How has one year of the Modi government been for civil society and democracy?

What on earth is ‘civil society’? As a graduate student, I did not quite understand the term when we read about it in our comparative politics seminars. After editing a volume on civil society a few years ago, I concluded that perhaps the definition of civil society did not even matter. What matters is what civil society represents and what it does. Now, as part of that umbrella category since I run a small organisation in Chennai, the term has political meaning for me. In the last year, as Indian NGOs and Indian civil society in general have contended with a range of interventions in their functioning and funding, that understanding has deepened.
 
Western political scientists have usually juxtaposed state and society, more specifically civil society, in an adversarial relationship. Where historically in India, the duty of the ruler was considered to be the protection and promotion of social structures and norms — that is, where society dominated the state, the idea and nature of the modern state was of a dispensation that supplants and regulates the working of society. Rights essentially follow from the founding of a state and civil society is an umbrella term that includes all those organised to prevent the state from encroaching too far on those rights. There is thus, an inherent tension in the relationship between state and civil society.
 
The modern state has a complex mandate that includes protection and security as well as development and social welfare. Expanding its reach (for instance, through intervening in matters like the acquisition of land by private players) is essential to its performance on that mandate. However, such an expansion comes at a cost to citizens and it falls to civil society to document, publicise and resist that cost. The entire gamut of contentious issues from land acquisition to nuclear energy to who gets to start universities to what constitutes sedition are the business of civil society and people’s movements (not considered the same thing, by the way). And as governments change, different issues become flashpoints in the push-pull between state and civil society. 
 
On the other hand, civil society is the natural partner of the state in extending that very reach in several ways. Where the state can only pass laws, civil society is best placed to create the awareness of the issues addressed by the laws and to create legal literacy around them. Should a government seek debate on a policy question or to aggregate public opinion, it is civil society organisations that operate at the neighbourhood level that can connect the two. In the area of needs assessment, the state has the resources, but civil society presumably has the access to communities to facilitate a true understanding. Locked in an adversarial posture, the partnership potential of state and civil society is rarely fulfilled.
 
One of the abiding anxieties about the election of the Modi government concerned its consequences for civil society and civic freedoms. Many of these anxieties have proven well-founded in the last year. The case against Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand is only the most contentious instance, but a sustained campaign has unfolded that targets NGOs and donors working in the areas of climate change, sustainable development, land rights and communalism. As always, alleged income tax and FCRA violations offer the entry point for these campaigns. It had long been anticipated that the pending renewal of countless FCRA permissions would offer the government (any government) the opportunity to get involved with civil society in the name of accountability and regulation.
 
Civil society organisations encounter the state in several ways even as they come into existence. And to be fair, this is true no matter which government is in power. They have to be registered, either with a Charities Commissioner or under the Income Tax Act. In order to receive tax deductible donations, they enter into yet another engagement with the Income Tax Department. Then there is FCRA, which is administered by the Home Ministry. At each state, not only is the paperwork onerous, but there is little transparency in the process. A very small NGO (like ours) has no way of knowing the true status of our application for anything.
 
We are asked at every turn whether our work is political. I find that very hard to answer. The work of social change is intrinsically political. When I want to dismantle patriarchal attitudes and critique unequal relationships, I cannot in all honesty say that is apolitical work. Indeed, the fact that gender equality work can be done under the radar of what is considered political or destabilising illustrates to me how horrendously and invisibly entrenched these inequalities are.
 
Then there are those of us that want to work in the areas of peace and security. Those words are landmines in themselves. Peace includes the absence of communal and caste violence. But given the stakes that every dispensation has in these, this is dangerous work. To work on the problems of people in conflict zones is problematic because according to our government, there are no conflicts within India — we can only work on “disturbed areas.”
 
The word ‘region’ is problematic and there is anxiety about contacts with the outside world. Time and again, we are expected to assert we have none. But how is it possible for an educated person in 2015 to not have any contact with the outside world? Do you work with foreigners? Yes, in my professional capacity, I do. What do you mean by ‘international’ or ‘world peace’, do you have foreign contacts? I studied abroad, I lived and worked abroad for 11 years, half my family is abroad, most of my friends are and I cannot prevent foreigners from reading our website, blogs or my publications.
 
