Every nation and society in the course of its history is confronted with the issuess that dominate the concerns and pare occupations of its people. India has been confronted by the problems of casteism, communalism, regionalism and ethnic conflicts, tribalism and linguism. But of late communalism along with globalization and violation of human rights have emerged as dangerous forces threatening the helath of India.
Globalization
‘Globalization’ has emerged as one of the most important and talked about phenomenon of the presentage with its social, economic and political dimensions. Sociology (1995) describes globalization as a “process in which social life within societies is increasingly affected by international influences based on everything from political and trade ties to shared music, clothing styles, and mass media”. Perhaps, the most powerful form of globalization is economic in which planning and control expand from a relatively narrow focus such as a single firm doing business on a regional or national basis to a broad global focus in which the entire world serves as a source of labour, raw materials, and markets. When business is conducted on a local level, for example, problems of dealing with workers, obtaining raw materials and other goods, transportation, and selling the final product all take place within the same social framework. In a globalized economy, however; Transnational Corporations operate in many different countries at once and exploit variations in local conditions for their own advantage. If workers in a more affluent industrial society such as Britain or the United States, for example, go on strike in order to improve pay or working conditions, a transnational corporation can simply shift work to another country where workers are more compliant and have lower expectations.
Analysing the necessity of international economic and socio-political management in the face of globalization, Samir Amir (1997), a renowned and strong voice on the issue of globalization and its implications for third, world countries, says that the globalization of the capitalist system is certainly nothing new, but it has undeniably taken a qualitative step forward during the most recent period. Moreover, this deepening economic interdependence between nations occurs at a time when there is a crisis of accumulation, and the post-war boom has given way to stagnation. The advance of globalization has not been confined to trade, it also affects productive systems, technology, financial markets, and many other aspects of social life. The new globalization erodes the efficiency of economic management by nation-states though it does not abolish their existence. Rise of ethnicity as a political response to economic globalization is yet another important dimension of globalization.
SamirAmin (ibid) says that the “present epoch is surely characterized by an awakening, or reawakening marked by collective social identifications which are starkly different from those defined by membership of a nation-state or a social class. Regionalism, linguistic and cultural assertion, tribal or ethnic loyalties, devotion to a religious group, attachment to a local community, are some of the multiple forms this reawakening has taken”. In Africa the dissolution of national unity sometimes seems to have given way to ethnicity as a basis for the legitimate renewal of competing forces. In India, in Afghanistan, in Eastern Europe, in the former Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia, even in Western Europe, in Spain, national unity has been put in question. When we take a close look at the thesis put forward by the advanced and dominant countries and the system in support of globalization we find that the management of the political and social systems by the single virtue of the market is a utopia. Concerned at the rise of ethnicity and religious fundamentalism in third world countries, Samir Amin (ibid) puts forward an alternative agenda of action the question of ethnicity should be replaced in the strategic framework By an action one can sum up thus: respect diversity, unite inspite of it. Respecting diversity means renouncing the empty discourse of power which pretends to act in the ‘national interest’ (which this power more often than not betrays) by pretending to interibtrize the ideology of the nation-state. The rise of Hindutva forces in India pretending to be ‘nationalist’, but in fact opposed to pluralism and consequently anti-minority in nature, the emergence of Muslim fundamentalism in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Some Arab nationstates exhibiting similar trends has been strengthened by the process of lobalization.
The passive acceptance of the inevitability of globalization in its present polarizing form, equation of development with the expansion of the market should be fought. Each society should be allowed to negotiate the terms of its interdependence with the rest of the global economy. National development can be pursued in a pluralistic world. The very goal of homogeneity may also be divisive especially in the case of the pluralistic third world countries.
Impact of Globalisation
When We look at the impact of globalization on various segments of Indian society in concrete terms, we are confronted by as scenario where it will, and it has had already an adverse impact on all the social groups which have been suffering silently different forms of oppression, exploitation deprivation and marginalization—Women, Dalits, Tribals, Minorities, etc.
Women in India have been badly affected by globalization-economically and socially. Because of scarcity of food and other necessities of life the poor in India, for sheer economic reasons, feed their girl children less than their boys, as boys are perceived as major bread earners. This also contributes to the widening gap in the sex ratio. With decreasing subsidy on food, the food security has been shrinking rapidly and the poor women have to spend more “women hours” on unproductive and meaningless labour. With growing retrenchment of their menfolk, women workers previously working as agricultural labour are mostly consigned to the organized sector in urban areas at starvation or less than starvation wages. Hiring women workers seems to be more convenient for the employer because women workers face more difficulties in getting organized than male workers get and hence more susceptible to exploitation.
