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Civil Society in India and Pakistan

Session 1
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SESSION 1
The present state of civil society in Pakistan and India

with special emphasis on the impact of caste system and traditional values as well as social practices which impinge on respect for human dignity

S.V. Raju: "Under certain circumstances individual freedom must accept restrains..."

Dr. Manzoor Ahmad: "Why does the West have civil societies whereas we, in the East, have failed to develop them...?"

Dr. Sri Ram Khanna: "We will not allow our leaders to become despots..."

Mr. Abdullah J. Memon: "Why this resistance to the growth of pluralism?"

Dr. Hamza Alvi: "Our forefathers were not Hindu-haters..."

DISCUSSION

Mr. S. V. Raju (India)

S.V. Raju Editor, Freedom First focused on "An overview of the civil society in India: a personal interpretation." Refraining from quoting others he underlined the personal nature of his overview by stating that it has become a favourite pastime now "to quote ‘scripture’ (using the word in its secular and not religious sense) for supporting this and that view of ours without believing in that scripture ourselves, let alone practising the spirit of the scripture.

While describing himself as "a liberal with a capital L" Mr. Raju, however accepted that a liberal government must not mean a weak government, rather a government that could ensure the rule of law and create conditions where the individual citizen has the opportunities to develop and which could also attend to the basic needs pertaining to the infra-structure: primary health, energetic policies for population control and primary education. "But what we don’t desire is a meddlesome government that would keep interfering with what is the domain of the people: the domain of the civil society.

He also mentioned that different groups living in a heterogeneous society, each pursuing their own secular or religious goals, must remain prepared to make adjustments in their goals so as not to intrude upon the goals of the others – i.e. what may be described as "interdependence in freedom."

Mr. Raju’s personal overview of the Indian civil society presents the picture of an essentially open society with (1) great freedom of press ("We don’t have paparazis yet but we are not far away), (2) a system of franchise that yields generally free and fair elections (with, of course, some exceptions – particularly in what they call "bemaroo" states, i.e. Bihar, Madhiapradesh, Rajhasthan and Uttarpradesh), and (3) a reasonably good situation of law and order.

1. On the darker side, there are other factors that constitute threat to the civil society. These are described by him as the following. Lure for power. The leaders are prepared to any degree of humiliation as long as they can ensure that they would be included in the ministry. A case in point is the Chief Minister Lallu Prasad Yadav. When he was sent to jail by a court on the charges of frauds, he had the cheek to appoint his wife as a chief minister – to ensure that upon his return he gets back his position. In another state, a couple of totally dissimilar parties were seen entering into coalition to share government on a six monthly rotation – of course, when the time came for the other party to take over after six months, the coalition ran into troubles.
2. Large scale corruption, which has not only destroyed the credibility of the politician but of the polity itself. Candidates spend huge sums provided by businessmen who treat these sums as investments which must provide returns. "In recent years, criminals have not found it necessary to have front-men as their candidates and have offered themselves as candidates and have got elected." The press is full, not just of stories like two gangsters forming political parties in Bombay, but also of the data on criminals in all parties who have been convicted or charged but have still managed it to the assemblies.

Delayed justice and its denial to some in the jail without trial. Since the independence, the legal system has become a web of laws and by-laws so that a common citizen who goes to the court in search of justice soon finds himself in an enmesh of legal entangles that may go on for years. On the other hand there is a general disregard for the human being and his rights in a civil society "which not only results in jail without trial but also numerous custodial deaths that are often hushed up – rarely are officers tried, found guilty and punished for such deaths."

Communal disturbance is an issue which, according to Mr. Raju, is generally related to the first problem. "The Babri Masjid episode in my view was a calculated attempt to secure Hindu support [adopted] as a short-cut by a political party." On the other hand, as can be seen in the famous Shah Bano Case of the late eighties, "the desire to secure the Muslim vote led the ruling party – under pressure from the fundamentalist Muslims – to pass amendment in the parliament to undo a Supreme Court decision granting alimony to divorced Muslim women."

"In spite of the failing of the state, or perhaps because of the failings of the state, civil society is driving towards an increasingly participatory democracy."

As governments fail to fulfil their roles in solving these problems, voluntary organisations or NGOs are emerging in thousands "either to take on the work that the governments failed to do, or compel governments to do the work they were elected to do." The spectrum covered by these NGOs is wide: non-formal education, social problems (such as conflicts caused by the wide-spread violence), drug abuse, alcoholism, breakdown of families, health, women’s empowerment, drinking water, income-generation, re-tooling (which is becoming a very important thing in the post-liberation period), philanthropy, consumer education, consumer protection, cancer research, AIDS prevention, combating superstition, and so on… There is hardly any field of activity where you will not find one or the other voluntary organisation, and, generally, people are responding and stepping in.

A very distinct feature of the Indian civil society is the emerging role of women in solving their own and the others’ problems – many village panchayats are being run by women, and they appear to be doing a much better job than men. "It is not a meherbani that we, the men are giving them. They are now demanding it and getting it." Indeed, they are far from being proxies. Rabri Devi Yadav, the wife of Lallu Prasad Yadav, is one proof that the ingenuity required by a housewife to run a home is … being put to a very good use to run a state administration."

In case of the Dallits, Dr. Raju is of the opinion that the reservations provided by the constitution-makers for a fixed period were a good strategy for uplifting the depressed classes. Even though such reservations have now become vote-getting machines they have also helped a long-forgotten class to rise up from the dust. The President of India belongs to the depressed class, and he is also a highly qualified and competent person. Incidentally, Lallu Yadav Prasad also belongs to the same class but Dr. Raju pointed out that the charges of fraud against him should not be relevant to any discussion on the participation of the depressed classes because Brahmins like Rajiv Gandhi have also been accused of similar charges.

Trade unions – even if one may accuse them of becoming a headache for the industries – have succeeded up to a great extent in securing the rights of the labour and some of them have come up with extremely organised research on relevant issues.

The future, therefore, is hopeful. The civil society is on the rise to maintain and increase liberalism the likely outlook of the nation, even if the governments fail to do so. And the civil society itself is now being joined by those classes that have remained peripheral in the history of India: the women, the depressed classes, and the labour.