ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 outlined the broad history of Indian NGOs over the past 100 years and the factors that have brought them to where they are in India's national development. The particular focus has been on the past 50 years and the role NGOs have assumed in modern Indian society, especially the relationships they have developed with government, which served both as regulator and supporter. The focus will now shift to India in the early 2000s and how NGOs are situated in the broader development scene in India, and in particular, look at their modes of operation and the approaches they have adopted in order to be effective. The main development approach for NGOs working with local communities that has emerged over the past 30 years is through self-help groups (SHG). This approach originated in Karnataka in the mid-1970s, has since been widely adopted by NGOs across the country and is now strongly supported by government through its national five-year development plans (Fernandez 2001). The SHG movement distinguishes itself from other models of social organization for development programmes in that it, in theory at least, is less about the delivery of services and more about the empowerment of group members to be able to make and act on expanded choices, and so advance their interests.
