Where do civil society, government, and business draw their power from, and do we need to redefine our understanding of 'politics' and 'democracy'?
We often equate the words ‘civil society’ with NGOs (an abbreviation for ‘non-governmental organisations’). But businesses, for example, are non-governmental organisations as well; we don’t, however, consider them as a part of civil society, and rightly so.
Therefore, rather than delineating civil society from business and government through nomenclature, we must use the purpose of their activities to distinguish them from one another, and more importantly, the source of their power.
Deriving power: Government, business, and civil society
I see three forms of power: position, people, and money. The government gets power from its position. It either grabs this position in non-democratic nations, or is given this position through elections. The world of business gets its power from money. The third kind of power is people’s power, which we might equate with civil society.
In some way, the government also derives power from the people. People elect governments, and it is continuous participation in the shaping of decisions that creates a good democracy—a government of the people, for the people, and by the people. However, once governments come into power, they often disconnect from the very people who elected them. As a result, people are unable to participate in determining what is done with that power. This is a major reason for the declining trust in politicians and democracy, and the faith people are now reposing in authoritarian leaders, in many countries around the world.
Business also acquires power from the people, in some sense, by taking their money (once again excluding people from decision making thereafter). They may then choose to do ‘good things’—such as CSR—with the money; but without consulting the people. The situation is similar to the ongoing debate in the philanthropic world: why should philanthropists decide what people want?
Real people’s power comes from the respect they are given and their dignity. It comes with a sense of agency and from participation in decisions—when people remain engaged, and actually exercise their power, rather than giving it away to governments through elections or to businesses through market forces. This is where civil society enters, and it isn’t restricted to just nonprofits, which is all that we traditionally think of.
The relation between civil society and politics
For many, politics is automatically equated with electoral politics. But that isn’t the only form of politics. Democracy isn’t only about elections, and politics isn’t only about political parties.
Civil society and politics both comprise a range of things, including people’s power. Which brings me to the larger point: if we are unhappy with India’s situation today, about things that are going awry, what should civil society’s response be?
To understand that, we need to understand the dynamics between civil society, government, and business. The work that civil society does is typically seen through the ‘development’ lens or the ‘advocacy’ lens, even though it’s not a binary as most people assume.
“The most basic form of dignity is being able to look after your own needs, and being independent from anyone who gives you things you need but takes away your agency.”
The biggest dilemma we face is that when we stand up for advocacy, we might be prevented from doing development work. But shouldn’t development organisations also work on advocacy? The challenge is that even the larger organisations, with plenty of money and visibility, need to be on the right side of the powers that be—government and business—in order to do their work. The government allows you the freedom to operate, and business gives you the money to do so.
I keep thinking of a conference in 1948, in Gandhiji’s Sevagram Ashram. Having secured the country its freedom, he called for a meeting, where he asked the Congress Party—which had formed independent India’s first government—to take a step back and review the role it needed to play going forward. Every person, every leader, every institution, in order to be effective, he said, must suit themselves to the context and the requirements of the hour. The Indian National Congress was an organisation that had fought for freedom through political and advocacy-based work. Now that the freedom struggle was over and the country was independent, he wanted the party to think about what kind of organisation it would be, going forward.