Globlisation

Whether globalisation is unique to present age, wasn’t the world always global?

David Gordon (1988) refers the recent globalisation not as an unprecedented world transformation but as a relatively minor phase in long term processes of capital accumulation. Almost all observers agree that global connections have been thickening for several decades, but the significance of that thickening remains contestable.

Definition- What is it?The most common conceptualisation of globalisation is as a one-dimensional process of economic integration/interdependence that has been occurring on a very rapid pace in the current times. In this sense, R.G. Harris defines it as an economic process, i.e. ‘The increasing internationalisation of the production, distribution and marketing of goods and services’.

The two-dimensionality of the process covers economic integration facilitated by the new technology. As an example, for Thomas Friedman globalisation is ‘that loose combination of free trade agreements, the Internet and the integration of financial markets that is erasing borders and uniting the world into a single, lucrative, but brutally competitive market place’ (ibid: 171).Another aspect of this overwhelming economic view is that globalisation is nothing but liberlisation. Liberlisation refers to a process of removing government imposed restrictions on movements between countries in order to create an open borderless world economy.

The evidence for such globalisation in recent decades can be found in the widespread reduction or even abolition of regulatory trade barriers, foreign exchange restrictions, capital controls etc. Taking it as a multidimensional process, Streeten states, ‘Globalisation is transforming trade, finance, employment, migration, technology, communications, the environment, social systems, ways of living, cultures, and patterns of governance’.Holm and Sorensen (1995, cited in ibid) view it as the intensification of economic, political, social and cultural relations across borders’. A World Bank publication defines globalisation as ‘the growing integration of economies and societies around the world’. This is ‘a complex process that affects many aspects of our lives’ (World Bank 2002: ix). A recent study by the United Nations (2002: 17), conducted by ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Carribbean) specifically highlights the multidimensional nature of globalisation. It is noted here that the economic dimension of globlisation ‘acts concomitantly with non-economic processes, which have their own momentum and therefore are not determined by economic factors’ (ibid). One of the non-economic dimensions include ethical and cultural aspects which ECLAC terms as the ‘globalisation of values’ and refers to the gradual spread of shared ethical principles as manifested in declarations on human rights which has two main concerns: a) civil and political rights, and b) economic, social and cultural rights. The ‘globalisation of values’ is increasingly manifested in the aspirations and formation of a ‘global civil society’ whose capacity for mobilisation and the exchange of information has multiplied by the new information and communications technologies.

Some scholars see globalisation as an essential post-industrial society, where communication technologies are the defining feature. Castells looks at the present global age as essentially a net-worked society. The Sociologist Manuel Castells has distinguished a network of society in which a new space of flows exists alongside the old space of places. What Castells intends to explain is that due to technologically mediated conditions there will be different types of interactions possible vis-a –vis

the existing interactions within the given society, such as through satellites, internet, telecommunication linkages and other digital technologies.

Many scholars look at globalisation as a process emanating from the West and therefore another form of westernisation. They equate globalisation with Westernisation or modernisation. This view propounds that globalisation is a dynamic process whereby the social structures of modernity are spread the world over, normally destroying pre-existent cultures and local self determination in the process( Spybey,1996;Taylor,2000). Globalisation in this sense is sometimes described as an imperialism of Mcdonald’s Hollywood, Cocacolanisation, MTV generation and CNN(Schiller, 1991). As Martin Khor(1995) aptly comments that globalisation is what we in the third world have for several centuries called colonisation (Khor,1995).

Another aspect, which has been looked at by scholars, identifies globalisation as deteritorialisation. Following this interpretation , globalisation entails a reconfiguration of geography so that social space is no longer wholly mapped in terms of territorial places, territorial distances and territorial borders.This usage provides new insights and relatively new conditions whereby globalisation can be referred as supraterritorial relations between people. Further, the proliferation and spread of supraterritorial – or what we can alternatively term transworld or transborder- connections brings an end to what could be called territorialism, that is a situation where social geography is entirely territorial. Current history has witnessed a proliferation of social connections that are at least partly- and often quite substantially- detached from a territorial logic of the kind just described. Such phenomena cannot be situated at a fixed territorial location. They operate largely without regard of territorial distance. They substantially bypass territorial borders. They also reside in the world as a single place- that is, in a trans-world space.

Conceptualising Globalisation: Three Tendencies

The three tendencies that have been captured and categories by David Harvey are as follows, we are adapting it from the way they are presented by Anthony Giddens

The sceptics: The sceptics, like Hirst and Thompson (1999), Boyer and Drache (1997), think that globalisation is not a new phenomenon; there have been economic interdependence earlier too. They point out to statistics of world trade in 19 th century and contend that the present global trade differs only in intensity and therefore it is not new. They say that the world economy is not sufficiently integrated to constitute truly global economy. If anything, they argue trade is between three regional groups of countries- Europe, Asia- Pacific, and North America. The countries of European union, for example trade predominantly among themselves. This invalidates the notion of global economy, they argue. Many sceptics focus on the process of regionalisation. They also reject the notion that national governments and states are weakening. According to sceptics national governments play a key role in their involvement in regulating and coordination economic activity.

The hyperglobalisers: The hyperglobaliser take an opposing view to that of the sceptics. They feel that globalisation is very real and its effects can be felt everywhere. They think that globalisation sweeps across unmindful of borders and territories. A leading thinker belonging to the hyperglobaliser’s camp, Kenchi Ohame believes that globalisation is leading us to a “borderless society”– a world in which market forces are more powerful than national governments. The hyperglobalisers focus their discussion on the decreasing influence of national governments, they are not only challenged by international market forces and big corporations but also by

regional and international regional institutions such as European Union, World Bank, WTO etc.

These shift according to Albrow (1996) where national governments decline in influence, signals the dawn of a “global age”. hyperglobalisers are also the advocates of globalisation with a neoliberal ideology with their prescription and focus on its homogenising nature. The sceptics are mainly the neo-Marxists and radicals who focus on the negative aspects of globalisation and also notice the hybridising cultural side of the process. Neo-Marxists! Marxists highlight the hegemonic character of globalisation.

The Transformationalist: The transformationalist take a middle position. They see globalisation touching a wide spectrum of changes that we are witnessing in modern societies. According to them while the global world is transforming many old patterns continue to exist. They see globalisation as an open and dynamic process which does no have any single source of origin or tendencies, in fact it breaks down established boundaries between internal and external, international and external .The changes many times are contradictory encompassing tendencies which operate in opposition to each other. Kellner seems to take a transformationalist view of globalisation. He does not stress on the aspect of integration. Rather, he focuses on the transformation currently occurring in different spheres of life and the emergence of webs and networks of global relations. He sees globalisation as having both negative and positive consequences, and also both homogenising and hybridising impact plus emergence of identity based defences.

Globlisation and The Ideological Positions

The process of globalisation has also generated various ideological positions. A range of ideologies, such as neo-Marxism-Leninism, post-modernism, critical theories of development, particularly those related to the impact of globlisation on ecology, human rights of the weaker sections such as women, minorities, working classes and other marginalized groups, have generated a strident debate on the social, cultural and economic consequences of globlisation. Martinelli places the growing literature on globalisation conceptually along three main axes which (ideologically/ politically) are put under two broad categories viz. advocates and opponents of globalisation. His categorisation is as under Hyperglobalisers vs. sceptics

Here, the key distinction between the two positions relates to the degree ofnovelty of globalisation and its impact on nation-states. Neoliberals vs. neo-Marxists and radicalsHere, the key points of differences are the balance between positive andnegative impacts of globalisation and its truly global or western hegemoniccharacter.Homogenization vs. heterogeneity/ hybridization. The focus here ison the cultural dimension of globalisation.Here, the first axis of categorisation is regarded as the main, and the other two as specifications.

Hyperglobalisers conceptualise globalisation mainly with a focus on the economicaspects. It is affirmed that people are getting increasingly integrated into theglobal marketplace. Economies are being increasingly denationalised due tothe formation of transnational networks of trade, finance and production.This is regarded as ‘a novel condition, hardly reversible’. This process limitsthe range of choices of nation-states and individuals, and compels them tofollow neoliberal economic policies to be able to compete in the world market.

Moreover, the global economy reshapes the existing division of labour betweenthe centre and periphery countries and between the ‘North’ and the ‘South’in the world. It is replacing the existing relations with ‘more complex patternsof hierarchy of inequality’, which has winners and losers both among andwithin countries, and with new tacit transnational class allegiances. It is heldthat the benefits of globalisation outweigh the costs. The neoliberals viewglobalisation as the triumph of economic liberalism, i.e., the application of economic rationalism to ‘nation societies’. It is affirmed that (i) markets provide the most dependable means of setting values on all goods, and (ii) economies and markets can deliver better results than states, governments and the law

Further, there is proclaimed, in a philosophical vein, the ‘end of history’ and the triumph of the Western economic and political liberalism to a completeexclusion of any alternative to it (Fukuyama 1992). It is affirmed that therewould be no more deep conflicts or ideological divisions in the world. The‘new world order’ interdependence based on economic liberty anddemocratisation created both wealth and solidarity. The spread of marketorientedpolicies, democratic polities, and individual rights promoted the wellbeingof all. It did not produce only greater economic efficiency and prosperity,but also extended the idea of liberty. Globalisation is good for the poor as,besides growth, it generally raised their income and reduced the inequalitybetween rich and poor countries (see Dollar and Kraay, in Lechner & Boli eds.2004). There is emphasised the potential benefits of global integration, thoughit also had unjust consequences that need to be addressed (see Sen, in ibid).Globalisation is presented as ‘a moral imperative with certain economic freedomsas basic to prosperity. Markets are seen as force that propel production,provide means of sustenance outside government and thereby also strengthendemocracy (Bhagwati 2004). For the third world, participation in the ILE(interlinked economy of USA, Europe, and Japan) is considered key to prosperity,where there were no absolute winners or losers (Ohmae 2002).But critics/sceptics view the neoliberal version of globalisation as a prescription/ideology, not a reality. Sceptics of globalisation include Neo-Marxists/Marxistsand radicals. They do not consider globalisation as either beneficial to all orbeing irreversible. They paint a gloomy picture of increasing inequalities anddominance by the stronger economic actors. There is expressed a fear of aworld ruled by profit seeking global corporations. Economic interdependenceis found to make countries more vulnerable to the destructive consequencesof market shifts. The social fabric/ties also get strained as the winners in theglobal game become detached from losers. The whole process is lopsided. It is repressive, exploitative, and harmful to most people in most countries.

