing, women, children, tribals and dalits. Sometimes such engagements were based on strong analytical documents, sometimes on mere popular slogans.
Third, monitoring of the electoral process so that it remains free and fair for all eligible voters has been another form of engagement by some civil society actors. Some civil society organisations have analysed the background of candidates, conducted reviews of the past performance of existing parliamentarians and formed local level âelection watchâ committees of citizens. They have used mediaâboth old and socialâto undertake such a watch-dog function.
Fourth, some civil society actors have taken partisan positions for and against certain parties and candidates. They have done so on the belief that certain candidates and parties will be good for the welfare of Indian public at large. Of course, many of these have taken a stand against BJP and its PM candidate Shri Narendra Modi. They have spoken about it in public, including through the ever-present media in this election. They have openly campaigned against the party in different constituencies, including Varanasi. One section of such civil society comprises of individuals from the world of culture, arts, literature and academia.
However, many civil society organisations have also campaigned for Shri Narendra Modi and his party. Such organisations are not just those associated with RSS and the âhindutvaâ movement; many have had no such history. The media may not have paid attention to such organisations, but their numbers are not small.
Therefore, in this season of elections, civil society engagements with political society in the country have been rather pronounced. The above has raised certain questions about the appropriateness, or otherwise, of different types of engagements between civil society and political process in elections. While civil society is generally believed to be committed to transforming the relations of power in favour of the excluded, it is not clear if that means engagements with small âpâ of politics or the capital âPâ of political parties and their campaigns.
Given such an open engagement by Indian civil society with both small âpâ and capital âPâ in this election season in the country, what are likely implications for the political space of civil society in the coming period? Will the politics in Indian democracy protect and advance that space? Or will that space be further restricted, as has been the trend in the past five years? Will Indian democracy sustain the freedom of civil society to stand apart from the formal political process as some parts of it stand as a part of that political process?
Rajesh Tandon
May 14, 2014
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