1. Civil Society Institutions are essential for ‘restoring sanity’ to state and market institutions, whenever either of them crosses a line. They influence political change and the enactment of pro-consumer or pro-user and pro-environment laws to control market players. CSIs are practice fields for democracy—they have been at the forefront of struggle in the freedom movement, as well as in constructive work and social reform. It is only because of CSIs that India has transformed itself from a feudal society.

2. CSIs are early warning mechanisms, which are able to detect and amplify perturbations on the ground, among the people, and alert society, the state, and the market to take corrective action. They thus play an important stabilising role in the polity and economy.

3. CSIs are the biodiversity reserves for preserving a vast variety of ideas and beliefs. They are incubators for innovative approaches to resolve problems which neither the state nor the market have been able to crack—such as guarding civil liberties, or the lack of basic services to the majority. They can promote innovation which decentralises power or reduces profits while increasing welfare. This will never be done by state or market institutions.

Read the full article about Civil Society Institutions by Vijay Mahajan at India Development Review.