Globalisation is considered a ‘false dawn’ (see Gray, in Lechner and Boli eds.2004). There is loss of sovereignty and autonomous power of nation-states.Market forces are getting more powerful than the states (Strange 1996). Themain concern of governments now is to compete for attracting investments.‘National governments are torn between the need to foster economiccompetitiveness and that of enhancing social cohesion’.

The opponents fault the hyperglobalist thesis of demise cf the nation-statefor not distinguishing among states with quite different power and influence.They do not consider globalisation a novel phenomenon. They regard it asanother wave of internationalisation, involving interactions amongpredominantly national economies. The patterns of inequality and hierarchyare continuing to prevail and the most ‘third world’ countries remainmarginalised. The governments continue to play a key role, particularly thepowerful western states, in determining economic relations. Moreover,transnational corporations are not truly global, because they have their own

home state and also regional base. Some sceptics interpret the current phaseof internationalisation as the byproduct of the US-initiated multilateral economicorder after the Second World War (Gilpin 2000). Callinicos et al (1994) call it anew phase of western imperialism with governments operating as agents ofmonopoly capital. It is believed that the current process of globalisation is‘incomplete and asymmetric’. Even Soros (2004), a stalwart in global finance,regards the current global capitalist system as ‘unsound and unsustainable’, infact, disintegrating due to the increasing distress at the periphery,

The ‘transformationalist’ view represents another perspective. It differs fromthe understanding of both the advocates and opponents of globalisation.globalisation refers to all those processes that involves incorporation of thepeoples of the world into a single society, a society in which ‘humanity’emerges for the first time as a ‘collective actor’. The latter aspect is connectedwith the concept of ‘globalisation’ defined as ‘those values that take the realworld of five billion people as the object of concern, the whole earth as thephysical environment, everyone living as world citizens, consumers, andproducers, with a common interest in collective action to solve global problems.

Further, for Martinelli (2003:96) globalisation implies deep transformation inthe spatial organisation because of relations becoming more stretched andmore intensively interconnected. There is occurring transcontinental andtransregional flows and networks of activities and exchanges. This generatespower relations which has major implications on decision making processes.‘New patterns of hierarchy and inequality of inclusion and exclusion are shaped,that cut across national borders’. Kellner also seems to take a transformationalistview of globalisation. He does not stress on the aspect of integration. Rather,he focuses on the transformation currently occurring in different spheres oflife and the emergence of webs and networks of global relations. He seesglobalisation as having both negative and positive consequences, and alsoboth homogenising and hybridising impact plus emergence of identity baseddefences.Transformationalists seem to take a middle position on globalisation. Theyview it as a multifaceted process with multiple causes like economic,technological, cultural, political.

This perspective does not stress on global integration. It focuses on theemergence of webs and networks of relations among individuals, groups,communities, states, international organisations and transnational actors.Globalisation is seen as leading to an ‘unbundling of relationships betweensovereignty, territoriality and state power’. It involves a basic restructuring ofthe nation-state. Moreover, ‘globlisation reinforces old patterns of inequalities,but also forms new social hierarchies which penetrate all regions of the world,thus recasting the traditional patterns of inclusion and exclusion. However,significant opportunities for empowerment of individuals, communities andsocial groups also exist’ (Martinelli 2003:98-99). It is accepted that globalcorporations have homogenising impact on lifestyles and consumption patterns.However, there is also observed increasing hybridisation of cultural traits andthe staunch defence of specific identities. Moreover, it is affirmed, ‘Globlisationbrings about a variety of adjustment strategies by national policies that requirea rather active state - not the neoliberal minimum government, but the

‘developmental’ or ‘catalytic’ state’ (Martinelli 2003). Nation-states are one ofthe major actors in the emerging ‘global governance as a polyarchic mixedactorsystem’. There is suggested the need for democratic global governancebased on the principles of universal rights and responsibilities.

Thus, it is observed that globalisation is a highly contentious concept. On onehand it is viewed as a real process of integration, interdependence acrosscountries and peoples in the world. On other hand, it is regarded as a normativeprescription, a myth. Similarly, there are widely diverging interpretations ofglobalisation. On one hand, there are strong advocates professing neoliberalideology pushing forward economic/financial integration through private sector/market-led development which, according to them, would be most efficientand dependable yielding more benefits than loss to all, in the long run. Onother hand, the bitter critics/sceptics holding neo-Marxist/Marxist ideologycall it a new phase of western imperialism/global capitalism which, in theirview, would adversely affect the weaker nation-states and peoples. There is also a middle position adopted by the transformationalists. Their focus is onthe emerging new level of social reality (global/single society) that is happeningdue to increasing transnational/regional flows of networks/exchanges andgrowing global values like human rights, world citizenship etc. But the processhas, in their opinion, both positive and negative implications for differentcountries and peoples. What is advocated here to redress the problems is ademocratic global governance and a catalytic state. These contrastingconceptualisations and theoretical paradigms need to be kept in view in theanalysis focussing on any particular country and peoples, including India.

The fact that globlisation has not yet resolved some of the basic contradictionsin the realms of culture, economy and human relationships and in some casesit is supposed to have contributed to internal social conflicts goes only to lendcredence to such ideologies. According to the contemporary Marxist-Leninistcritique, globlisation is only another manifestation of cosmopolitan capitalismwith its classic imperialistic orientation remaining intact. Instead of contributingto trans-nationalism, it exposes societies and nations to endemic ‘disasters’such as the recent food crisis in Africa and the onset of fundamentalism andcommunalism, both at the global and national levels. The acute social distresses,cultural conflicts and alienation (see, Patnaik, 1996) of the weaker andmarginalized communities contribute to this process. No doubt, globlisationwith its emphasis on the supremacy of the market, quest for optimization ofprofits by the multinational corporations, continual unemployment due to thefluctuations in economy and capitalism-friendly labour laws and control overthe management or governance of globlisation by the Bretton Wood inspiredinstitutions of the rich capitalist nations who set the agenda, policies andpractices of globlisation lends credence to this critique. In fact, the HumanDevelopment Report (2002) echoes this despair and calls for reforms within theinternational institutions of development such as the WTO, World Bank, IMF,etc., by making them more accountable and representative.

It is said that, “nearly half the voting power in the World Bank and InternationalMonetary Fund rests in the hands of seven countries. And though all countrieshave a seat and a vote in the WTO, in practice, decisions are taken in smallgroup meetings and heavily influenced by Canada, the European Union, Japanand U.s.

This political dominationcontributes to the acute differences in the perception as to the extent thatgloblisation decrease or increase the levels of economic and social inequalities

within a society. The Marxist-Leninist critique of globlisation is based on a theoretical paradigmwhich recognizes the role of the historical forces, systems of political economyand social structure.

We also witness yet another ideology about globlisation which emanates fromthe assorted movement of the NGOs. These NGOs represent a variety of ‘interest groups’ and many institutionalized forms of activism. The issues of their concernare as diverse as human rights, ecology and sustainable development, rights ofthe minorities, women, tribes, working classes, etc., which seem to convergeupon their opposition to globlisation for reasons some of which have a commonbasis, and others which are contradictory.Their ideology in some parts may seem eclectic with the underpinnings ofMarxism, post-modernism, ecological and developmental humanism and focuson human rights etc., which are articulated in a generalized form.

Information and communication technologies: The use of satellites, internet,telephones , computer networking, television known as information andcommunication technologies–ITC –have revolutionised the way the worldcommunicates. The traditional cable earlier on could carry less than a hundredvoices but by 1997, a transoceanic cable is capable of carrying some 600, 000voice paths, Communication satellites are expanding too, today there are200satellites in place facilitate transfer of information around the globe. Theinternet has emerged as the fastest growing communication tool–some 140million people worldwide were using the internet in 1998. more than 700million people are projected to be using the internet by 2001. You can see thisproliferation in our own country by the number of cyber cafes computers notonly in big cities but also in small towns, though we lag behind some of themore developed countries. ITC is the dominant force in the global system withramifications in all other spheres of human existence.The expansion of ITC has brought about a time-space compression. You couldbe chatting online, through the internet, with your friend or family, who isthousands of miles way, and feel that you share your everyday travails muchmore than a person who is closer home like your neighbour. You could beworking in India for company that is located in the US throughtelecommunication technologies. The reduced ratesin international calling and outsourcing by big corporations has made India onof the leading to Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), which resulted in callcentresand data processing centres.

OutsourcingIt is a process where company contracts out part of its functions, especially thecompany’s IT related functions and operations, to outside agencies or companies,often outside the country. Many times this is done to save cost, very often thejobs are contracted out to agencies in such countries where labour and other costs are less expensive.

Apart from this, we can see that world is ever more connected by the factthat world events, entertainment, issues are beamed to you in your livingroom through TV. Though you don’t participate in it directly one becomesapart of global community of audience and participants. According to AnthonyGiddens (2001) this shift to global outlook has two dimensions: first, “as aglobal community people increasingly percieve that social responsibility doesnot stop at national borders”. One can see this global participation, in thecase of recent disasters such as the Tsunami which hit India, Sri Lanka and

Indonesia or similar such disasters. People express their responsibility andconcern through voluntary work, donations, relief work etc. This can also besee in people’s participation, however virtual, on campaigns which concernlarger human issues be it human rights or ecology and environmental concernsor political issues. Secondly, people are forging their identities throughcommunication network, across boundaries, many scholars have pointed outthis transnational identity forging whether it is among the Hindus spreadacross the globe or pan-islamisation.

