Daily Dancers

"Do You Have the Blues?"

Civil Society: Covering West to East

In this essay, I will compare the themes covering the individual, state and the civil society in the genealogy of civil society in the article, ‘Civil Society and Development: Genealogies of the conceptual Encounter’ with the general situation at the grassroots level in Bangladesh (below the poverty-line), I will then portray some concepts of development and relate them with Bangladesh’s civil society (NGO) and finally show that the mainstream genealogy is more applicable for explaining Bangladesh better than the alternative genealogy because of our macro-economic policy structure.

            The main approach that the mainstream view in ‘Civil Society and Development: Genealogies of the Conceptual Encounter’ takes is that of market liberalism.  The first theme that the genealogy covers is the right to self determination of the individual.  It draws on from the classical western thought which argues that an individual is to come out of its traditional bonds like family ties and kinship in order to aspire for political liberty and equality.  The later Hobbessian view gives a different perspective of the individual.  It considers the individual to be completely individualistic and utilitarian.  He describes the earlier stages of society to be a place where there is a ‘war of all against all.’ This is considerably different from the earlier perspective which sees the early stage to be a place of harmony.  Both the societies move into a market oriented society where people are able to exercise their freedom.  The Hobbesian view sees the society to be formed through rationality in order to preserve ones own rights.  The main route to actualization in order to form a civil society is to come out of kinship bonds.  It is the civil society that holds the virtues of a state together.

            In the case of Bangladesh a very high number of people, mostly in the rural areas, are below the poverty line.  They form the grassroots people who are still bound by traditional norms and values. The social structure, including rights, is extremely bound by culture.  Even though the GDP has been rising over the past few years it undermines the poverty and inequality that lies within the country.  Sobhan in his collection of works argues that injustice has been institutionalized.  He provides two examples that are likely to push the two classes further apart even with a growing middle class.  He shows that education is correlated with development and our education system is being taken to two polar ends through privatization.  The public education system is well below standard, where there are few highly standard private schools for the elite few.  Alongside this example he also provides the privatization of the health sector to create a vicious cycle to keep the poor in poverty and allow the rich to benefit from much better services.  The people at the grassroots level barely receive any quality services from the government.  They are barely covered by the almost extinct and structurally lowest form of legal system, known as the Gram Sharkar.  Most of the rural Bangladesh is governed by a biased informal legal system, Shalish.  The structural and cultural constraints that have been portrayed so far show that the rural peoples have not been able to become self-determining individuals.  We will see that the formation of western state and society is quite different from the attributes of our nation-state in the next few arguments.

            According to the article, civility is extremely important for the proper functioning and formation of a society.  It is the security provided by civil rights that allow the individuals to be able to dwell into commerce freely.  The rights of each individual must not coincide with the others’ and the society must function in a proper manner.  In either weak-states or developing states like Bangladesh where the regulatory framework does not function properly civil societies are important to enforce proper rule of law.  Also according to the theory the civil societies need to have a political virtue.  In other words civil societies are portrayed to be normative in this article.  It is the inherent good that allows the civil society(/ies) to function properly for the benefit of the state.  It seems to be a space with high legitimacy and independent from unlawful political authority.  Finally, reason and law were formed with the emergence of the public sphere in Europe.  According to the mainstream approach it is the male bourgeoisie who came out in the public and challenged ruling itself.

            As it has been already mentioned there is a great disparity in economic, political and in terms of civil rights (culturally bound in this case) in Bangladesh.  Non-governmental organizations form most of the civil society in Bangladesh.  NGOs had mushroomed in Bangladesh during eighties under heavy donor funding.  The virtue that they are mostly practicing is based upon that of the donors.  At the same time, NGOs have very little political authority.   Also one particular requirement for individuals in the society is to be able to transcend the subjective self to the state according to Georg Hegel.  The members of any civil society need to be primarily depended on the values and laws of the state.  It is through sacrificing freedoms[i] that the citizens, who are also members of the civil society, can enjoy success in all spheres of the state.  I think that the genealogy does not take into consideration all the spheres of the state by ignoring inequality of class due to unjust institutions.  It only looks at the political society, the civil society and the market to be the only important spheres of the state.  Countries like Bangladesh have both political as well as market actors who act rationally in order to gain monetary resources/private property.  They form client-patron relationships and there are principal-agent problems, along with corruption, that leaves a large segment of the society segregated from enjoying whatever public services are available (Hassan).

