Need to redefine public, private space
Ashutosh Kumar

The Public The Private: Issues of Democratic Citizenship
edited by Gurpreet Mahajan in collaboration with Helmut Reifeld. Sage Publications, New Delhi. Pages 340. Rs 595.

THE concepts of public and private have received renewed attention in the form of ongoing debate on the notion of citizenship in the context of the changes brought about by globalisation over the past two decades. Thus, there has been an attempt to rearticulate the notion in the discourses on the public and the private interface, besides on human rights, multiculturalism and gender. The discourse revolves around critical questions like "Do the public and private constitute separate realms of activity; where does the public sphere, mainly associated with the state, end and where does the private one begin; and what is the relationship between these two spheres in a democracy?"

The book has emanated in the form of papers presented in a workshop on ‘The Public and Private: Democratic Citizenship in a Comparative Perspective’ organised by the German Konard Adenaeur Foundation in an attempt to look for a new and original approach for a comparative dialogue in the areas of values related to the public-private divide.

What is this new approach that is discernable in these scholarly essays that sift through the whole body of literature in political theory concerning the concepts of public and private? It is in the form of the central argument that runs through all these essays that there is a critical need to "move away from the fairly common tendency to view the public and private as discrete, if not separate, spheres often placed in an antagonistic relationship". The essays argue that in the present era of globalisation, the public and the private serve the same end and, therefore, need to be increasingly redefined as two mutually reinforcing "modes of enhancing democratic citizenship".

The idea of public and private can be traced back to the pre-modern civilizations i.e. the Greek city-states and the Roman Republic. However, it was radically different from the contemporary notions of it. Mahajan attributes it to the fact that the then "social and political systems were anchored in the idea of differential privileges". The contemporary notions of the public and the private are also at variance with those that were held at the advent of modernity in the form of early liberal philosophy in the sense that earlier the public and the private were considered "two competing zones, zealously guarding their respective territories". The rigid separation was justified on the ground that it would protect individual freedoms from state coercion.

The notion of the private in the modern democracies that developed in political philosophy in a coherent manner only since the 19th century in the form of liberal individualism has two founding principles. First, individuals are autonomous, self-governing persons, who are by nature equals. Thus, the private is theorised as a domain "anchored in the principle of rights rather than privileges". Second, the private is to be "prefigured by the public in democratic polities and the two operate in conjunction rather than irreconcilable opposition". The presence of public in the sphere of private is in the form of law providing a general framework of rights that are not to be violated.

The democratic struggles by marginal groups over the centuries have led to the concept of public signifying an inclusive and open domain. It follows that in the contemporary liberal democracies, "the operative principle of the private is individual freedom and the guiding norms of the public are equality, collective deliberation and accountability".

The edited volume is in three parts. The first part contains essays by Andre Beteille, Dipankar Gupta, Ute Fervert, T.N. Madan, Margrit Pernau and Gail Omvedt, which while providing a critique of the fashionable perspectives, that seek to conceptually distinguish between private and public, also try to articulate a theoretical framework that underlines the complementary relationship between the two. Increased intervention of the public in the private in the form of an overarching role of the state is the focal theme of the essays in the second part by Rajeev Dhavan, Neera Chandhoke, Patricia Uberoi, Clauspeter Hill, Aswani K. Ray and L.C. Jain. The arguments favour restraining the state in the form of a resurgent civil society to protect the private from the incursion of the logic of the public. The third part has essays by Arjun Sengupta, Kuldeep Mathur, Harsh Sethi and Sarah Joseph. The essays rethink the meaning of the public in the context of globalisation. In the process, issues like the notion of "good governance" and the proposed role of the state and the non-state actors and movements have been analysed.

That the debate has received a heightened interest in the present globalised and democratising world adds to the relevance of this work edited by one of the leading theorist of democracy in India.

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