Globalisation of Trade and Finance : An important feature of globalisation isthe increasing trade flows between countries. There are many dimensions tothe globalisation of trade and finance- breaking down of national barriers oftrade, rise of multinational companies and the rise of international financialagencies and regulatory bodies such as WTO.Liberalisation for India essentially involved relaxation of restrictions on importduties, export restrictions, promotion of foreign investment and permissionsfor free flow of foreign technology and skills. Along with this, there wasconsiderable loosing of licensing system as well as lifting of reservation oncertain products. More importantly, under the dictates of World Bank and IMF,India had to reduce the role of govermnet sin may operations. Changes includedcutting down subsidies for farming, cutting down ficical deficit, disinvestmentequities in public sector companies, reducing expenditure on social sectorand facilitation of foreign direct investment or FDIs. Through all these measuresIndia joined the global economy.

FDI and MNCsForeign direct investment (FDI) is the movement of capital across nationalfrontiers in a manner that grants the investor control over the acquired asset.Thus it is distinct from portfolio investment which may cross borders, but doesnot offer such control. Firms which source FDI are known as ‘multinationalenterprises’or Multinational Corporations (MNC Or TNCs ). In this case controlis defined as owning 10% or greater of the ordinary shares of an incorporatedfirm, having 10% or more of the voting power for an unincorporated firm ordevelopment of a greenfield branch plant that is a permanent establishment ofthe originating firm.The largest portion of FDI approvals in India has been in the infrastructure andcore structures such as power, telecommunication , energy exploration, chemicalmetallurgical industries. FDI flows in India have increased substantially.Economic liberalization and financial liberalization centers on capital movementof which FDI is major form and the major players in these flow of capital is theMNCsAn MNC is a corporation that operates in a number of countries, and hasproduction operation facilities outside the country of their origin. Since end ofWorld War II. According to United Nations estimates there nearly 5000 suchcompanies with investments outside the country.Lik ebusiness concerns mNcare also motivated by profit concerns, but some do believe that they arebeneficial for domestic markets for generating employment opportunities,transfer technology, providing competition thereby by improving standards, qualityetc. and also by paying taxes to the host country.

There are several ways in which these companies can be detrimental to hostcountries and people within. Very large multinationals have budgets that exceedthose of many countries. They can have a powerful influence in internationalrelations, given their large economic influence in politicians’ representativedistricts, as well as their extensive financial resources available for publicrelations and political lobbying. As a result of these, they may have undueinfluence in the function and policy formulation of governments, which isdetrimental to democracies. There is also the concern that they repatriate theprofits their own countries rather than invest in host countries. MNC providejobs but they also drive out small enterprises and jeopardise livelihood of small

business. These many others make the MNC operations suspect.

Another aspect of growing trade flows in globalised world is the increasing roleof trade regulating bodies such World Trade Organisation–WTO.

WTO and the Third WorldThe WTO was established on January 1, 1995 to replace the General Agreementon Tariffs and Trade (GATT), a series of post-war trade treaties intended tofacilitate free trade. The GATT principles and agreements were adopted by theWTO, which was charged with administering and extending them. Unlike theGATT, the WTO has a substantial institutional structure. The WTO aims tofoster dialogue between nations, where governments come together and sortout the trade problems they encounter with one another, rather than engage intrade disputes. Consultation, negotiation and agreement are what the WTOemphasizes. many WTO decisions, such as adopting agreements (and revisionsto them) are determined by consensus. This does not necessarily mean thatunanimity is found: only that no Member finds a decision so unacceptable thatthey must insist on their objection. Voting is only employed as a fall-backmechanism or in special cases. Richard Steinberg (2002) argues that althoughthe WTO’s consensus governance model provides law-based initial bargaining,trading rounds close through power-based bargaining favouring Europe and theUnited States, and may not lead to Pareto improvement. The most notablerecent failures of consensus, at the Ministerial meetings at Seattle (1999) andCancún (2003), Doha (2004) were due to the refusal of some developing countriesto accept proposed.The stated aim of the WTO is to promote free trade, stimulate economicgrowth and hence make people life more prosperous. As with any economicdevelopment, if growth proceeds in a fast or unbalanced way, it will causestructural unemployment and thus worsen poverty. The WTO also promoteseconomic globalization and free trade, which anti-globalization activists considerproblematic. WTO treaties have been accused of a partial and unfair biastoward multinational corporations and wealthy nations.While the WTO provides equal opportunities for nations to speak, shieldsgovernments from lobbying, and encourages good governance, small countriesin the WTO are capable of wielding little influence. The WTO itself is criticizedas being the tool of powerful lobbies. And while membership is voluntary, criticssay that not joining places the non-participating nation under a de facto embargo,creating an international system of forced economic rules discouraging changeand experimentation. Despite the WTO aim of helping the developing countries,the influential states in the WTO do focus on their own commercial interests.The needs of the developing countries are often perceived to be ignored. Inaddition, the issues of health, safety and environment are not principle concerns.

Migration , Multicultaralism and Ethnic identitiesPeople have always migrated since centuries. People migrate due to severalreasons (see the unit on migration); for economic reason, to escapepersecution, for personal or sentimental reason. The migration in the globalage has increased exponentially. The current phase of global movement of people is compelled by all these reasons but mainly economic. If we lookaround in our own country we find that it is not so rare any more to find thatthere is some member of the family or other who has moved for a better life.Countries like USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand have actively beenencouraging immigration. Immigration policies of some of the countries wherethere is huge Indian population seems to affect the economic status of thecountry and the people directly connected with migrant population. This canbe witnessed in the recent deportation of Indian workers in the gulf or anxietyover the scaling down of H1B visas, which are the visas that Indian technocratsgo on.There are varying perspectives on immigration in the globalisation era. Theliberals , especially MNCs advocate liberalisation of immigration laws and polices.

They believe that it encourages global prosperity and true completion. Theprotectionist who oppose them think that corporations are motivated byprofit interest, wherein they exploit cheap labour. Then there are xenophobeswho fear foreigners and use various arguments to thwart too liberal animmigration policy.

“The November 2005 riots in France have led some to conclude that, althoughreasonable immigration numbers are welcome in most societies, large numberscan cause immigrants to form closed ethnic neighborhoods that lead to socialconfrontation and seclusion. Most European countries have not yet limitedimmigration and immigrants (legal & illegal) range between 7% -20% of thepopulation”

There is such mass movement of people across the globe, with preferreddestinations of Western European countries, US and Australia by the poorerThird world inhabitants. This has significantly changed the composition of thehost society, and often immigration is a controversial issue for some of thesecountries. There is a fear that cheaper workforce, who are willing to work forless than the prescribed wages, are replacing the locals, which they claimmakes them unemployed and cuts down the standard of living etc. The otherfear is that of cultural nature; it is heard most strongly in some homogenousold world (European) nations where citizenship was long tied to a personhaving deep historical roots in the country. Western European nations, Japan,and other countries have long been deeply concerned about their nationalculture being subsumed. This concern can be especially high when the immigrantsare of differing race or religion than the majority.Despite these fears and incidents of expressions of such fears (the periodicracial riots in UK and the more recent ones in France being an example) atofficial level and at an ideological level , countries such as Canada , UK Francehave tried to adopt multicultural policies.

MulticultaralismLooked at broadly, the term is often used to describe societies (especiallynations) which have many distinct cultural groups, usually as a result ofimmigration. This can lead to anxiety about the stability of national identity,yet can also lead to cultural exchanges that benefit the cultural groups. Suchexchanges range from major accomplishments in literature, art and philosophyto relatively token appreciation of variations in music, dress and new foods. Ona smaller scale, the term can also be used to refer to specific districts in citieswhere people of different cultures co-exist.

what it constitutes in terms of government policies or approaches indealing with immigrants, the approaches can be viewed as followingMonoculturalism: Here the immigrant is expected to assimilate with the national culture, in such countries the idea of cultural and nationa areconflated. Many Europeans nations thought on this lines, except UK foralong time but in the recent decades some of this philosophy is underdilution because of actual presence of many immigrants who differ fromthem substantially-racially, ethnically and culturally.Melting Pot: In the United States the traditional view has been one of amelting pot where all the immigrant cultures are mixed and amalgamatedwithout state intervention. However, many states have different languagepolicies within the union.Multiculturalism: In comparison to the above two approaches,multiculturalism is a view, or policy, that immigrants, and others, shouldpreserve their cultures with the different cultures interacting peacefullywithin one nation. Today, this is the official policy of Canada, Australia

and the UK. Multiculturalism has been described as preserving a “culturalmosaic” of separate ethnic groups, and is contrasted to a “melting pot”that mixes them. This has also been described as the “salad bowl” model.No country falls completely into one, or another, of these categories. Forexample, France has made efforts to adapt French culture to new immigrantgroups, while Canada still has many policies that work to encourage assimilation.Some, such as Diane Ravitch, use the term multiculturalism differently, describingboth the melting pot, and Canada’s cultural mosaic as being multicultural andrefers to them as pluralistic and particularist multiculturalism. Pluralisticmulticulturalism views each culture or subculture in a society as contributingunique and valuable cultural aspects to the whole culture. Particularistmulticulturalism is more concerned with preserving the distinctions betweencultures.Immigration into European countries is a rather recent trend, though until the1970s and 1980s the levels were relatively modest. Recent increases inimmigration have led to the development of political parties in Europe thatare almost solely concerned with limiting immigration.(source:http://en.wikipedia.org).The diasporas, who leave their homeland but who still identitfy themselveswith their cultural roots and countries of origin, have proliferated even moreso in the recent past. Their attempts to preserve their cultural roots andidentity has brought to fore many ethnic identity efforts. With the worldbeing globally connected now it has become easier for communities with asense of similar identity, however dispersed to come together. There are manytransnational organization which feed in to this ethnic consciousness, be itHindu, Muslim or sub national identities such as Telugu , Bengali etc.

