A Study on the Emerging Challenges for Civil Society in India

The Indian third sector – as the non-profit sector is sometimes called, is one of the largest and certainly the most diverse in the world. There are civil society organizations in virtually every area of human endeavour, including community bee-keeping! As for size, a sample survey of the sector showed that there are about 1.2 million organizations in India, which engage more than 6 million people. And this number is growing steadily as new non-profits get registered every other day. Civil society remains the vehicle of choice for social change. And in fact, we can safely say that civil society organizations have been very effective on many fronts in India. Not only have they filled social services delivery gaps left by the government, they have succeeded in generating awareness, driving new legislation, uncovering scams and malafide intentions and in fact, done everything that the civil sector – as the conscience and the ombudsman of the nation’s agenda is supposed to do.