An Anthology on Civil Society without Perspective

The anthology under review is about the so-called “civil society,” including social movements in three South Asian states having a common heritage till the end of the colonial rule in 1947. Of the 15 chapters, Chapter 1 is a general introductory one on the objectives of the volume. It gives a brief historical narrative of the concept and its “new threads in the role” of the politics in South Asia (p 7). Chapter 2 narrates the policy of the East India Company in creating a civil society in the subcontinent in the 19th century. Of the remaining chapters, the geographical coverage is uneven: seven papers are on Pakistan, six on India and only one on Bangladesh. These articles cover the time period from the colonial 19th century to COVID-19 of the present time.

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