Homogenisation and Hybridisation of CultureA very significant feature of globalisation as we mentioned earlier too is theflow of several things technology, money, people and culture, which is highlymediated by global technology and media. So we have Bollywood influencingfashion in UK, as much as MTV and other American programs influencing notonly the Indians but world at large. This confluence of influence has raisedquestions such as; whether the world is getting homogenised by Westerninfluences, especially America? Terms such as McDonaldisation, Coco-colaisationare used to point out dominance of giant corporation of America influencing the cultures of the world and taking over local market.Griffin (2004:262) takes note of the argument that globalisation has stronghomogenising influences that weaken and destroy existing cultures, movetowards a world culture under US hegemony. ‘The American way of life, ormore likely a pale imitation of it, will become the world’s way of life’. However,he thinks that the emergence of a single ‘world culture’ is highly unlikely.‘Instead, globalisation and the associated cultural interpenetration are morelikely to lead to new permutations, new combinations, new options, and newcultures’ (ibid: 254). With increasing pace of globalisation, in his opinion, theidea of ‘global citizenship’ would gain support. But it would not pose a threatto the existing loyalties and identities - local, national, regional. It wouldneither supersede existing loyalties nor represent the creation of a globalculture. But ‘It would be a step towards recognition of the fact thatglobalisation affects us all and we should all have a voice in determining howthe effects are managed’ (ibid: 262).Appadurai (1997) is also strongly predisposed to the view that globalisation isnot the story of homogenisation. In his view, globalisation is a deeply historical,uneven and even ‘Localising’ process. ‘Globalisation does not necessarily oreven frequently imply homogenisation or Americanisation’. The geneology ofcultural forms, in a theoretical vein he says, is ‘about their circulation acrossregions, the history of these forms is about their ongoing domestication into

local practice’ (p.17). In case of India he talks about how history and geneologyinflect one another, and how global forms take local forms. Another importantphenomenon he is concerned with is that of the diaspora which is part of thecultural dynamic of urban life in most countries in the world. In this connection,the joint force of electronic mediation and mass migration ‘coconstitute newsense of the global as modern and the modern as global’ (p.10). The diasporicphenomenon of today, he observes as explicitly transnational - evenpostnational.Singh (2002) recognises that globalisation was bound to put pressures on theIndian culture. He envisages some degree of acceleration towards homogenisingof cultural forms and activities (lifestyle, dress, food etc) in the country.However, he asserts that ‘the social structure and cultural system in India areintrinsically based on pluralism and diversity’. The Indian society (both casteand tribe) is segmented in communities which enjoy ‘enormous culturalautonomy’. ‘This provides enormous cultural resilience to communities in Indiato filter the effects of globalisation through refractory and prismatic adaptations’(p.64). Moreover there is observed an enhanced sense of self consciousnessand awareness of identity. Those elements of globalisation are resented thatencroach upon or does not promote the core cultural values of society. So,globalisation has both facets - homogenisation and (cultural) identityenhancement. In case of the Indian diaspora, he finds the trends of culturalfusion. Also in India, at the level of popular culture of music, dance, dramatic,cinema etc., the new trend is one of fusion of traditional Indian forms/ stylesand western/global forms/styles. This emergent popular (fusion) culture, heregards as posing ‘a threat to the indigenous local, regional or ethnic identityof cultural traditions in so far as it abstracts culture from people’s rhythm oflife and its natural expressiveness or vitality, and converts its new packaginginto a commodity’ (p.103). In this process the traditional identity deeplyembedded in community life (caste, class, tribe, principles of hierarchy andreciprocity) are “metamorphosed into a faceless ‘audience’ “. This, he thinks,is not entirely due to globalisation, but rather ‘germane in the very paradigmof modernization which we along with the rest of humanity wilfully celebrate’(ibid). As regards modernisation, Gupta (2000) talks about the process ofwestoxication in India.

Global Civil society and Nation–State

Therefore, civilsociety has been the arena of social and political protestation movements,particularly movements such as human rights, animal rights, environmentalism,trade unionism and peace movements. With global interconnectedness civilsociety initiatives, be it human rights or environment organizations ormovements have gone beyond the local. They have created a global space.These spaces are delineated by networks of economic, social and culturalrelations, and they are being occupied by conscious actors, in physicallyseparated locations, who link together in networks of particular political andsocial purposes. There many international organization which network overdistance traversing international boundaries. “In 1909, there were 176 privateinternational associations, by 1951 they had multiplied to 832 and in 1985there were at least 4615. However, such a high figure can be misleadingbecause INGOs can be anything from the International Bottle Collectors Society,the International Committee of Catholic Nurses, to Friends of the EarthInternational (FOEI) and Amnesty International. But the important point isthat each organisation has created a global arena, outside of purely nationalinterests, in which common values, aims, concerns and even ideologies arediscussed and acted upon. But it is the larger and better organised INGOs suchas FOEI, Greenpeace, Oxfam and Amnesty which can be seen as having the

greater influence on national governments and therefore the autonomy ofnation-state actions” (source: www.suite101.com/article.cfm/sociology/).By undertaking campaigns beyond their own frontiers that help to change theglobal agenda, INGO members can bypass their own governments and act directlyin global politics and thus open up new arenas for political participation. Inthis way, governments loose their traditional role as the sole externalrepresentatives of those they govern and this weakens, in part, their claim tolegitimacy. Also, global actors, such MNCs, international regulatory organizationslike WTO and financial organizations like IMF and World Bank have all producedarenas which exert influence on nation –states and function both within andwithout states.This has raised questions whether the nation-state’s legitimacy and authorityare eroded. The extreme positions on this issue have pronounced nationstates as dead. Rosenau ,does not take this extreme position but argues thatthere has been a shift from industrialism and international politics, where thenation-state dominated global relations, to an era of post-industrial and postinternationalpolitics where the nation-state has to share global relations withinternational organisations, transnational corporations and transnational socialmovements, making the state and its local needs subservient to global forces.Robert Gilpin argues that the process of globalisation is the result of a permissivepolitical order, which generates the stability needed to encourage connections,by the exercise of power between hegemonic nation-states. Therefore, thepresent era of global interconnectedness has been achieved due to theexistence of a stable and secures world order, in which the hegemonic liberaldemocracies utilise military power and supremacy for economic and politicalpurposes. Gilpin’s primary factor is therefore of a political logic which viewsthe process of globalisation as depending upon the rise and decline of hegemonicpowers and the existence of a secure world order that political equilibriumproduces.

ConclusionThe experience of Globalisation has a mixed feeling, both of enchantment aswell as disenchantment. There are as many pro globalisation arguments asthere are anti-globalisers. The “anti-globalisation”( a term that is preferred bythe media), group constitute many activist and public interest group who donot necessarily oppose globalisation per se , but seek to ‘globalise justice’, asNoam Chomsky one of the leading critics of globalisation policies, says.

Economic, Social and Cultural Dimensions ofGlobalisation

It is a fact that in thecontemporary world there is hardly any social, cultural, economic and politicalrealm which can said to be impervious by the process of globalisation.Globalisation as an interchange of various attributes among different societiesis not a new phenomenon, but an ongoing process. What makes the presentday process of globalisation different and distinct from the earlier ones is therapid increase in the frequency and the density of these interchanges.

The Concept and Definition of GlobalisationIn very simple terms globalisation can be depicted as increasing globalinterconnectedness. It is a process rather than an outcome, which refers tothe trend toward the growing interconnectedness of different parts of the

world. It primarily is an interchange ofeconomic, social, cultural, political, technological attributes that takes placebetween societies when different societies come into contact with eachother. Though this interchange is going on for times immemorial, this processwas termed as “globalisation” for the first time around the second half of 20th

century. Certainscholars even argue that this process of globalisation has been going on sincethe beginning of mankind and it has affected all cultures, even remote andisolated, though in varying degrees (Griffin 2004). The contemporary globalisationdiffers from the process that could be observed in the past primarily in termsof the quantum of interchange and inter connectedness. Everything happensmuch faster today than it did in previous eras. The current process ofglobalisation, which is popularly described as gradual removal of barriers totrade and investment between nations, was started towards the end of the20th century. It is said to aim to achieve economic efficiency throughcompetitiveness, while seeking the broader objectives of economic and socialdevelopment. It touches all spheres of human life; economic, social, cultural,political and environmental. The most common definition of present day globalisation refers to the growingintegration of various countries to the world economy. It results mostly froma freer movement of capital, products and information, which affects not justthe economy, but also, as we said earlier, the political, cultural, social andenvironmental arenas. Antony Giddens, a sociologist, defined globalisationas an intensification of worldwide social relations, via which far away placesare linked together in such a way that events in one place are affected by aprocess taking place many miles away and vice versa (Giddens 2000). DavidHenderson (1999), an economist, views globalisation as a model of fullyinternationally integrated markets meeting the two conditions of i) the freemovement of goods, services, labour and capital resulting in a single marketin inputs and outputs, and ii) full national treatment for foreign investors aswell as nationals working oversees, so that economically speaking there are noforeigners. For Meghnad Desai (2004) globalisation is the growing reciprocalinterdependence and integration of various economies around the globe. Keniichi Ohmae’s phrase “the borderless world” captures the sense of radicalprogress and modernity and of life beyond the constraints of the traditionalnation-state, which infuses much of the popular writing about globalisation Malcolm Waters (1995)finds globalisation as a social process in which the constraints of geography onsocial and cultural arrangements recede and in which people become increasinglyaware that they are receding. For him globalisation merely implies greaterconnectedness and de-territorialisation. Scholte (1999) too understandsglobalisation as a process of de-territorialisation and global relations as supraterritorial. For some others globalisation essentially means an intensificationof multinational, international and transnational linkages in all spheres of humanactivity, including trade and commerce, governance and non-governmentlobbying as a consequence of new communication technology of thecontemporary period. Pieterse (2001) calls the contemporaryglobalisation as accelerated globalisation. Current accelerated globalisation isshorthand for several major interwoven trends. According to him currentaccelerated globalisation comes in a package together with i) informatisation,which means the role of information and communication technologies ii)flexibilisation that means changes in production systems towards flexibleproduction, and iii) reconfiguration of states and regionalisation. He viewsglobalisation as a process — the growing interconnectedness of different partsof the world; globalisation as awareness — the recoganition of growinginterconnectedness (globalisation as subjectivity); and globalisation as project

(see Box 21.1) — the advocacy and pursuit of particular forms of globalisationand attempts to manage and steer globalisation in a particular direction. From the above account, it can be concluded that globalisation is a multifaceted,multidimensional and comprehensive phenomenon having its potential impacton a whole range of contemporary social, political, cultural and economicrelationships.