            Tonnies and Durkheim do propose values that can be taken by civil societies to merge the minority with the rest of the population.  Tonnies suggests a bring-about of cooperative behavior among the citizens by the civil society.  These forms of behavior/procedure have been found to be unsuccessful empirically (Hassan, lecture).  Durkheim suggests that this inequality through division of labour can be mended through bringing about a form of solidarity that is called ‘organic solidarity.’  These normative bonds are the key to rectifying the inequality in societies with incomplete transition.

            The World Bank and the IMF had been major proponents of neo-liberalism and are in line with this mainstream genealogy of civil society in the role of development.  It was during the eighties that they had been great promoters of neo-liberalism and it is due to their influence that our five-year plans had been made extremely pro-market (Sobhan).  Nevertheless, the World Bank had realized that countries like Bangladesh needed second generation institutional reforms and empowerment of the poor.  They have also accredited social solidarity in the name of social capital that is required for any society, even market oriented ones, to develop.  It is due to limited authority/voice of NGOs in terms of core governance in Bangladesh that they cannot account for internal/horizontal accountability.  Hassan (in course material) have provided apt arguments about market and state actors being extremely close-knit and  powerful actors, who prevent any form of de facto institutional change that is going to hamper their economic gains.  It is mainly due to corruption that NGOs legitimacy gets undermined. 

It is mostly through human development approaches that NGOs can and do bring development to the society.  NGOs cover a vast range of area and people in Bangladesh.  They are mostly involved in service provisioning activities, the major ones being health and sanitation, education, micro-credit and it is only during the nineties that advocacy had been introduced.  Advocacy as a provision of service has boomed since.  It provides information about public services provided by the government and deals with issues considering local justice.  Nevertheless, they make sure that they do not antagonize the government through their development activities (WB Report).  However, there are exceptions to the case who take up issues with legal authorities like Nijera Kori and Nagorik Unnoyon.

So far we have seen that the formation of Northern and Southern societies do not necessarily match but the aim to development has been more or less the same.  Despite these differences among the societies the mainstream approach is more relevant in assessing the role of development by civil society organizations in Bangladesh than the alternative approach provided by the article, ‘Civil Society and Development: Genealogies of the Conceptual Encounter.’  The alternative approach claims the rise of the civil society is from the capitalist bourgeoisie and they mainly promote the capitalist mode of production. However, Antonio Gamsci has expanded on the idea of civil societies, which is to have evolved to bring about positive changes in governance and for the state.  They have extremely high legitimacy and act as strong agents who can override unjust political authority.  As it has been discussed so far, almost all NGOs work around the legal framework, at least in paper. Hardly any NGOs have more agency than the state.  It is only Nagorik Unnoyan who fights against unjust legal and cultural practices and proudly claims it (BIDS article).  This NGO is only one of the few that claims higher degree of agency than local governance and can be somewhat put under the alternative approach to the role of development of civil societies.

Despite the controversies of the practice of microfinance I believe that it does provide empowerment to the poor.  I base my argument on Amartya Sen’s idea of capabilities and income and capabilities.  Microfinance acts as a shock cushioning mechanism for the poor at dire times and thus it enhances capabilities, increasing empowerment.  At the same time income and capabilities are extremely closely related.  The lending from the bank (although not a pure civil society, it does have many characteristics of it) provides income to the poor to invest.  This provides them funds to pay for education.  The investment and the education both increase the capabilities of the poor.  Thus any form of income (resources) opens up the opportunity structure of the poor to enhance the capabilities, with NGOs providing as a coping strategy from unavoidable shocks.  There are definitely many negatives of NGOs in Bangladesh e.g. donor dependence and donor centric but NGOs are sometimes able to reach remote areas that the local government cannot.

---

[i] See Sen, Amartya

"If they answer not to thy call walk alone"

Said a man who believed in one-ness
Said a man of stature not because of his education
Said a man who never walked alone
Sad a man who lived alone
Alone walking with the world
Not on his side but by his side.

I ask you, can you ever walk alone?
I ask not because we are social
I ask not because it is not natural
I ask because of the one-ness,
Does ever creation allow you to walk alone?

Let's walk alone and side by side.

Cry

Are you tired? I am tired. The question is, ‘why?’ The answer should be that if you are somewhat intelligent and have some form of respect for existing in this world – you should be. I may not be able to rest my case well but I will rest a case. We live in a world of invisible borders and that limits us from the most precious thing in this world and that is experiencing life. A person needs and must be able to go anywhere without rules and see. When I say see I mean feel, I mean live. So this is unfortunate and we cannot get out of it but shouldn’t we at least have these states where there is some form equality. So Democracy is the path to equality. My question to you is how we define the term ‘Democracy.’ Should it be equality of opportunities? Then will not there be ever-existing inequality.

