Pluralism, Civil Society and Subaltern Counterpublics

Pluralism Working Paper no. 9, By Khalid Anis Ansari

Tags: India

This new Pluralism Working Paper reflects on the concerns of pluralism in India, from the vantage point of the ‘new’ subaltern counterpublics. It presents a case for civil society organizations (CSOs) that might facilitate a reconsideration of their conceptual frames and strategies for intervention in the light of recent developments.

Khalid Anis Ansari states that the dominant imagination of civil society in India, when it comes to the question of plural and democratic social transformation, seems to be overwhelmingly informed by the hegemonic notions of abstract citizenship and linear development framed in a distinctive modernist logic.

Ansari: "Such a self-assured understanding has restricted the CSOs so far to undertake pedagogical interventions (educating the ‘traditional’ sections) or to lobby for changes in juridical structures. But the recalcitrance of most of the problems flagged to be addressed by civil society (communal violence, untouchability, dowry deaths, etc.), even after 60 years of existence of the post-colonial Indian state, have only indicated at the limits of civil society discourse and provided a ground for the reevaluation of the dominant CSO frameworks and strategies. One of the significant fallouts of such a discursive grip has been the non-responsive, or rather hesitant, attitude of most CSOs to engage with the ‘new’ sites of social transformation that are being inaugurated in the Indian social scene.

Quite clearly these new sites have thrown up innovative articulations of community/identity, informed by different spatial and temporal sensibilities, the neo-liberal modes of economic transformation, and often constituted by the contaminated negotiations between the dialectical processes of governmentality and subaltern maneuver. Also, it seems that these new identity formations have abstracted from the mainstream public sphere, which they often construe to be inhabited by elite voices, and have crafted what can be fairly categorized as subaltern counterpublics (to employ Nancy Fraser’s term). So it is in these counterpublics and networks where their discourses and rationalities circulate quite often invisible to the gaze of the modern mediatized spaces. In the emergent literature trying to explain these new mobilisations in India an analytical distinction between ‘civil society’ and ‘political society’ is made to highlight a possible tension between modernisation and democratisation. Civil society refers to self-organized associations and movement organizations that were set up in the heydays of colonial modernity and are usually governed by elite classes who would like to see India in the club of highly modernized nations. Political society, on the other hand, alludes to contingent and fluid political formations such as community pressure groups, or such other contestants for power, who are generally identified with their ability to represent and work for the realization of the popular demands of the subaltern groups in their struggle for survival. Thus the former can be seen as a site for modernization and the latter as the site for democratization.

Moreover, the question of ‘religious pluralism’ has staged itself with some force in the last few decades in India, especially due to the stark cases of inter-religious violence (communalism) witnessed in various jurisdictions. Among other factors, one of the causative factors in these persistent cases of violence has been the monolithization of religious identities. However, these monolithic religious identities have been interrogated by caste and gender movements of late from within leading to their relative ‘loosening’ and triggering off debates on internal social reform. In the case of Islam in India, despite the non-recognition of caste within Muslim public sphere, a number of lower caste Muslim organizations have sprung up recently that are challenging and subverting the Muslim monolith in interesting ways. These developments seem to be parochializing the discourse of religious communalism by interrogating vertical solidarities based on religious lines and articulating horizontal solidarities with similarly placed groups in other religious communities. But how far will they succeed in actually stemming inter-religious violence is yet to be seen. However, they definitely offer openings that need to be seized and worked on for the purposes of pluralism in India.

Hence, the ascendance of the lower caste movement within Indian Islam, called the ‘pasmanda movement’, has complicated the politics around Islam and Muslim (minority) identity, which has been seen as monolithic in public discourse. The Muslims who are part of the movement being mostly from artisan or working class background, have challenged the fascination of old Muslim elite with cultural and symbolic issues and have staged more organic and social issues relating to their everyday struggles for survival in their narratives, thus creating a ‘counterpublic’, a new discursive space. Hence, this study will represent and discuss the ‘Pasmanda Movement’. It is hoped that this exercise will provide insights into the dynamics of ever-changing nature of social protest around the issues of recognition and justice. This could potentially throw new light on the interplay of the categories of class and caste vis-à-vis religious identity in contemporary India in the struggles for democratization and development. By exploring the pasmanda discourse it will seek to demonstrate how it could potentially inform the debates on plural and democratic social transformation in India. It will also attempt to make a case that the CSOs need to be more aware of their own discursivity and should aspire to engage with the various articulations in the subaltern counterpublics in order to make their frames and strategies more sustainable, effective and inclusive."