The Features of Present Day GlobalisationSince the Second World War there has been a deliberate selection of a moremarket-oriented approach by many countries and increased internationalisationof economic activities. During this period there also has been a widespreadadoption of export-oriented development strategy and trade liberalisation as a favoured path to development all over the worldeither by choice or under compulsion by the International Financial Institutionslike World Bank and IMF (Pyle and Forrent 2002). This increased the pace ofglobalisation to a great extent.As a result there has been faster growth in world output during the past fewdecades compared to former days. World trade has grown significantly morerapidly than world output and the national economies have become moreopen and more closely integrated. International capital flows have grown evenfaster than international trade. Ideas, technologies and cultural attributes are

exchanged at a higher acceleration. Contemporary globalisation has led a greatervolume of exchanges of goods and services and it has led to a greater varietyof things being exchanged. Many goods and services, once non-traded, now regularly enter the world market. For example, a Japanese architect may designa building in France; marketing services may be transmitted from India to USAor UK, etc. The advancement of Information and Communication Technologies(ICTs) reduced the geographic distance significantly. Technologies such asInternet and mobile phones made it possible for people to communicateanywhere around the globe instantly. This accelerated the growth anddevelopment of knowledge society (you will learn more on this in Block VII).There have also been increased incidences of people migrating for work globally.There is a significant change in the relative power of world organisationsduring the current phase of globalisation. On the one hand the internationalfinancial institutions such as IMF and World Bank as well as WTO — aninternational organisation to regulate global trade — become more powerful.On the other, global institutions that have focused on more human-centeredinterests such as United Nations (UN) and International Labour Organisation(ILO) have found their position relegated to the background and their powerand effectiveness relatively diminished in the face of global changes (Coicaudand Heiskanen 2001). The more powerful institutions (IMF, World Bank, WTO)have pushed for increased use of markets and less government involvement ineconomies in order to achieve free flows of trade and investment of funds andless regulation by the national governments. The shift in power of the globalinstitutions is reflected in all spheres of human life. The current process of globalisation also resulted in the globalisation of nationalpolicies and policy-making mechanisms of national governments. Nationalpolicies including in economic, social, cultural and technological areas, whichwere till now under the jurisdiction of states and people within a country,have increasingly come under the influence of international agencies and thebig private corporations. Under pressure from these international organisationsthe national governments have had to restructure their economies thatdemandes more thrust in free trade and less spending in social sector. Theyhad to increase taxes or shrink government spending by reducing expenditureson social sectors such as education, healthcare, sanitation, subsidies in housing,fuel, public distribution systems and transportation. The national governmentshad to dismantle the administered price mechanism applicable to the essentialcommodities of mass consumption. The externalities associated withglobalisation have also had a global impact on the environment, a new set ofglobal ‘bads’ have been produced, for e.g., global warming, depletion of ozonelayer, etc.The globalisation process received additional impetus in India when she openedup her economy in the early 1990s following a major crisis that led by a foreignexchange crunch that dragged Indian economy close to defaulting on loansowed to international financial institutions. India adopted a New EconomicPolicy that included the elements of “globalisation”, “liberalisation” and“privatisation”. The two central components of these neo-liberal policiesadopted by the Indian government have been the liberalisation of India’sprivate sector and reform of the public sector. Globalisation integrated theIndian economy with the global economy through reduction in import dutiesand export restrictions, promotion of foreign investments and permission forfree flow of foreign technology and skills, etc. The subsidiesgiven to fertiliser and agriculture had to be drastically reduced or withdrawn.A drastic reduction was there in the allocation to poverty alleviation programmes and health and education. At the same time there has not only been anintegration of production globally, but also across the country internally. Therehas been rapid privatisation of publicly owned companies, of state and

community headed resources of hitherto reserved areas like banking andinsurance (refer unit 16 for more details). There has been deregulation oflabour protection leading to massive growth of contract labour and subcontracting.

Economic Dimensions of Globalisation

Although it makes an impact inall spheres of human life, the economic dimension of globalisation is moreprominent and far-reaching than any others. The most important dimensionsof the current phase of economic globalisation are the breaking down ofnational economic barriers; international spread of trade, financial andproduction activities and the growing power of transnational corporations andinternational financial institutions. Here in this section the economic dimensionsof globalisation will be discussed in terms of liberalisation and privatisation;free flow of trade and services, which includes the origin and functioning ofWTO, multilateral trading system and end of national economies; foreign directinvestment which includes globalisation of financial markets, transnationalintegrated production and functioning of multinational and transnationalcompanies; liberalisation in investment; growth of global economy;infrastructural development; development of information and communicationtechnologies (ICTs); outsourcing of services; and Trade Related IntellectualProperty Rights (TRIPs).a) LiberalisationIn general, liberalisation refers to a relaxation of restrictions, usually in areasof social or economic policy. Most often, the term is used to refer to economicliberalisation, especially trade liberalisation or capital market liberalisation; thepolicies often referred to as neo-liberalism. A major revolution in the policyenvironment caused by the current phase of globalisation is liberalisation ofeconomic policy, which included the freeing up of markets and reduction inthe role of national governments in terms of ownership and control overproduction of goods and services. The “liberalisation revolution” challengesthe legitimacy of many of the activities nation-state governments haveperformed in the modern (post-1914) world such as running nationalisedindustries, trade exchange and price controls and monopoly over infrastructureand public services (Strange 1996).Free market economic policies advocated by neo-liberals in the Westerncountries, put into practice by Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Reaganin the U.S. during the 1980s, soon became the official policy of InternationalFinancial Institutions (IFIs), which started insisting on the deregulation ofnational economies and liberalisation in the trade and investment sectors asconditions for the grant of financial assistance or loans to countries the worldover. Since the movement of economic forces in the contemporary world isbeyond the control of national governments, neo-liberals call for a fundamentalrestructuring of relations between the state and civil society with the statemaintaining a low profile in the area of economic activities which should begoverned by the free play of market forces (Banerji 2000). They advocated free trade, which in modern usage means trade or commerce carried on withoutsuch restrictions as import duties, export bounties, domestic productionsubsidies, trade quotas, or import licences. The basic argument for free tradeis based on the economic theory of “comparative advantage” that means,each region should concentrate on what it can produce most cheaply andefficiently and should exchange its products for those it is less able to produceeconomically.In India, the pace of globalisation gathered momentum when the then centralgovernment (Narasimha Rao government) introduced the package of reformsat the behest of IMF and World Bank aimed at economic liberalisation in June

1991. The roots of the liberalisation programme in India, in fact, may be tracedto earlier periods of liberalisation of trade regime in the late 1970s under theJanata government initiative as well as in the industrial policy reforms of theearly 1980s introduced by Indira Gandhi and finally in the New Economic Policyfashioned by the Rajiv Gandhi government in the mid-1980s. But these earlierinitiatives and their implementation were rather slow compared to NarasimhaRao’s initiative in 1991, which was more ambitious and aimed at freeing theeconomy from state intervention.The reforms introduced by Rao’s government included short-term stabilisationmeasures encompassing devaluation of the rupee, restraint on publicexpenditure (by reducing subsidies on fertilizer and petroleum), a plan for thereduction of the fiscal deficit and removal of restrictions on the flow offoreign capital to Indian markets. The medium and long term StructuralAdjustment Programme (SAP) included a series of measures aimed atliberalisation of trade and deregulation of industry, restricting the ambit ofthe public sector including disinvestment of equities in profit making concernsand withdrawal of subsidies for the loss making ones, reforms of the financialsector and the tax systems and measures to facilitate foreign capital flows(Byres 1998).The main features of the liberalisation policy of Indian government have been:General reduction in the role of the state in economic governance;Withdrawal by the State from some economic sectors and its replacementby the private sector;Decline in the government/public sectors in basic and key industries,banking, insurance and other public sector undertakings;Decline in the role of the State in provision of public social services likeeducation, housing and health;Future development through wider participation of the private sectorand hence more dependence on the market for the exchange of goods.b) PrivatisationAlong with the liberalisation of the economy in the 1980s the neo-liberals ofthe U.K. and the U.S also advocated the privatisation of industries and servicesto make enterprises more competitive and efficient so as to meet the challengesof the global economy. The U.K. privatised 80% of its public sector by the 1980s(Mandel 1993). Privatisation largely means selling of public owned assets toprivate ownership by stages. Privatisation can be done using any or all of thefollowing techniques:Public offering of shares – all or part of the shares of public limitedcompany are offered for sale to the public;Private sale of shares – all or part of the state-owned enterprise is soldto private individual or a group of purchasers;New private investment in a state-owned enterprise – private share issuesare subsidised by the private sector or the public; Entry of the private sector into public sector – private groups allowed toget into areas reserved for the public sector, such as the power andtelecommunications sectors in India;Contracting out the services and utilities to private operators or contractorsfor operation and maintenance, while retaining ownership with thegovernment. Like water supply, sewage treatment, etc.;Sale of government or state enterprises’ assets as private sale instead ofshares;Reorganisation or fragmentation of subsidiary units of a company;Management/employee buy-out – in which the management or theemployees acquire the controlling interest in which shares are purchased

