Political society, as formulated by Partha Chatterjee, has undoubtedly been a very influential concept which scholars across continents have found useful for framing issues of power and politics, in post-colonial contexts. My initial thoughts on reading the subtitle of Chatterjee's ‘Reflections on Popular Politics in Most of the World’ was to regard its claims to represent ‘most of the world’ as rather exaggerated. I must confess, however, that I have hence revised my opinion after having discovered that scholars in Africa and Latin America were finding it extremely instructive and were carrying out intense fieldwork based on the insights and formulations by Chatterjee. Given that the nature of debate in India too has been both engaging and critical of the idea of political society, I decided to put together a selection of articles by scholars who have been part of this debate. These articles, as the reader will realize, cover theoretical aspects, both implicit and explicit, and test the concept empirically with their bases in intensive fieldwork. The articles also cover a diverse range of regions, bringing into relief the diversity and complexity of the political processes in India. This complexity, I hope, will enable the readers to better comprehend the process of democratization in post-colonial contexts, in general, and in India, in particular.

This volume would not have been possible without the support of my colleagues, who willingly contributed to the volume.

The interrelation between the state, civil society and more recently, political society, notwithstanding the differences over what constitutes each of the domains, has singularly emerged as the most significant area of study in comprehending the process of democratization. Post the East European debacle, civil society has for long been projected and trusted as an all-encompassing panacea for most of the problems plaguing the developing societies. It is an imaginary political entity that is carved out to stand for various values that are actively pursued through varied institutions. Civil society has become a kind of ‘aspirational shorthand’ for the ideas/values of equity, deepening participation, public fairness, individual rights, tolerance, trust, legality, cooperation and informed citizenry (Elliot 2004). These ideals are fostered and protected by voluntary associational activity occurring independently or ‘outside’ of the state, including in wide-ranging associations or institutions such as clubs, religious bodies, sabhas and samajs, unions, professional associations, community action groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), media agencies, research institutes and youth organizations to name a few (ibid.). Civil society, therefore, seemed like a radical alternative in state-regulated societies. However, after the initial euphoria died out, scholars began to raise serious doubts about the scope and nature of the autonomy of civil society and its implications for the process of democratization. For instance, the emphasis on trust (one of the most significant markers of a civil society) in situations of marked inequality not only offers a false promise to the poor but also robs them of their right to struggle and protest (Edwards 2000).

There would be, perhaps, very little disagreement if one were to argue that over the last decade or so, civil society has emerged as a ‘hold-all’ concept that has been both an explanatory category as to how some societies are managing their democratic processes as well as a normative category that sets goals in terms of what societies should aspire to be in future in order to claim to be potentially or essentially democratic. However, there would be very substantive disagreement over how civil society as a conceptual tool has fared in terms of explaining ‘realconcrete’ political processes across societies, beginning from the continental to the Oriental parts of the world. Regardless of whether or not civil society had taken shape in Europe and was then ‘exported’ to other parts of the world, in the process, it signifies both the ‘imperialism of categories’ and also thereby seriously mars its potential in explaining the ‘specificities’ of the societies that are non-European. If civil society has shaped, and in turn taken shape through, the institutional and political processes integral to the way democracy works in a country like India, how should one approach this concept?