But most under threat are those working on ‘human rights’, for their work directly presumes wrongdoing on the part of the state, and this includes those who support a given dispensation. By highlighting violations — by commission or omission — civil society organisations working in the area of human rights place the agents and agencies of government on the defensive. As we expand our understanding of rights — from the right to life all the way to the right to livelihood — so does the arena of confrontation expand. Defensive governments hit back with the full arsenal of powers at their disposal, from alleging accounting errors to preventing people from travelling to charging individuals with sedition. In very politically fraught and polarised places, muscle power (including police power) may also be used to intimidate activists.
 
Most NGOs as really small, moving from day to day, trying to do their best in their chosen area of work and at each turn, we face the assumption that we are somehow doing wrong. We organise a public programme, it needs police permission. We partner with an organisation under the scanner (inevitable, really, for who is not?) and we are visited by intelligence officers on really silly grounds. Obsessed with the letter of the law and fearful of political bosses who are themselves insecure, those working for enforcement agencies end up presenting to us the face of a state that is Chaplinesque at best, but mostly grotesque.
 
Of course, those who espouse transparency and accountability must also practice the same. No argument about that! Filing tax returns, keeping clean books and making our accounts available in the public domain are as important for civil society as for other sectors. However, let those who are focused on this point, take note that for a state that wishes to intervene and intimidate, there will always be a way. Every charge made by a government need not be true and tying up the meagre resources of an NGO in tribunals and litigation can be an effective way of shutting it down. By the time the innocence of its managers is established, everyone is likely to have moved on to more harmless activities. Who would then be the loser?
 
The question is not: How has a year of the Modi government been for civil society, but, how has this year been for democracy? Because the point is not to safeguard civil society; the point of civil society is to safeguard democracy.
 
The Modi government was elected with a large majority of seats in a democratic election and that is a mandate that we have to respect, whatever our reservations and anxieties. But it is true that many of those reservations and anxieties are related to democracy-related issues. How would the ideology of this government play out vis-à-vis its relationship with minority groups and their rights? What would the model of a strong central leadership mean for a federal structure where other parties ruled the states? “The Gujarat model” for many of us did not just present a model of economic growth but a political package that included the 2002 riots — would defensiveness about the riots play a part in the government’s relationship with human rights activists and the courts? Our political perspective certainly determines our answer to these questions (perhaps as it does the choice of questions itself).
 
For me, the larger anxiety stems from the climate of credulity that seems to be at play. For the first time, it seems to me that Indians are ready to believe almost anything the government says. In our eagerness to have what we consider a strong and decisive leadership, we are ready to believe any allegations or claims the government might make. We question the motivations of civil society activists, media-persons or professionals, but we accept the worldview of the government uncritically. Coupled with the paternalistic style of this government and the supreme self-confidence of the Prime Minister, this makes for a potent situation. No one is in a mood to check facts or call his bluff. We place our faith where we are asked and mince our words as the recipe asks. We are eager to be led. But certainty and faith are not democratic virtues, doubt and scepticism are.
 
This, to me, is the problem. As the government targets the big civil society organisations and donors one by one, and does it without opposition, it will be harder but more important for small NGOs to stay the course. It will be harder for us to raise funds (even to hire book-keepers!) in a climate where individual donors start to believe that civil society presents an annoying interference in the path of progress or that their support for such organisations will get them in trouble. At times like this, it is very tempting to simply shut down and go about the business of our individual lives. After all, no one else seems to care. But most of us will not. We come to this work with a sense of mission — political mission — that our microscopic efforts add up. But they will not, without a citizenry committed to democratic values. 
 
The final bulwark of democracy is the citizen. The final unit of both society and state is the individual. The civic compact is a tripartite one between state, civil society and the citizen.
 
If individuals do not care enough to be vigilant, the most scrupulous state and the most combative civil society cannot prevent the decimation of democratic rights. Being vigilant means being sceptical, asking questions and separating rhetoric from performance — not taking every speech on face value. Vigilant citizenship means that if you take state charges against NGOs and activists seriously, you should also consider that civil society is not fabricating charges against the state. It means holding to accountability all sides on an issue and it also means being accountable — voting, paying your tax, following civic rules, for instance — in order to have the right to ask questions. Civil society cannot protect the rights of a citizenry willing to roll over and play dead. And without a vigilant, even-handed and sceptical citizenry, civil society may as well turn its talent to more lucrative occupations.
 
The author is a political scientist and founder of The Prajnya Trust.