The new social movements: a comparison with its old counterparts

The new social movements got much attention in the academic circles from the 1960’s onwards. The proliferation of black civil rights movements in the west, student movements and women’s movements etc in 1960’s prompted the academic community to dwell upon various aspects of new social movements. Studies about these emerging collective mobilizations in different parts of the world on different issues reveal us about different unique features of the new social movements. Large chunk of these studies also dealt with the nature and characteristics of these movements with special reference on how they are different from old social movements.

Although we can find many studies on new social movements exposing their various features, none of them give us an abstract definition of what constitute to be new social movements. However, it is generally accepted among the scholars that, the new social movements emerged out of the credibility crisis of the traditional channels for political participations. Let us put this in another way. After the Second World War in general and in last five decades in particular, the global political sphere got enormous changes. Many new independent state are emerged as a result of the end of the British colonial regimes in different parts of the world. One of the prominent nature of these emerging state as well as the existing state are that, they tend to be more technocratic in their approach. The people state gap in policy making were noticed everywhere. . State started to become more and more to serve the interests of the dominant groups in the society. On the other hand, through various organizations meant for students, women, peasant and trade unions, the political parties were able to subsume the demands of various social sections to the rubric of their organizational interests. This further lead to a big crisis where, the free expression of opinion were curtailed. The student organizations, women’s organizations, peasant organizations and trade unions under various political parties are fed up with various organizational hurdles and have to consult their mother political organization for expressing any opinion and have to protect the interests of the party while organizing a movement. . It is in this context, the new social movements emerged as a way to regain a space for the contesting voices of the people regarding different issues. The new social movements therefore, tend to open spaces of state critiques through mobilizing the civil society. They therefore, did not identify themselves with any political or ideological orientations. The participants of these movements are from diffused social groups cutting across women, students, peasants, workers etc.

For a better understanding about new social movements, it is important to have a general idea about their old counterparts. This would help us to understand the ways in which the new social movements are differ from the old one. It is found that, existing social movements before 1960’s were largely oriented towards materialistic galls. further, the participants in these movements constitute particular

social groups like peasants, students, women etc. in other words, studies about the old social movements did not see the diffusion of various social groups as participators of one social movements. Different social groups organized different movements by placing their own unique demands. They are also found to be oriented towards a particular ideology. The peasant movements in this connection, largely used the Marxist framework of class and class struggle. They consider themselves as the ploriteriate class, who denied access to the resources and rights enjoyed by the bourgeois in the society. Women movements on the other, use the notions of feminism to fight against the exploitation against them. For the women movements, the powerful presence of the patriarchal norms to control the women body and sexuality in the society lead to various exploitations against women. The women movements therefore primarily aim to eradicate the patriarchal norms and values in the society, which ultimately will lead to achieve equal social status for the women like men in the society. The tribal movements use the exploitative practices of the state and other dominant groups as their motive behind mobilizing people. The old social movements are further found to be organized under a strong leadership of one or more persons. Rust of the participants of the movements are supposed to follow his or her instructions and view regarding the nature and direction of the particular movements. The old social movements are therefore organized directly against the state some time even meant to capture the power to attain their gall. We can also see some old social movements gain the violent methods to achieve their galls.

Contrary to this, scholars identified various features of the new social movements in their studies. It is therefore suggested that, the new social movements are constituted non materialistic galls. They cut across the boundaries of class, nation, society and culture. They are essentially nonviolent, pragmatic, non-integrated, non-hierarchical, non coercive, cross- class and cross- ideological. According to Larana, Johnston and Guesfield (1994), there would not be any clear structural roll of the participants of these movements. Very often they have diffused social status as youth, students, women, minority and professionals. They further suggest that, it is very difficult to characterize new social movements as conservative or liberal, right or left, capitalist or socialist. They tend to exhibit plural ideas and values. They also found that, in the new social movements, mobilizations are linked with symbolic and cultural identities than the economic issues. Actions within these movements are a complex mix of collective and individual confirmation of identity. The relation between the individual and the collective are therefore blurb in these movements. The new social movements are found to be organized on various demands related to personal and intimate actions like eating, dressing, loving etc, which were not at all an objective of the old social movements. Nonviolence and civil disobedient are found to be the known patterns of new social movements.

According to Alan Scott, the new social movements are primarily more concerned with the mobilization of the civil society on socio-cultural issues. They therefore are not oriented towards any political motive like seizure of power. These movements are therefore basically located in the civil society spectrum and they have little concern to challenge the state directly. These movements try to

bring changes through changing values and developing alternative life style against the traditional and existing life values and norms. They tend to focus largely on local issues by constituting small groups.

The absents of a strong leadership, Vacillation between high and low periods of activities and the lack of permanent memberships are viewed as some of the short comings of the new social movements. Some scholars viewed that, the lack of an ideological orientation prevents the social movements from achieving its aims and objectives in most of the time. Amidst these criticisms, one has to remember that, the new social movements have been a corrective force against political parties, social norms, values and state policies in various parts of the world. They were also found to be providing spaces in the public to raise voices against various injustices against minorities, women, children, workers LGBT community and many other sections in the society.