ABSTRACT
The decades following the 1970s witnessed extraordinary political transformations around the world. This chapter examines the participation of the vernacular publics not in the sphere of electoral politics and political parties, but in civil society. It argues that the active participation of the vernacular publics in the civil society arena has transformed not only the nature of the state-society relationship, but also the nature of democracy and development in India. The chapter argues that the vernacular publics have utilised the civil society arena as a medium ‘to challenge the imposed hegemony’ of the elites, as well as to engage with state institutions to influence development policies. The modern idea of civil society emerged during the Scottish and Continental Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. In the postcolonial period, inspired by the Naxalbari uprising of 1967, a group of communist revolutionaries became determined to free the backward tribals from feudal exploitation.
