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The central proposition that I will put forward in this chapter is as follows. Although non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are regarded as the most visible spokespersons for ‘civil society ’ in recent development discourse, in fact they are fundamentally constitutive of the state. The term civil society has gained prominence within development discourse for it has come to signify domestic public space where powers ‘illegitimately ’ usurped by states can be reclaimed (Khilnani, 2001: 12; Jenkins, 2001). These ideas have been as influential in India as elsewhere, where since the 1980s, the proliferation of an ‘NGO universe ’ comprising very diverse and indeed dissimilar organisations has been euphorically noted and lauded (Sen 1999). Ample recognition has followed even within the official apparatus of the Indian state, which has duly initiated various programmes of state-led reform aiming to introduce decentralised and participatory forms of governing to ward off criticisms against centralised and top-down government. Eager to share in the salutary effects of ‘civil society’, the key component of such initiatives is often the involvement of NGOs of various hues in different capacities. The point simply is the use of the NGO as a metaphor for civil society by officials as much as non-officials. My purpose in this chapter is neither to present a tirade against the equation of NGOs with civil society nor to quarrel with the projection of civil society as a homogenous terrain without any internal hierarchies of power amongst its various constituents. A number of scholars have done this most satisfactorily (see Igoe 2003, Bebbington and Hickey 2006 and Hadiz 2004 for example). Moreover, the point has also been made that identifying NGOs as symbolic civil society actors that can achieve objectives like democratisation and greater state accountability follows a rather simplistic dichotomy between the state and civil society, one that is essentially unsuitable for understanding the profound interrelationships between the two in the postcolonial developing world (see Kaviraj and Khilnani 2001). So for instance