Everything must be put in context and to do so space and time is the most relevant aspects to me. When I say space and time, history comes to my mind. I am not a radical post-colonialist but even to the layman one should see that it has brought inequality. You can argue that we were gifted with civilization but at what cost. Have you taken a look at Africa? It is not that when the Europeans looted the continent they did not fight back. They did produce arms but could never keep up with the colonizers pace. They were firing rounds from distant tugboats when the Africans’ guns were jamming simply because of lack of knowledge. Inequality did not stem from asymmetry of knowledge; it simply existed because time and space is not constant. Time allowed individuals to learn over time and the location of each individual have never been same. Being a centimeter apart provided different people with different situations. Let us consider simple biology. Living at a higher altitude will provide greater stamina. So, even if we take time constant we get individuals that differ physically.

It is no secret that we are social animals, we can learn and think for ourselves… well in this current world, ‘think for ourselves only to a certain degree.’ So some became stronger and saw that forming groups with similar individuals provided better opportunities for survival. There is simply nothing wrong with that. It is nature that has made us unequal and we are just reaping the benefits. The problem lies when we do not look at others. I am at the nascent state of a society and looking at others is not very essential but think about when things got worse historically. We just could not give up power. The Egyptians, the Romans, even the first ‘pseudo-democratic’ Greek society had to run under a system that exerted power onto its subjects and not citizens. The least we could have done is apply our ‘perfectibility’ – acquire and transmit knowledge – and give precedence to the transmitting knowledge part.

All-in-all colonialism did create rules of society that highlighted the inequalities and left us space-bind so that we cannot at least redistribute the resources. In lands with enormous inequalities will providing equal opportunities lead to a better society?

Thoughtness

Hey you! Wake up,

How long will you wander,

Have you ever wondered where you are?

Are you a nomad or just going mad?

Hey you! Break up,

Crack open that little skull of yours

Look into it and see

The already broken pieces of thoughtlessness.

The "Poem-tree"

The compilation of moments

Brings goosebumps to my ears

Flourishes me, nourishes me,

Puts me in my wish

Whatever that may be.

The moments of the moment

Is the race

That decides the end of

The compilations of moments.

The smooth sense of the heartthrobs

After the penultimate moments

Are faced with joyous laughters

In the end of the means.

The Post Office

Rabindranath Tagore believes that the most important period in a person’s life is his childhood. It is during this period that the philosophy of a person’s life gets shaped and hence he had built a school primarily for children, Shantiniketan. In his play, ‘The Post Office,’ Tagore illustrates different forms of philosophies and lifestyles that a person may take; how a child’s beliefs can change and be shaped and depicts the concept of the freedom of the soul through his main character, Amal.

The play, The Post Office, is divided into two Acts. The First Act introduces the characters and shows the many changes in the mindset of an ill child, Amal. He is asked to stay home with all the windows and doors locked by a physician for the improvement of his health even though he seems quite healthy both physically and mentally. In the Second Act Amal’s health becomes worse, mostly physically, but his free spirit remains intact in spite of his ill health.

The first characters that are introduced are a physician and a man named Madhav. The conversation between the physician and Madhav is concerned with the health of the child. The physician is depicted to be a person whose beliefs are extremely rigid. This can be understood through his strict following of the Chakradhan scriptures and ignoring any comments made by Madhav for the concern of his adopted child. It is not only in the introduction of the play that this can be seen. The physician sticks to his beliefs and scriptures in the second Act as well. As stated before, Amal’s physical health becomes worse but, nevertheless, he feels well when the front doors are opened to let in some fresh air. As the physician enters, he refuses to see any form of improvement of the child’s wellbeing and asks to close the front door. He states that Amal’s health has become worse due to non-confinement, speaks out from the scriptures and orders Madhav to close the front door and open the back one.

Madhav on the other hand also has strict morals, beliefs and is quite practical and conservative; but sometimes emotion takes over his rigid mind. After the physician leaves, a friend of Madhav called Gaffer enters. Madhav’s practicality can be seen in the conversation between the two friends as he states that earning is his passion. The main purpose for working to Madhav is only to earn money. Although, his wife wanted to have a child he had refused many a times to have or adopt one. This is because he says to Gaffer that earning money is hard for him and having another person in the house will only waste his hard earned money. It is not only in the Act I that Madhav’s conservativeness can be viewed but it is emphasized in the second one as well. This is when Amal lay down on his bed conversing with Gaffer disguised as a Fakir. The village that they live in has a King who can be compared to the Big Brother or the Panopticon. This is because the King knows everything that goes around the town, including conversations. As Gaffer was making comments concerning the King and marriage of Amal to a village-girl, Madhav exits angrily. The fact that Madhav is an conservative and emotional character can be viewed throughout the whole play. This starts from Madhav’s concern of the child in the beginning where he primarily gives low importance to the traditional scriptures. He later accepts it, but for the wellbeing of the child and strongly enforces them on Amal. The most prominent sign of his emotionality is when he says that his passion had changed after Amal was brought into the house. He does not earn money anymore for the sake of doing so but it also brings pleasure to him that part of his earning is going to the child. He admits that the “boy clings to [his] heart in a queer sort of way,” depicting emotion taking over practicality.

