Politics of Articulation, Mediating Structures and Voluntarism: From "Chauraha" to "Chaupal"

There is a considerable concern in India about the ‘silence’ of a large number of disadvantaged groups who have either learned to be helpless or articulate their problems rather feebly. The nature of articulation, mediating structures or platforms for dialogue or negotiation be it political channels or voluntary arenas have to analysed as a basis of alienation of masses from the state. Emergence of the social movements encompassing ecological struggles particularly in backward regions indicates the limits of the patience of the poor disadvantaged people. One can hypothesize that NGOs emerged or became stronger when the political channels got partly choked so that people could neither remodel the nature of their representation nor communicate with/through state bureaucracy. The transition in mediating structures has been studies through five metaphors i.e. from counter to corridor; corridor to courts; courts to ‘Chaurahas’ (cross roads); ‘Chaurahas’ to Char diwaris’ (four walls) and finally from ‘Char diwaris to ‘Chaupal’ as a future solution. The voluntary initiatives in this context could also reflect a way of reducing transaction costs, fulfilling ones urge to go beyond the mandated responsibilities or just to provide a channel of articulation to those who find the existing channels and platforms non accessible or non fulfilling. We have presented discussion on articulation, mediating platforms and voluntarism through following four questions in different parts of this paper. 1) What are the major transitions in the process of articulation? Does the design of platform for negotiation influence the nature of discourse? What are the trends in articulation at central, state, district and local level with particular reference to the problems deprived groups in backward drought prone regions?; 2) what are the mediating structures or set of strategies providing a basis of dialogue or conflict resolution between state and the people particularly around environmental issues? To what extent voluntary initiatives and bureaucratic channels of communication?; 3) what are some of key trends in rural development voluntarism? How does one contrast the spirit of voluntarism with the nature of voluntary organization?; 4) what are the implications of increasing international attempt to bypass state structures for routing aid through NGOs instead of existing public or private channels? The future scenarios are discussed in the last part.