Civil Society and the Predicament of Multiple Publics.

The article examines the characteristics of civil society in countries that were once colonized with an emphasis on civil society in India. There is a creation of a fractured, stratified public culture in India due to the peculiar circumstances of colonial rule. In the stratified public culture in the country, there is a coexistence of a normative bourgeois public sphere with multiple subaltern counterpublics. The long history of organizational activism in the country has ensured that in the postcolonial period there is a critical role of NGOs, community groups and social movements in shaping the political society.