It took the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organisation to demonstrate on the world stage the power of civil society (a grand term for a motley collection of non-governmental organisations).

Most of us are not great admirers of street tactics, and the agenda of some of the NGOs at Seattle were decidedly anti-trade, and designed to protect privilege in the rich societies against competition from the poor ones.

But it did demonstrate what could be achieved through a combustible combination of technology, individual motivation and the effective use of mass media.

Anyone who thought that governments and giant corporations could shape and control the world, had to do a re-think.

And since then, even the meeting of the rich and the powerful in the rarefied atmosphere of Davos has involved growing representation from civil society. Those who were banging away at the door, have been allowed in.

The power to make itself felt and heard in the decision-making circles was demonstrated to great effect early this month by the expose on bottled water.

Companies with the biggest ad budgets in the country, busy communicating ceaselessly with their consumers, suddenly had nothing to say -- and they will probably take a knock the next time someone does a survey on leading brands or admired companies.

The government moved with remarkable speed to undo the damage by ordering an inquiry and seeking to set proper standards for the industry.

And for a brief while it looked as though civil society had won a knock-out in the first round. But then the experts (and presumably the lobbyists) have had time to re-group, and attempts have started to dilute the standards, and to let industry be.

So the battle isn't over, and we should expect a lot of sophistry in the coming weeks; civil society is going to be tested again.

But it is interesting that this time too, it was the potent combination of technology, a high degree of motivation and the use of the media that did the trick.

The fourth leg of that stool is the judicial process, as became evident in the many battles over getting cleaner air for Delhi. And don't be surprised if the water issue too lands up eventually in the courts.

Civil society in India has made its impact in many other areas, though not necessarily with agendas that one would endorse.

There is the movement for right to information in Rajasthan, the questioning of the costs and benefits of large dams (think of the fall-out of Medha Patkar: I doubt if another large dam will be started in any of our lifetimes), the critique of genetically modified foods, and so on.

The importance of civil society action can only grow because there is no shortage of issues, and because the press (which used to play a role in this space, however imperfectly) is vacating the space by busying itself increasingly with trivialities or paying sole homage to business objectives (like maximising advertising revenue).

What most of us are not aware of, and which Rajesh Tandon (who heads his own NGO) pointed out in an eye-opening article in this newspaper earlier this week, is that the NGO sector in India is reaching gargantuan proportions.

After a nationwide study, Rajesh concludes that there are nearly 1.2 million NGOs in India.

Most of these are little more than one-man shows.

Nevertheless, they now involve some 20 million people -- of them, six million in full-time paid employment.

They spend Rs 18,000 crore (Rs 180 billion) or more annually, with most of the money coming from either private sources or being self-generated. These numbers are so big that they reach a scale normally associated only with governments.

In short, while civil society hits the headlines only occasionally, the fact is that over a million NGOs are grappling with grassroot issues daily.

If they have not had greater impact than seems to be the case, the explanation may lie in the fact that they do not always bring together all four legs of the stool: technology, commitment, the media and the judiciary.