The Emergence of Public Spirit and Civil Society Formation in Malabar: A Historical Perspective

In modern times, the development of society and the state have been understood more in terms of historical or evolutionary theory. The state is neither the handiwork of God nor the result of a superior physical force, nor the creation of a resolution or convention nor a mere expansion of family(Garner) It has now been generally believed that the state is the outcome of a slow and gradual evolution of society and civilization. The state is also perceived as a growth, an evolution, the result of a gradual process, running throughout all the known history of man and reaching into remote and unknown past (Leacock).Thus factors like kinship, religion, property, force and political consciousness played a crucial role in the origin and subsequent development of the state, and correspondingly they also impinge on the evolution of society. The interrelationship of these factors reinforces the Aristotelian dictum that man is a social and political animal. According to Gettell the state arose through a gradual voluntary process and developed over centuries to the stage of a highly complex political organization. An understanding of the above ‘crises’ would in turn equip one in analyzing the dynamics involved in the formative processes of civil society precisely because of the inherent reciprocity of the social and political phenomena. However, civil society is currently understood as the “aggregate of non-governmental organizations and institutions that manifest interest and the will of citizens”. It includes the family and the private sphere, referred to as the “third sector of society” as distinct from government and business. It is also taken up as the individuals and organizations in a society which are independent of the government. An attempt is made in this paper to analyze the role of the Servants of India Society and the Devadhar Malabar Reconstruction Trust movements in the development of civil society formation in Malabar, in the wake of the Malabar rebellion, from a theoretical and empirical perspective.