Indian Political Trends: Part II.Emergence of Civic Politics and Monitory democracy.

                                                                                                                    John Samuel

The last twenty five years have witnessed a paradigm shift in the political process. Till the early eighties, politics was to a large extent driven by a state-centric discourse, where the primary stakeholders were the political executive and an entrenched bureaucracy.  Media did play a watch dog, though the print media itself operated largely based on the available information or information supplied by the state.   

The emergency, during 1975-1977, for the first time demonstrated the perils of a state-centric politics and how the powerful bureaucratic -political cartel could subvert democracy and suspend fundamental rights. In a sense the emergency was a wake-up call to the citizens and civil society that Indian democracy could not be taken for granted.  Emergency was in many ways a shock-treatment to the Indian political process, unleashing new political forces and consequent emergence of number of political parties and actors. The period between 1977 and 1982 witnessed dramatic shifts in the Indian political process in a number of ways and one of the major shifts was the emergence of an active civil society process.  The emergence of PUCL, environmental and citizen activism of KSSP( Kerala Sasthra sahitya Parishat) and the publication of the first citizen’s report on environment etc were harbingers of a new civic politics in India. While the Congress party itself faced internal challenges, the Janatha experiment got reincarnated into number of new political parties and actors and the BJP too emerged during this phase in its third incarnation after Jansangh and Jantha party  phase.

The civic politics combined active social action through social mobilisation and public policy advocacy through knowledge, research and policy proposals. While Gandhian organisations organised civil society and civic spaces in the 1940s and 1950s for political and social actions, by the late 1950s most of the Gandhian organisations got sucked in to the periphery of the state and began to work as para-governmental organisations and networks.  However, the revitalised civic social and political spaces, in post-emergency era were informed by Gandhian ethics as well as left and left- of centre perspectives. While political scientists like Prof. Rajni Kothari recognised the relevance and the need for non-party political process, established political parties with strong left as well as right ideological inclinations questioned the emergence of social action groups and new social movements. While the proponents of the left political party establishment accused them of being ‘handmaids of imperialism’, the right-wing sangh parivar saw this as a ‘western conspiracy’ to covert India. Both the traditional right-wing and left-wing political party establishments were sceptical of any ‘politics’ beyond the ‘state-centric’ discourse. One of the major issues of contesting the political and social legitimacy of these formations was the role of ‘foreign funding’ – and it is due to the active protest against the emergency regime that the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act was introduced in 1976. In spite of political party establishments questioning the intentions, integrity and political legitimacy, there has been a resurgence of civic action and political process in different parts of India. 

These formations ranged from networked middle-class organisations such as the KSSP, to movements of adivasies, slum dwellers, environmental networks and the emergence of a number of new knowledge-research institutions. Their work included providing direct services and support to marginalised groups, social mobilisation, research and advocacy. A majority of these formations were inspired by Gandhian modes of social action, social democratic streams and politics of new social movements. In spite of vehement criticism and opposition, over the last twenty five years, an active civic political space emerged through social movements against displacement, environmentally disastrous projects and against bonded as well as child labour. A broader human rights movement for women’s rights, child rights and rights of the marginalised groups also emerged.  The right to education, the right to health and the rights of minorities etc got accentuated in the public sphere and political discourse through civic social and political action along with policy advocacy.

 The issues of environment, women’s rights, human rights, rights of adivasies and dalit communities etc. were brought into the centre of main-stream political discourse by a new generation of civic activists who were doing politics beyond the established political party framework and electoral politics.  The continuous and consistent work of civil society formations, civic activists and civic social movements also created a new culture of monitoring governance and public policy. 

The advocacy for most of the progressive legislations and public policy first began in the civic political and social space. Advocacy for the right to information, right to education , right to health, right to work and campaign to stop violence against women etc eventually created political demand for legislations, policies and programme.

With the emergence of Television, new media, social networking and a revolution in communication, knowledge-advocacy and monitoring of governance and governance institutions became more effective.  The right to information and information revolution through internet and social media created a new generation of civic politics and civic activists.  Unlike the traditional NGOs or highly institutionalised entities, the new network of citizens with more access to information and more technical competence and professional credentials began to engage in civic politics as active citizens. This new generation of civic activists and proponents of civic politics made significant change in the way politics operated in India. They began to be more and more vocal about corruption, the gap between rhetoric and reality and the gap between promises and performance. They have widely made use of the right to information and technology to reach out a large number of citizens. They have outgrown the traditional print and TV Media.

This generational shift in civic politics beyond the conventional political parties, NGOs or even new social movements influenced the Indian political and policy making process in number of ways.  The new proponents of civic politics have been professionals with income and drawn largely from the urban-middle class background.  Their global exposure and better access to information and technology gave them an edge over the previous generation of civil society organisation and civic activists.  Since main-stream politics have been dominated by political party establishment and the entry was restricted largely through traditional feeder mechanism or horizontal cooption through family or interest network, many of the new generation of politically aware young people chose to be active in civic politics by monitoring governance and actively questioning the legitimacy of established political elites. Campaign against corruption mobilised a large number of young people concerned about the subversion of electoral politics through the excessive use of money and muscle by the political party establishments.

The emergence of a new generation of civic politics in the last few years was partly a response to the crisis of the traditional political party establishment and partly due to the shift in the mode of information, mode of technology and thus the consequence was a mode of paradigm shift in communicative action. Political parties or even the government could no longer ‘control’ and ‘manage’ information- and the new generation of civic activists made strategic use of information, knowledge and technology to challenge the claims of government or to question the gap between the promises and performance of political class.

Due to the shift in access to information, shifts in modes of communication and more informed citizens,  politics is no longer about ‘selling dreams’ or  making promises or managing perception. Today a large majority of people in the urban settings or in small towns have access to mobile devices and far faster modes of accessing as well as analysing information. So with a generational shift in the demographic pattern the ‘old media’ mediations do not work; and people expect promises to be translated in to performance that has implications in their practical life and choices.

 The representative democracy is no longer enough to derive ‘legitimacy’ in a new era where there are more options and opportunities to get access to information to constantly monitor the performance of a government. Rhetoric no longer works beyond a few months as the information can no longer be controlled and people have learnt how to see through the bluff