UPA Regime and Civil Society

Collective actions in the form of campaigns, protests, agitations, social movements, etc, pressurising, negotiating as well as confronting the state in different ways are an integral part of a democratic political system. Their forms, issues, scale as well as the composition of participants, in terms of interests and political predisposition, differ. The response of the state to such actions varies, depending upon the ruling party, its strength and ideological orientation. The book under review is an important documentation about the interface between civil society and the government during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) (I and II) rule for 10 years.

The book focuses on three agitations asserting for certain legislations for protecting the interests of the have-nots, for administrative changes to ensure “good” governance and also for ensuring “adequate” representations to certain sections of the society in lawmaking institutions. The author rightly prefers to call these collective actions as campaigns or agitations rather than social movements in which “networking and engagements with the state and other stakeholders” remain central rather than sustained mass mobilisation (p 159).