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• Civil society is the name given to the arena which lies beyond the private domain of the family, but outside the domain of both state and market.
• Civil society is a non-state and non-market part of the public domain in which individuals get together voluntarily to create institutions and organisations.
• It is a sphere of active citizenship: individuals take up social issues, try to influence the state or make demands on it, pursue their collective interests or seek support for a variety of causes.
• It consists of voluntary institutions formed by group of citizens. It includes political parties, media institutions, trade unions, NGOs, religious organisations and other kinds of collective entities.
• The main criteria for inclusion in civil society are that the organisation should not be state controlled, and it should not be purely profit making entity.
• Examples-Doordarshan is not a civil society entity though private television channels are. The Indian people had an encounter with authoritarian rule during ‘Emergency’ enforced between June 1975 and 1977. Forced sterilisation programmes; censorship on media and government officials; civil liberties revoked.
Civil Society Today
• Today the activists of civil society organizations have a wide range of issues including advocacy and lobbying activity with national and international agencies as well as active participation in various movements.
• The issues taken up range from tribal struggles for land rights; devolution of urban governance; campaigns against rape and violence against women, primary education reform, etc.
• Media, also, has started to play an important role in the civil society initiatives.
• Example-the Right to Information. Beginning with an agitation in rural Rajasthan for the release of information on government funds spent on village development, this effort grew into a nation-wide campaign. Despite opposition from the bureaucracy. Government was forced to respond to the campaign and pass a new law formally acknowledging citizens’ right to information.