What are public interest groups? How do they look after the public interests? Explain.
Public interest groups promote collective rather than selective good. They aim to help groups other than their own members:
- A group fighting against bonded labour fights not for itself but for those who are suffering under such bondage. In some instances, the members of public interest group may undertake activity, that benefits them as well as others too.
- Some political parties grow out of movement. For example the roots of parties like the DMK and the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu can be traced to a long-drawn social reform movement during 1930s and 1940s.
- In most cases, the relationship between parties and movements is not so direct. They often take a position that are opposed to each other. Yet they are in dialogue and negotiation. Movement groups have raised new issues that have been taken up by political parties.