Role of Civil Society in Poverty Alleviation and Social Inclusion in India: Challenges and Expectations

Abstract

Without amelioration of the living conditions of marginalized section of a nation, the goals of development and the process of nation building cannot be achieved and completed successfully. These have been the indispensible conditions of progressive development of a nation state like India. In India as the former growth-oriented strategies of development have failed to make or bring significant improvement and amplification of socio-economic living conditions of poor people entirely, the fundamental role of the state has been reconsidered to mitigate the difficulties of poverty, socio-economic inequalities and unemployment. Following this, in the last part of twentieth century a new perspective of governance has come into existence. In this new perspective many national governments of developing countries like India have started to adopt such policies and strategies of development which are likely to alleviate the distress of poverty and make social inclusion of the marginalized sections. Curtailment of the role of Government and the extension of the role of civil society organizations and NGO's has been suggested in this new perspective to meet these ends. In India, it has become clear in recent years that the effectiveness of efforts to achieve human development goals depends largely on the quality of its governance and the extent to which its governments interact with civil society organizations to accomplish these goals. Moreover, the central government has started to allocate a plenteous part of national budget to local authorities, as the greater role of the civil society organizations can be achieved to solve the harsh realities. This paper intends to analyze the role and objectives of civil society organizations and those principles and processes through which the civil society organizations in decentralized governance have been working for eradication of poverty and social inclusion of poor people, especially the village dwellers. It also focuses on the reciprocal relationship between the state and civil society organizations in this area along with the various challenges and possible outcomes.