The character, Gaffer, is introduced in the beginning of the First Act and his character his completely portrayed in the second. Gaffer is a character that is quite opposite to Madhav on the outside. When Gaffer makes his first entrance Madhav says, ‘Well, I’m jiggered, there’s Gaffer now.’ Nevertheless, Madhav allows Gaffer to attend to the child in the worst of times. This shows that Gaffer is a dear friend of Madhav’s but the statement mentioned depicts that Gaffer’s personality irritates him. Gaffer is a character that is well aware of the traditional mindset, especially Madhav’s. Nevertheless, he does not necessarily follow them. He is a free spirit like Amal but he is aware of the social constraints, which is very unlike Amal. He is a character who is extremely confident, fun loving and can be called spiritual to a certain extent. The Headman of the village is the most aggressive person and the characters in the play seem to be quite afraid of him. Gaffer’s confidence can be seen when he asks to the Headman to keep quiet when the headman enters. Gaffer’s fun-loving side can be seen when he dresses as a Fakir to entertain Amal. His faith in himself can be seen when he does not follow the scriptures of the local physician and asks to open the windows towards the end of the play and his spirituality can be seen when Madhav becomes worried as the scriptures are not flowed and Gaffer says, ‘Silence, Unbeliever!’

Throughout the first act Amal lounges by the window as characters are introduced. Although the village is hypothetical it resembles a Bengali one. It can be viewed through the characters and the way they behave. The first outsider Amal speaks to is the dairyman. The dairyman only works in order to feed himself and his family. He barely enjoys his job, as he cannot fathom a child like Amal from a well-to-do family to sell curds. Madhav and the dairyman highlight the importance of education in order to get a job. According to Tagore, education in Bengal was more about earning a job rather than learning. He himself was home-schooled and never admired the prevailing education system. He saw children’s education to be full of memorization as opposed to critical thinking. Amal is a child who is capable of critical thinking in spite of being extraordinarily free-spirited. This is evident as Amal is able make the dairyman enjoy his job. He becomes so glad that he gives Amal free curds.

Even though Amal is not very keen about learning, he yearns for a job. In fact he is willing to do any job that is going to provide him to see, roam and exercise his freedom completely. From selling curds he wants to become a watchman who sounds the gong in the village every hour. The villagers, including the headman, are all taken aback as they see Amal talking to strangers. This shows some similarity in beliefs in Western and Eastern conservative societies. Amal sees the bright side of things as others see the glass half empty. This is seen when Amal describes the dairyman’s village with women only wearing red saris and the dairyman points out that there are women who wears white saris as well. Red is the colour of marriage and festivity in the east when white resembles widowhood and morbidity. Also, no one enjoys what he or she does but everyone soothes down conversing with Amal. The same-shaped thinking of working for the sake of working and all-in-all social constraints can be seen in everyone. The watchman refuses to sound a gong when it is not the hour and a girl, Sudha, refuses to give Amal a flower, as it is not hers. Nevertheless, she promises Amal a flower for later payment and does so in the end – showing emotion over rationality of the oriental culture.

Tagore is brilliant to point out the difference that not all children’s souls are as freedom seeking as Amal’s. He does write a little gender script of Bengali-like village children. The example of Sudha wanting to play with dolls and a bunch of boys wanting to play at being plowmen shows the difference in tastes of boys and girls playing preference. Also, Sudha wishes to loaf like Amal and play at home when the boys are playing outside. Nevertheless, the boys do not mind playing at home as well, as shown when they see Amal’s toys. Amal’s difference in yearning or simply yearning for freedom is best understood with his interaction with the boys. This is when he is willing to exchange his toys to wear the boys’ shoes and go out and play.

The Post Office is a play that shows the poles and mixtures of morals and beliefs of people that overall portrays an Eastern setting. Rigidity in beliefs can be seen in almost all the characters, except for Gaffer and Amal. This shows how culture can construe one’s mind. The all-seeing king, who sets Amal free, ultimately depicts the culture. Even though the king is portrayed to be extremely authoritarian, he is in reality benevolent. The king and his physician comes to attend Amal and set his soul free as the ‘starlight stream[s] in.’