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Civil Society and Social Movements:
Essays in Political Sociology
The book, divided into three parts and each containing four chapters, compiles his views presented at various seminars and conferences and later published between 1992-2001. Part I, titled Nation, Religion and Language questions the very conceptualisation of India as "nation". Prof Oommen finds the argument of conflating the notion of state and nation in context of India as committing "conceptual hara-kiri". Instead, he submits: "South Asian states, India and Pakistan (and Sri Lanka) are "collectives of nations" coexisting within federal states. For Oommen, "language" and "territory" are two indispensable features of a nation; hence, India, with her multiplicity of linguistic communities with substantial territorial base, is essentially a "multi-nation entity". The fact that the state reorganisation of independent India was executed on linguistic lines gives credence to this postulation, Prof Oommen argues. For many, however, it might be a frightening proposition to think on this line, let alone argue for it. Nevertheless, this is what makes Oommen's arguments and accompanying theoretical exercise worthy of further probe, as for the author, celebrating the autonomy and specificities of India's multiple linguistic communities and their existence will actually strengthen the "singularity of India". Oommen argues for decentralisation of power and feels granting individual equality and group identity will have to coexist. It is in this context that one should recognise the salience of collective rights within South Asian states as an antidote to collective alienation and to delegitimise secessionist movements. Completely dismissing in the same vein the articulation of the idea of nation on religious grounds, Oommen finds this antithetical to the theory and practice of democracy and establishes its untenability citing the collapse of the Khalistan agenda under its own internal contradictions. Part II deliberates on relationship between civil society, state and market, emphasising atomisation of the three in India and how her trajectory differs from the West. Arguing that civil society is not necessarily positive always, Oommen identifies four critical prerequisites for equipping civil society to contribute positively to good governance: recruiting rural elite with legitimacy, proportionate representation of all segments of citizens from all walks of life, respect for the weak and the dominated, and transparent reward and punishment mechanism. Since the idea of good governance remains a mirage largely, owing to the preponderance of the brahmanic mindset of hegemony and segregation, Oommen advocates the relevance of dissemination of knowledge which will incorporate the voice of the marginal and the Dalits. Carrying forward his arguments that state and civil society are not necessarily always at loggerheads, the author studies social movement, an aspect of civil society, and its relationship with social policy, an instrument of the state. The author also presents a comparative analysis of social movements with special reference to France, India and Poland and in the process, recognises the "new wave of social movements" in the form of students, women and anti-nuclear movements transcending its traditional class-based articulations alone. The nature and type of movement, however, will depend upon context and type of modernity, as the author opines: "There is a dialectical linkage between the source of movements, the discontent it produces and the response it invites." Students of sociology and researchers will find that the book offers trademark intellectual and theoretical rigor with a rich haul of references and an exhaustive bibliography generally associated with Oommen's writings. |
Prof
T. K. Oommen has been writing and commenting consistently on these
highly vexatious themes namely nation, civil society and social
movements for the past over a decade as discontents of modernity and its
developmental (read hegemonic) agenda came under sharp criticism towards
the end of the last century.