While globalization is making people more materialistic and money minded the greed for dowry is also increasing rapidly and the poor parents of girls are being further pushed to difficult and humiliating conditions. With increasing globalization a frenzy has been created over the so-called “beauty contests. As Arvind (2002) rightly points out, “While the benefits of this frenzy are reaped by the corporations who advertise their products via these phenomena, the entire display has had its impact on the minds of urban women, particularly middle and lower middle class young women. The vast proliferation of “beauty parlours,” ‘facial’ creams and other cosmetics which promise to increase” “fairness” bear witness to the notions being inculcated. Equally, by the logic of the “market economy”, prostitution is a perfectly legitimate activity-one more industry of the “service sector”. In this age of globalization girls from even well to do families are going into prostitution and call girl profession either directly or through the so called beauty parlours, massage parlours and “make a friend” industry through telephonic communication.
Unfortunately the so called liberal westernized culture promoted by the media especially cable TV, has not helped the process of democratization of social relations and decrease in patriarchal value system. In fact feudal values and patriarchal system have increased under the impart of Hindutva. Thus, with globalization, women are being further marginalized, patriarchal values are sought to be strengthened, and ‘commodification’ of women is increasing leaps and bounds. “Genuine democratizatian of relations between men and women can only come through an uncompromising struggle against the existing feudal/patriarchal values and the imperialist culture, promoted by the ruling classes of India”. (Arvind, ibid).
Dalits in India belong to a large section of the society, which has been subjected to human indignities on account of caste differentiations perpetuated for centuries and millennia. They still bear the burden of acute poverty and worst types of social degradation. They, usually, fall at the bottom of almost any parameter relating to economic well being or quality of life. B.L. Mungekar in State Market and the Dalits: Analytics of the New Economic Policy in a lucid analysis of dalit plight says that, “the effects of the birth based occupational distribution on different castes were entirely opposite in nature. It proved to be a divine privilege to the upper castes enjoying the virtual monopoly of education, industry, trade, commerce and so on; on the other hand, it spelt disaster for the lower castes. This is because the latter were assigned the tasks involving only manual labour. They were thus prevented from earning/accumulating wealth, which restricted their needs to bare existence. What proved to be further deplorable, menial labour was stigmatized. Thus, the absence of freedom of occupation, low earnings (mainly in kind), implicit restrictions of needs, and stigma on menial labour destroyed economy of the lower castes. They came to be wholly dependent on the upper castes for their economic existence. As a result, the dalits remained socially outcaste, economically dependent, politically powerless and culturally backward.”
The main elements of current economic reforms as a part of globalization are (i) liberalization of external trade, (ii) liberalization and ‘opening’ up of domestic financial markets, (iii) direct foreign investments, (iv) cuts in subsidies, and (v) gradual privatization. While the richer sections tend to gain, the poor ones have to suffer during the “structural adjustment programmes’. The lower allocations to social sectors are likely to adversely affect the poor and the dalits, being the over
whelming majority of the poor, are the worst sufferers. It is the poor who depend largely on public services and any reduction in budget allocations contributes to the reduction and availability of social services and their consequent higher costs.
In socio-economic terms the small gains made by the dalits through reservations are being reversed. More than 75 percent of the dalit workers are still connected with land; only 25 percent of which are marginal and small farmers while the rest earn their livelihood as landless labourers. In the urban areas, they mostly work in the unorganized sector. Under the impact of the new economic policy, land reforms, the key question for their development, are being pushed out of the agenda and are being substituted with corporatisation of farming for the global agricultural market. The policy thrust of the World Bank-IMF-WTO combine has always been clearly for the abolition of the land ceiling laws and for liberalising investment into agriculture. “Thus inflation and the slow growth process are squeezing the poor while the expenditure on poverty alleviation programmes and social services are declining in real terms because of the fiscal crunch. Admittedly, the main burden of adjustment is likely to fall on the poor and the Dalits” (P.G. Jogdand, 2000).
In an empirical study of two villages in Andhra Pradesh J.M. Prasad of Sakshi and David Sudhakar of Sampark bring out adverse effects of globalization on the dalits. Globalization policies rest on three basic premises. One, the forces of competition would achieve optimum allocation of scarce economic resources and their efficient use. Second, opening up of the economy would give access to foreign capital and technology, which on the one hand, would strengthen the forces of competition and efficiency and, on the other, help promote exports. Third, the above two would help to achieve a higher rate of economic growth. Under these premises globalization policies in agrarian sector are formulated to ensure freer and more efficient markets and pricing for agricultural imports as well as produce. To achieve this, policies mainly focused the following: (i) to promote crops and cropping pattern for export, (ii) to stable policies for export of agro-based commodities, (iii) to ensure availability of inputs-seeds, pesticides and fertilizers, (iv) to ensure access to credit by group lending and community credit, and (iv) reduce subsidies and also to prevent farmers from stocking and waiting for better prices. In any markets in inter-linkage operations, dominant caste landowners play critical role and dalits do not have role in any market i.e. land, credit, labour and output markets in the villages. The implications of these changes in operation are as follows:
- Restricted access to land either for buying if they are able to, or for lease.
