Community-based organizations and non-governmental organizations: is the difference semantic or substantive?

Introduction

In recent times, in the evolving field of non-state-development action, Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) have increasingly gained value. This article explores the basis for such value prominence and the critical dimensions this adds to democratizing development.

There is a point in contention that Indian society has always been very community/ locality-oriented. According to this view, the coming and going of rulers didn’t change its culture much, and this normative stranglehold kept large sections yoked to abject poverty.

NGOs and CBOs: continuums and complementarity

This article situates the NGO-CBO confusion, continuum, and complementarity narrative in the evolving state-society relationship. This has to be seen in the context of the realization that deprivation, material or otherwise, is deeply rooted in continuing structural issues of Indian society. These issues revolve around the axes of caste, class, gender, and ethnicity, and the fact that large populations continue to be deprived of basic human dignity.

NGOs and CBOs are organizational formations attending to social purposes through a range of actions. These span from advocacy and service delivery to capacity building, etc. Often, in terms of legal structure, both could use the same statutory incorporations. Both CBOs and NGOs have fluidity of purposes and often carry passionate meanings for users. Therefore, they often defy clear definitions. The appellations—CBO and NGO—are often used interchangeably, and sometimes with high ambivalence, particularly when used in the context of community development.

Multiple sources of action can support community development. Explicit CBOs, because of the statutory requirements, would be Trade Unions and Cooperatives. A community seeking to improve itself is not limited to what is directly within its reach. While it may be the primary participant, very often, larger citizen action outside of the community comes to support it through new knowledge, linkages, and investments.

‘Locus of control’ as the differentiator between CBOs and NGOs

For the purpose of this article, we will use the differentiator, ‘locus of control,’ to distinguish between CBOs and NGOs. A CBO is driven by community residents in all aspects of its existence. These include purpose, program, governance, and staff.

NGOs, in this context, would mean social purpose organizations where the non-residents in the community express their other-regarding concern, intent for the benefit of a community, or society at large.

Organized development, the state’s role, and philanthropic action, the way we understand it today, all of these, in a large way, are shaped by the evolving understanding of the welfare state. State-supported welfare, i.e., states caring for subjects/citizens, has existed since antiquity.

Welfare’s intertwining with the notion of the citizen is largely a post-World War II phenomenon. This process has co-evolved with emergent frameworks of state, with an agreement that state action can create positive-sum solutions and balance trade-offs between economic growth, military strength, social justice, and social cohesion.

In India, the post-independence state was born with the mandate of delivering social justice. It organized a development bureaucracy outside of revenue administration. The development administration created after Independence is still evolving, toggling across three strands.

The first of these involves localism, hardwired with corruption and embedded social and economic inequality. The second strand consists of backwardness and anti-modern mores and modes of socio-economic engagement. The third one is inspired by Gandhi’s vision of an evolving, people-driven process of development.

Non-state social action and NGOs

The role of non-state action, its legitimacy, and scope, including the role of philanthropy and corporate wealth (the Corporate Social Responsibility Act), is reflective of one part of the continued trust-mistrust dilemma the Indian state has of citizen action. The other part to be kept in mind is its failure in delivering basic human development and social services, particularly to the marginalized and neglected sections of Indian society.

NGOSs have made many innovations in the social sector and have shaped citizen-centric, public-policy initiatives. Therefore, no belaboring their significance and contribution is required.

However, despite 75 years of our exceptional success as a modern polity, we have failed in deepening the democratic ethos. We have also not been very effective in building civic spaces that foster the development of capabilities that enable flourishing and dignity for all.

All this demands a closer look at how the ‘external locus of control’ has intermediated state-society relationships and manifested in an emaciated sense of citizenship and elite capture of the civic space, with public discourse of, for, and by the powerful 10%.

NGOs—as with any public institution in India, including public service, judiciary, and the media—reflect the entrenched class-caste-gender-ethnicity demography. Enlightened worldview, talent, and other-regarding concern is a poor substitute for weak governance and poor state capacity.

An emaciated citizenry is easily gratified as beneficiaries. However, we need to build a society that gives everyone a fair chance of expressing their potential in a democratic, republican, welfare nation-state of India that is Bharat.

It is now an inflexion moment for NGOs. Shifting societal perceptions are also impacting NGO credibility and impact. These are also flattening aspirations, even in languishing regions, with increasing demand for tangible results and high fluidity in the balance of responsibility and power that the sarkar, bazaar, and samaj exercise. There are, thus, strong conceptual and practical arguments in giving heed to the Tocquevillian ideal of community associations in taking charge of development that matters to them.

CBOs and the promise of local democracy

CBOs are critical to empower communities to become the central vehicle of change in their localities around development processes that matter to them. NGO power needs to cede space to the community and the neighborhood. Citizen associations, howsoever messy they may be, have a direct impact in combating poverty, inequality, and other social issues and in forging a democratic compact between citizens and the state.

The state of our present polity does impact the development of local institutions. However, two tailwinds may encourage us as never before to look at CBOs afresh and to situate a new role for NGOs. The first of these, Reflection Opinion, is the evolving strength of panchayats. This is especially so given their constitutional empowerment, fiscal devolution, and expanding space in development planning and delivery of local government services. The second constitutes the vibrant women’s collectives across India’s villages.

These two together provide institutional viability and spine for the development of CBOs, with ‘locus of control’ with local communities. Together, these can help us in addressing developmental needs with democratic action. These can also help citizens shape their future with local initiatives, responsibility, accountability, and governance measures.