Civil society, local government and rural health in an eastern Indian state

This paper explores how civil society mobilization makes a difference in local government performance in delivering rural healthcare. The study was carried out during 2019-2020 in tribal-dominated Nilgiri and Daringbadi blocks of Odisha state in eastern India. Civil society activism is found to interject more programmatic priorities into local governance of health in Nilgiri than in Daringbadi. Success in Nilgiri is linked to its history of subaltern mobilization, the organizational efforts of a pro-poor political party and a comparatively mobilized civil society. Conversely, failure in Daringbadi is linked to a fractured community, little if any history of civil society mobilization and hegemony of the ruling party which uses local government to advance its own political agenda.