on credit extended by the government.With the aim of privatising the economy, the Indian government adoptedvarious measures in the 1990s. Initiatives such as abolition of licence raj forderegulation of the industries, scrapping of legislations such as MRTP andFERA, approval for 100% equity for NRIs, streamlining of approval committees,disinvestment in Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs), and reference of sickindustrial units to Board of Industrial and Financial Reconstruction forrationalisation were meant for more and more privatisation of the Indianeconomy.c) Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Globalisation of Financial MarketForeign Direct Investment (FDI) is money invested in production by a foreignparty rewarded with part-ownership of production. Of the three importantaspects of liberalisation – finance, trade and investment – financial liberalisationhas been the most pronounced. During this globalisation era there has beenprogressive and extensive liberalisation of controls on financial flows and marketsleading to economic globalisation. Economic globalisation and financialliberalisation centres on the movement of capital of which FDI was a majorform.From the beginning of the 1980s, FDI flows have grown much faster than theworld output or trade or domestic fixed investment. The growth of FDI in the1990s was enormous. The initial burst of FDI in the late 1980s was almostentirely in developed countries (over 80% of the total) and predominantly fromfive leading developed countries (over two thirds). In the 1990s developingcountries began to attract substantial FDI and there has been genuinegeographical broadening of FDI. Since early 1990s, FDI flows to the developingcountries have raised relatively averaging 32% of the total in 1991-1995 comparedto the 17% in 1981-1990. This was due to the liberalisation of foreign investmentpolicies in most of the developing countries during the 1990s (Khor 2001).Private capital flows for direct investment and portfolio investment fordeveloping countries have grown from $ 25 billion in 1990 to $150 billion in1997 (Parikh 1999). Also, during this period there have been qualitative andquantitative changes in the world of international integration of global marketsthrough the medium of FDI. The FDI explosion of the 1980s charecterised bythe investment inflows within the triad of EU, Japan and North America shiftedin the 1990s to the non-OECD (Organisation of Economic Co-operation andDevelopment) countries as well. The flows were accounted by Asian countries(China, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia), Latin American countries(especially Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Brazil) and Eastern European countries.There had also been a growth of major corporate alliances at global levelduring this period. FDI remained mainly market driven and they dominatedservice sector.However the flow of FDI even among developing nations was not uniform.Much of this FDI has centred on only a few developing countries. Leastdeveloped countries in particular were receiving only very small FDI despite having liberalised their policies. There were some negative impacts of theseprivate capital flows. There was a general and increasing concern about thefragility and vulnerability of the system due to the interconnectedness offinancial markets and systems and the vast amounts of financial flows. Thesewere the risk of a breakdown in some critical parts or in the general systemitself, as a fault developing in one part of the world or in the system can havewidespread repercussions. These concerns were heightened by the East Asianfinancial crisis that began in the second half of 1997 and spread to Russia,Brazil and other countries, causing the worst financial turmoil and economicrecession in the post-World War II period.Nonetheless in the 1990s a consensus gradually emerged around the globe thatforeign capital, if utilised properly, can contribute significantly to economic

development. The same was true with India. The largest proportion of FDIapprovals in India has been in the infrastructure and core sectors such aspower, telecommunications, energy exploration, and chemical and metallurgicalindustries. India followed a case-by-case approach in approving FDI. FDI inIndia depends on the assessment of India relative to other countries on severalfronts. The main considerations are the political stability and credibility ofreforms, the state of the infrastructure, especially power, transport andcommunication, national policy regime, speed and transparency inimplementation of government policies, labour market conditions and theintellectual property rights issue (Ray 2000). FDI in India is permitted underthe following forms of investments.through financial collaboration;through joint ventures and technical collaboration;through the capital market via Euro issues;through private placements or preferential allotment.FDI is not a one-way process. In the open market system Indian companies arealso going global through joint ventures abroad. India’s export in the year2001-02 was to the extent of 32,572 million. Many Indian companies havestarted becoming respectable players in the international scene. Agriculturalproducts, marine products, cereals, oilseeds, tea, and coffee are someprominent products that India has been exporting.

d) International Trade Regulatory Body – WTO- read in economy

The main functions of WTO are:Administering trade agreements;Maintaining a forum for trade negotiations;Handling trade disputes;Monitoring national trade policies;Technical assistance and training for developing countries; andCooperation with other international organisations.

national governments have to complywith the disciplines and obligations in the wide range of issues under thepurview of WTO. The functioning of WTO promotes the empowerment of themarket or the minimal role for the State and rapid liberalisation.

India is a founder member of GATT and its successor the WTO. India'sparticipation in an increasingly rule based system in the governance ofinternational trade is claimed to ensure more stability and predicability, whichmay lead to more trade and prospirity. By being a member of WTO Indiaautomatically avails most favoured nation and national treatment (refer unit 23for more details) for its exports to all WTO nations. India made necessarylegislative changes to implement WTO standard intellectual property laws inthe year 2005, although after showing initial resistence.

e) Multinational and Transnational Companies and their Functioning

The process of globalisation has brought to the fore a new set of international actors – the multinational corporations (MNCs). The MNCs are often described as corporate giants. The annual turnover of certain MNCs is equal to the combined GDP of a fewcountries (Kurian 1994). These institutions have financial activities in differentcountries simultaneously. During the 1990s the process of globalisationintensified the activities of the MNCs across the world.

This process further intensified towards the end of the 20th century resultingin a larger concentration and monopolisation of economic resources and powerby transnational corporations, a process Martin Khor (2001) callstransnationalisation. Here fewer and fewer transnational corporations aregaining a large and rapidly increasing proportion of world economic resources,production and market shares. Where a multinational company used to dominatethe market of a single product, a big transnational company now typicallyproduces or trades in multitude of products, services and sectors. Throughmergers and acquisitions, fewer and fewer of these TNCs now control a largerand larger share of the global market, whether in commodities, manufacturesor services.

Multinational or Transnational CompaniesMultinational companies, also known as transnational corporations dependingon nature of operations, are a very important feature of the modern, globalisedeconomy. A multinational company may be defined as one, which operates in anumber of countries and has production or service facilities outside its countryof origin. The history of multinational companies could be said to have begunwith the founding of the British East India Company in 1600. There are a number of reasons why companies decide to become multinationalby investing in overseas operations. There may be a desire to have productionfacilities nearer to the market or the source of raw materials in order to keepdown transport costs. If a country has high tariffs on imported goods,establishment of a factory in that country may be seen as a way of obtainingtariff-free access to that market.Although multinational companies, like all businesses, are primarily motivatedby a desire to make profits, their establishment of production facilities indeveloping countries may be both beneficial and detrimental to the peoples ofsuch countries in certain ways. It may be beneficial, for example, in terms ofa) creation of jobs, bringing in improved technological process and therebyhigher labour and environmental standards, provide revenue by way of payingtaxes, etc. It may be detrimental by way of a) influencing the policies of thehost governments, b) providing vulnerable and exploitative labour conditionsfor making maximum profits, c) repatriating their profit to the home countriesrather than reinvesting in the host nation, d) driving small scale companies outof business e) evasion of taxes, f) violaton of human right and damaging theenvironment, etc.

Other than liberalisation, privatisation and other trade related aspects thereare some additional economic avenues, which reflect the impact of globalisationprocess.

Infrastructure DevelopmentThe current phase of globalisation warranted for the world countries fasterand large-scale development of infrastructure to facilitate industries dependenton import and export as well as to become more competitive in the worldmarket. For example, India needed to develop port facilities if it is to beinternationally competitive. The total handling capacity of Indian ports duringthe mid-1990s was 190 million tonnes of trade annually, which was far less thanindividual ports abroad such as Singapore. Also, container-handling rates weremuch lower than the international rates (Gordon 1997). This shows that Indianeeded massive investments in road building, development of port facilitiesand in power and telecommunications sector to attract more and more foreigntrade. In the mid-1990s the Indian government estimated a total spending of200 billion dollars over the next one decade in infrastructure development. Tomeet this requirement the government drew funds from the private sectorand from oversees investors and with this aim, it opened power,telecommunications and transport sectors to foreign direct investment.

g) Expansion of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) andBirth of Information Age

One of the striking aspects of contemporary society is the rapid developmentof the information technology for application in different areas with significant implications. If we analyse the progression of globaleconomy we can see that since the 19th century, the story of the globaleconomy has been a regular succession of leading commercial and industrialsectors (Modelski and Thompson 1996). From mid- nineteenth century onward,the leading sectors were electric power, chemicals and steel. The industriesthat took off after 1914 were electronics, including telephones, radio andthen television and autos plus oil and rubber. Since the 1970s, leadership inthe global economy has begun to shift to another set of industries, one thatcombines computers, the television, the (digital) telephone and othercommunication tools, which can be collectively called as information industries.Prominent among these are the computer industry, composed of several subsections including large, hard and software sectors; the revitalised telephoneindustry transformed into telecommunications with such new sectors such ascellular, wireless and cable and multifaceted ever changing media completewith their content providers and distributors. Alvin Toffler in The Third Wave(1980) describes three periods of economic evolution: the Agricultural wavethat lasted from 8000 B.C. to the mid-eighteenth century, the Industrial wavewhich lasted until the late twentieth century and the information wave whichbegan in the 1960s and will last for many decades to come. According to himthe first wave was driven by physical labour, the second wave by machines andblue-collor workers and the third by information technology and knowledgeworkers.

