Politics of Post-Civil Society: Contemporary History of Political Movements in India

About the Book

Civil Society has emerged as one of the most celebrated concept of the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries. It offers practices that are the means and certain normative ideals that are the ends to be achieved for the preservation of democracy and expansion of the process of democratization. When available practices fail, reasons have been sought in the ideals being too lofty, and when the ideals looked minimalist, the blame has been shifted to the nature of practices being free-floating and bereft of definitive borders.

This book is an attempt to map the discourse and politics of contemporary political movements in India that have been negotiating with the hegemonic effects born out of the insidious co-habitation of political principles and practices in the domain referred to as the civil society. In course of constructing the political landscape of these movements, the book foregrounds the various strategies through which they are pushing and nudging towards a new politics of post-civil society.

"Politics of Post-Civil Society is an attempt to trace a detailed history and contemporary dynamics of the five most significant political movements of our times: the civil/human rights movement, dalit and naxalite struggles, feminist politics and the nascent, emerging collectives against environmental degradation and pollution in the new industrial towns and how they have been negotiating with the hegemonic effects born out of the insidious co-habitation of political principles and practices in the domain referred to as the civil society."