- Dalits who were attached to landowners were able to get small pieces of land on lease that also interlinked with their labour and produce. That means person who with their labour and produce. That means person who takes land on lease has to render either free labour or far below market wage and also has to bind and sell their crop to the landowner.
- No choice of crop for cultivation and selling of their product.
- No space to bargain for better wages.
- More dependency on landowners for credit, that also by interlinking with their labour services and product with varying interest rates.
In the education sector, the new Policy Framework for Reforms in Education drafted by the committee headed by Mukesh Ambani and Kumarmangalam Birla seeks to drive privatization and introduce commercialization of higher education on the pattern of USA. The pay seats in the educational institutions are fortifying the class basis of education. The poorer sections of the society, especially the dalits and the tribals along with the minorities, are going to be the biggest losers. The quality education, especially higher education, is increasingly becoming unaffordable for these sections of the society. The advent of globalization is also bringing about a new value system and encroaching upon the cultural values of these sections.
Tribal population of the country shares a number of features of the impact of globalization with the dalits. This is mainly because of the reason that both these segments have been and still are the deprived and marginalised populations. As with dalits, the systematic cuts in welfare expenditure, the privatization of public sector, drop in investment in agriculture, dismantling of the public distribution system, etc have also hit the tribals very hard. In the name of ‘development’, tribal people are being driven off their lands, their forests are being submerged, their sources of income are being sapped, and they are thus being virtually pushed to death.
The entry of Multi National Companies into industrial mining and commercialization of forest products are likely to increase inequalities of income and consumption between regions and peoples. The new agricultural policy enunciated by the government is capital intensive; improved seeds, pesticides and fertilizers are costly and subsidies are being with drawn. There is also encouragement for mechanized farming. This is harmful to the tribal interests. Globalization policies threaten to disturb the bio-diversity of forest areas preserved for millennia by the tribal communities. The MNCs are going to steal the gene resources of plants, herbs and trees or seeds. They will claim intellectual property rights on those items, which are under the nature and control of the tribal people.
Globalization is also promoting over-consumption of industrial and consumer goods, thus changing the life style of the tribal and other deprived people to their disadvantage. Disruption of traditional crafts and small-scale industries is predictable as capital efficiency factor is throwing out small-scale units. There will be more unemployment as traditional labour intensive small-scale industries will be displaced by new technologies.
The impact of globalization on the Scheduled Areas should be a major area of concern for the tribal population. In order to adapt to the globalization processes the policy makers are preparing to make a complete reversal of the Indian Constitution wherever peoples’ rights and control of resources are concerned. In a globalised situation, it is the market and not the community, which is the chief player. All laws and policies relating to the Scheduled Areas—the land transfer regulations, the forest act, the environmental protection act, the land acquisition act are all under immediate threat of repeal, dilution or amendment. These laws were meant for the protection of people and resources while the new policies call for exploitation of resources at the cost of people. Now all these ‘bottlenecks’ are being removed to promote globalization. The tribal population has always been known for their strong community life and collective spirit and they used it as a part of their ‘survival strategy’. This is rapidly being eroded through the promotion of private rights at the cost of ‘community rights’. Thus the tribal people are going to be the worst sufferers and the most coveted sacrificial goat for globalization.
Minorities, especially the Muslim minority, constitute one of the poorest and most backward and deprived segments of Indian population coming after scheduled castes and tribes. Thus, the economic impact of globalization policies is being felt by their poorer and deprived sections in the same way as that of the dalits and tribals. Moreover, they have also become victims of communalism and communal violence. As Arvind (ibid) rightly points out, “though the Indian State always had an upper we find, it becoming an important aspect of state policy from the mid-1980s, and particularly in the 1990s i.e. particularly in the period of globalization. This is not a mere coincidence.” The most aggressive protogonists of Hindutva clearly demonstrate fascist tendencies and it has been the standard formula of fascists from the times of Hitler to use racism, communalism and anti-minority bashing to divert the attention of the majority community/population from their day to day problems and hardships.
During the last decade or so attacks on minorities especially Muslims and Christians have grown many times culminating in the state sponsored violence against a minority, community in Gujarat. In the wake of these developments the minorities too are left with no other option but to join hands with other deprived and marginalized sections of the society to wage struggle against neo-imperialism coming in the garb of globalization.