The contemporary speed of change, the enlargement of capacity for informationtransmission and the proliferation of communications media are very differentfrom what has been experienced in the past. The extraordinary explosion ofboth technology and information has considerably reduced the twin conceptsof time and space. In particular Information and Communication Technology(ICT) has emerged as perhaps the most dominant force in the global system ofproduction although with significant ramifications in all other spheres ofcontemporary human existence (Kacowicz 1999). Improved communicationreduced effective distance for the transmission of information. Internationaltelephone and fax traffic has become largely instantaneous, cheap and simplefor individuals to access. The Internet provides a genuinely global system ofcommunication and information. Satellite and cable TV and VHF radio havecreated an abundance of choice in news and entertainment. The augmentedexpansion of information technology in the past few decades resulted in aphenomenal growth of “outsourcing” of service in the world over.During the third wave the process of information handling, transmission, storageand retrieval became the key to prosperity and qualitatively different way oflife. Success in just about in any field has become impossible withoutinformation technology. In farming, manufacture, education, policing, medicine,entertainment, banking or whatever IT is apparently set to change everythingthat human beings do in advanced societies (Lyon 1988). Beginning of computingwith tele-communications is considered to spell the start of the new age ofinformation and communication age. Daniel Bell (1976) forecasts vast expansionof information technology and foresees major social changes resulting fromthe establishment of new tele communications infrastructure and he called itinformation society. Bell argues in the information society informationtechnology shortens labour time and diminishes the production worker andactually replaces labour as the source of added value in the national product.Here the knowledge and information supersede labour and capital as the central

variables of the economy. To Peter Drucker (1988) information society is postcapitalistsociety in which capitalists and proletarians are replaced by knowledgeworkers and service workers. And the economic challenge of this society isthe productivity of knowledge work and knowledge worker.

Outsourcing of ServicesIn a more and more globalised world, information and communicationtechnologies became the backbone of the business world and there was arapid growth of the information technology enabled services (ITES). Business ProcessOutsourcing (BPO) forms an important part of the ITES industry. Outsourcing is required in different areas like Finance, Health, Accounting, Human Resourcesof companies, etc. “Outsourcing” is the process through which one companyhands over part of its work to another company, making it responsible for thedesign and implementation of the business process under strict guidelinesregarding requirements and specifications from the outsourcing company. ThusBPO takes a set of activities and takes on the responsibility of reengineeringthe entire way the operation is done. This process is beneficial to both theoutsourcing company and the service provider, as it enables the outsourcer toreduce costs and increase quality in non-core areas of business and utilisetheir expertise and competencies to the maximum.The BPO services includes:a) Customer Service Interaction including Call Centersb) Back Office operations/Banking/Revenue/Accounting/Data Conversion/HR etc. - Verticals such as banks and aviation require large-scale dataprocessing and data based decision-making capabilities. Raw data and orpaper documents are sent to remote locations (IT-enabled destination)where data entry and necessary reconciliation is carried out.c) Transcription Services - Medical transcriptions involve the transcribing ofmedical records from audio format or dictated by doctors or otherhealthcare processionals into either a hard copy or electronic format.d) Content Development/Animation etc.e) Data Research, Market Survey, Consultancy, Management etc.

BPO Opportunities in India

The BPO industry is built around the policy of efficiency and cost-effectiveness. India’sabundant skilled manpower has made it a target destination for multinationalsto back end their operations in India. With the advantage of English speakingpopulation, low cost manpower and quality service, many companies areincreasingly outsourcing their operations to India. India ranks high in areassuch as qualifications, capabilities, quality of work, linguistic capabilities andwork ethics, and thus is ahead of competitors such as Singapore, Hong Kong,China, Philippines, Mexico, Ireland, Australia and Holland, among others. Indiancompanies have unique capabilities and systems to set, measure and monitorquality targets. In specific ITES categories, Indian centers have achieved higherproductivity levels, for example, the number of transactions per hour for backoffice processing, than their Western counterparts. Also, India is able to offerservice without break and reduction in turnaround times by leveraging timezone differences. India’s unique geographic positioning makes this possible. The opening up of telecom sector in 1994 encouraged liberalised privateparticipation in IT sector. This allowed the flourishing of BPO industry in India.Many state governments in India now offer incentives and infrastructure toset up IT enabled services. The new telecom policy of 1999 brought in further

changes in telecom industry, which also ended the state monopoly oninternational telephoning facilities. This in turn heralded the golden era forITES and BPO industry and leading to a spectacular growth of inbound/outboundcall centers and data processing centers in India. The ITES industry, of whichBPO forms a very important part has become the largest export oriented industry in india.

Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)A major problem that inventors faced for most of the 19th century, a period ofrapid technological progress, was the absence of international regulationsgoverning patent protection. While individual countries had quite effectivepatent laws and regulations, they varied from one another. Inventors had toapply for patents simultaneously in many countries so that an application fora patent in one country would not make it ineligible for the grant of a patentin all others, because it had lost novelty (Abraham 2001). By patent it meansa convention granted by the State to protect the interest of the inventor/investor of a product.According to the U.N., a patent is defined as a statutory privilege granted bythe government to inventors and other persons deriving their rights from theinventor for a fixed period of years to exclude other persons frommanufacturing, using or selling a patented product or from utilising a patentmethod or process (Baxi 1992). Through an international treaty, the ParisConvention for the Protection of Industrial Property, 1883, already existed; inthe accelerated pace of globalisation and highly competitive atmosphere MNCs/TNCs demanded more security to their products. As a result the Agreement onTrade related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) was negotiated as a part ofthe Uruguay Round of GATT and it became effective from the day WTO wasformed, i.e., 1st January 1995.With India becoming a signatory to the WTO agreement, it became obliged tofollow the TRIPs regime. Till then India was governed by the Indian PatentsAct, 1970, which permitted only process patents. The same product, for examplea drug, can be produced by a number of alternative processes, each somewhatdifferent from the rest. This made possible for Indian companies to produceany patented product, patented in other countries as well, following a slightlydifferent process, without violating the patents’ right under Indian law. Thiswould no longer be possible under the WTO regime as India being a memberwill have to amend the patent law to allow both product and process patent.However, developing countries like India, which did not have product patenthave been given time till January 2005 to amend their patent law. The amendedPatents law was passed in the Indian Parliament on 22nd March 2005.

Social Dimension of Globalisation

The social dimension of globalization refers to the impact of globalisation on the life and work of people, on their families and their societies. Concerns and issues are often raised about the impact of globalisation on employment, working conditions, income and social protection. Beyond the world of work, the social dimension encompasses security, culture and identity, inclusion or exclusion and the cohesiveness of families and communities etc. In this section us see some of the social dimensions of globalisation.*

a) Withdrawal of National Government from Social Sector

The liberalisation of the economy resulted in a general reduction in the role of the State in economic governance. The reduction in the government’s economic role reflected in a decline in the public spending. The consequence of the reduction in the role of the government and the public sector and its replacement with private sector means that the access of people to employment, capital and social services like education, housing and health services will be much less. Thestructural adjustment policies of the national government involving therelinquishing of economic activities from the public sector into the hands ofthe private sector, i.e., the state moving away from economic planning andleaving economic decisions to the market, will result in the withdrawal ofsocial protection to the public. Reducing social benefits in order to reducepayroll fringe costs to increase competitive ability leads to “social dumping”which means a process that lowers production costs through low wages andsubstandard social conditions.In India the social sector expenditure as a proportion to GDP had been stagnantin the 1990s and there had been a definite shift away from rural development(Dev and Mooji 2002). The share of health expenditure had been stagnant andthat of education had been declining. The government is further trying toreduce the size of current expenditure by reducing expenditure on pensions,subsidies etc.

Social DumpingThe industrial countries often accuse the governments of less developed countriesof practicing social dumping in the sense of maintaining an underdevelopedwelfare state to create a competitive cost advantage for their own industries.In particular they argue that the less developed countries deliberately neglectlegislation for good social standards in terms of social fringe benefits, protectionagainst injuries, pension schemes, co-determination rights and the like. Tostop the seemingly unfair competition resulting from social dumping, theypostulate an international harmonisation of social conditions and sometimesthey even advocate retaliatory trade restrictions to enforce harmonisation. Forexample, restricting the import of carpets from India that are made by childlabour. But at times the developed countries, in order to protect the interestsof their industries, take it as a tool to restrict import from less developedcountries where labor is comparatively cheap and hence the production cost,which enables the less developed countries to take over the market in developedcountries with comparatively lesser priced products.

Labour Reforms and Deteriorating Labour WelfareLabour market deregulationhas been an important feature of the structural adjustment programme. Therehas been explicit deregulation, whereby formal regulations have been erodedor abandoned by legislative means, and implicit deregulation whereby remainingregulations have been made less effective through inadequate implementationor systematic bypassing. Such deregulation has been based on the belief thatexcessive government intervention in the labour market through such measuresas public sector wage and employment policies, minimum wage fixing, andemployment security rules is a serious impediment to adjustment and shouldtherefore be removed or relaxed. States around the world has felt compelledto ease labour standards, modify tax regulations and generally relax standardsof security and oversight in the bid to attract more and more FDI. Thisprogressively lowered labour standards. The big corporate companies like TNCsand MNCs have evolved a vendor system of subcontracting for their production.The companies give out their work to labourers, through contractors, who inturn deliver the output to the company. This results in job insecurity of thelabourer and worsening of labour welfare since there is no checking system fortheir welfare. The current pace of globalisation also results in casualisation or informalisation

of the work force causing low wages for labourers and less job security, although it created employment opportunities to some of the work force. The growthof the informal sector means that the traditional employment related benefitsand mechanisms of protection are not available to those employed in thissector. Increased mechanisation and use of new technology demand moreskilled labour and displace unskilled labour. The new technologies and fastchanging market – the resultant features of globalisation – also tend to makeexisting skills obsolete and require upgradation, new skills and multi-skilling. Italso opens up new markets, which workers can reach by adapting existing ortraditional skills.Liberalisation of the economy has in some sectors caused loss of employmentwithout creation of new employment. Opening up of the market and free flowof trade and low tariffs encouraged flow of foreign goods lowering theemployment opportunities of Indian labourers. For example, thousands of silkspinners and twisters of Bihar have totally lost their job due to the import ofChina-Korea silk yarn as weavers and consumers prefer this yarn because it issomewhat cheap and shiny.

Feminisation of LabourWomen have entered the labour force in large numbers in countries that haveembraced liberal economic policies. Industrialisation in the context ofglobalisation is as much female-led as it is export-led (UN 1999). The overalleconomic activity rate of women for the age group 20-54 approached 70% in1996. The highest absorption of women has been witnessed in the exportoriented industrial sector. This is especially the case in the export processingzones and special economic zones and in those labour intensive industriesthat have relocated to developing countries in search of cheap labour (Hillary1999). Investors have demonstrated a preference for women in the softindustries such as apparel, shoe- and toy-making, data processing, semiconductorassembling industries that require unskilled to semi-skilled labour.Nevertheless this did not ensure a better status for women in any way. Theinformal sector where women were absorbed in large numbers along withglobalisation offer very poor labour conditions. Such industries where womenwere mostly engaged happened to be highly labour intensive, service orientedand poorly paid. In many countries workers in the export processing zonesfind unionisation and collective bargaining nearly impossible. In call centres inIndia women comprise an estimated 40% of the workforce.

PovertyPovertyOpening up of economies was primarily visualised as a mechanism where tradewould function as “an engine of growth” and the fruits of growth would“trickle down” to the poor. However, the results have been mixed, with manycountries observing widening inequalities in their economies, contrary to theconventional trade theory prescriptions (Bardhan 2003). The internalisationsof trade has opened up vistas for globalisation of production, creating profoundchanges in the labour market, such as widening wage disparity, increasingcontractualisation of work, skill-based segregation of work, etc. The globalisationand liberalisation policies resulted in impoverishing more and more people ofthe lower strata the world around. Industrialisation and genetic engineeringof food and globalisation of trade in agriculture accelerated poverty in theagriculture-based nations of the world. The globalisation of non-sustainableindustrial agriculture adversely affected the incomes of the farmers of thedeveloping and least developed countries through a combination of devaluationof currencies, increase in costs of production and a collapse of commodityprices, all resulting from the liberalisation of the economy.

In India the first generation reforms concentrated on the industrial economyand the agricultural and rural sector were neglected. In the urban sector thelarge metropolitan cities are the most immediately affected from liberalisationand globalisation, with significant changes in land use and work patterns. Theclaims made in the beginning of reforms that they are going to bring aboutemployment growth does not seem to be true after studying the data for thepost-reform period (Chadha and Sahu 2002; Sunderam 2001).Economic liberalisation and globalisation had a direct impact both on rural andurban poverty. The substantial changes the institutional arrangement for ruralcredit, a key factor in helping the poor to escape poverty, due to the reformsin the banking sector have gone against the interests of the rural poor. Theunsustainable development practices also lead to the impoverishment of thepoor. The decline in social sector expenditure or stagnation in social sectorexpenditure in proportion to GDP also went against the interests of the poor.In urban areas, the large scale private investment, both foreign and Indian, ledto the acquisition of city lands which in turn affected the poor, mainly slumdwellers, hawkers, destitutes, street dwellers as they were pushed out of thecity to the peripheries which are marked by degeneration with low valueemployment and poor living conditions.

e) Unsustainable Development PracticesThe developmentpractices followed the world over during the globalisation era marked by a highlevel of market competitiveness often seemed to follow unsustainabledevelopment practices.For instance, in India the replacement of native seeds by imported hybridseeds or cash crops resulted in more and more exploitation of ground waterthrough tube-wells since these crops need more water. The over exploitationof the groundwater in turn resulted in the depletion of ground water levelleading to famines and poverty. The high yielding hybrid seeds are vulnerableto pest attacks resulting in more use of pesticides. The indiscriminate use ofchemical-based fertilizers, especially subsidised fertilizer, has created animbalance between the essential mineral contents such as Nitrogen andPottasium. There is a growing realisation of the degradation of land, water andenvironment due to the current pattern of agricultural production and itssustainability among the people (Chand 1999). The export oriented policy ofthe Indian government in the fisheries sector opened up the waters of theExclusive Economic Zone to MNCs and TNCs for fish trawling. This resulted inthe indiscriminate destruction of the marine eco system and the livelihood ofthe traditional fishing community.

Migration and UrbanisationBut the current pace of economic globalisation has put a new spinon global migration, causing global uprootedness and human displacement onan unprecedented scale. Estimates say that nearly 1 out of 6 people in thisworld, more than one billion people, are crossing national borders as migrantworkers (Moussa 1999). Migration for many becomes not a choice but aneconomic necessity mainly because of the unequal development betweennations, and between rural and urban centres. Urbanisation is an important driving force for commuting because urban areasoffer many economic opportunities to rural people. Urban labour markets offeropportunities to switch jobs rapidly, diversify incomes, and become upwardlymobile with a very low asset base and skills although there is a lot of variationin the rate of urbanisation around the world. The pattern of economic force,not the rate of economic force, acts as a determining factor in the increasing

rate of urbanisation (Deshingkar and Anderson 2004). Economic growth basedon the expansion of manufacturing industry, a trade mark of currentglabalisation, tends to be associated with higher rates of urbanisation whilegrowth based on the expansion of agriculture is associated with the reverse.Though it is too early to say with certainty how agreements through WTO willaffect urbanisation, it is predicted that if the economic growth pattern isshifting towards manufacturing, there is likely to be a higher rate of urbanisationthan there would be with agriculture-based growth (Stevens et al 2004). It islikely therefore that countries such as China whose comparitive advantage liesmainly in labour intensive manufactured produces will see an acceleration ofrural-urban migration, both temporary and long term. The driving force will bethe expansion of labour-intensive exports, which will boost the demand forlabour in urban areas, and widen wage gaps between rural and urban areas.South Asia on the other hand is likely to have a greater emphasis on agricultural produce and export of skilled services such as IT, both of which may notcreate such a great demand for labour in urbanised areas. At the same timecheap imports — a result of liberalisation measures and low import tariffs — canthreaten local agricultural production systems with the result that illiteratepeople with a limited skills base might migrate to urban areas in search of work(see Box 20.4). There is also evidence that in India people move away from;farming sector due to macro-economic reforms where reduction of subsidiesand removal of inter-district movements of grains have put smaller farmers outof business. In such cases the option before them is to migrate to placeswhere there are better economic opportunities.

Commercialisation of Indigenous KnowledgeThe globalisation process invades territories, habitats and resources ofindigenous people, which may lead to destruction of their way of life. Bigcorporate entities get access to indigenous knowledge and patent it for theirgain and profit. The result can be that the indigenous people and the rest ofthe humanity will have to pay for access to the knowledge that will thus havebeen commercialised.Pharmaceutical corporations in the United States of America under theauspicious of Human Genome Diversity Programme, are patenting the indigenouspeople themselves. They monopolise the use of seed, medicines and traditionalknowledge systems and human genomes. Even the life supporting systems ofhumanity such as land, water, wildlife, aquatic life, mineral resources becamecommodities in the present globalisation process at the cost of the lives andlivelihoods of vast majorities around the world. This may result in environmentaldevastation, social displacement, wiping out of cultural and biological diversity.Also, the centralised management of natural resources imposed by trade andinvestment agreements does not have space for intergenerational and intragenerationalsustainability.

Rising Inequality in Wealth ConcentrationGlobalisation is a very uneven process, with unequal distribution of benefitsand losses. In the ongoing process of globalisation investment resources, growthand modern technology are focussed in a few countries such as North America,Europe, Japan, and the East Asian countries, which are the newly industrialisedcountries of the world. The majority of the developing countries are excludedfrom the process and participating in marginal ways that are often detrimentalto their interests; for example, import liberalisation may harm their domesticproducers and financial liberalisation may cause instability (Nayyar 1997).Globalisation affects different categories of countries differently. While growthand expansion is visible in fully participating countries, moderate and fluctuating

growth is seen in some countries attempting to fit into the new globalisedframework and marginalisation and deterioration are experienced by manycountries unable to get out of acute problems such as commodity prices anddebt. The uneven and unequal nature of the present globalisation process ismanifested in the fast growing gap between world’s rich and poor people andbetween developed and developing countries and in the large differencesamong nations in the distribution of gains and losses. Polarisation amongcountries has also been accompanied by increasing income inequality withincountries. In India, average incomes rose more rapidly in urban areas than inrural areas between 1993 and 2000, implying the widening gaps between ruraland urban areas.

Cultural Dimension of GlobalisationGlobalisation has a profound effect on all our cultures and on the ways we liveour lives. It has affected what we eat and the way we prepare our food, whatwe wear and the materials from which our clothing is made, it has affectedthe music we hear, the books we read, even the language we used tocommunicate with others. Globalisation has made certain languages extinct(dead language) or dying, for example, Latin. At the same time more peopletoday are bilingual or multi-lingual than ever before. English, though in variantforms (e.g., British English, American English, Indian English) has become thelingua franca and the number of English speakers throughout the world isgrowing rapidly. The central problem of today’s global interactions is the tensionbetween cultural homogenization and cultural hetrogenisation (Appadurai A.2003). While scholars like Mc Luhan talk about global integration and globalvillage, which may result from the process of globalisation, and resulting culturalintegration across borders, there have been apprehensions about culturalmarginalisation or cultural exclusion as well. Global flows of goods, ideas andpeople and capital can seen as a threat to the national culture in many ways(HDR 2004).

Increased Pace of Cultural PenetrationCultural change or cultural dynamics has always been a product of interactionwith other cultures. Though individual cultures are capable of endogamousdevelopments, cultural boundaries are quite often porous leading to theinterpenetration of cultures. Cultural dynamism is the outcome of a processof mixing; borrowing and adapting cultural attributes and often the attributesthat are borrowed and adopted come from cultures that are alien, distant andforeign.

Historically cultural dynamism has been greatest where trade and exchange ingeneral have been voluminous and frequent. National and regional cultures areinvariably a product of assimilation of various elements from other cultures, ofa synthesis of elements that is a product of cultural interpenetration.Seaports and river ports have historically been centres of cultures andcivilisation. Today in the hi-tech communication era, in which ICTs madecommunication easier, faster and cheaper than in the past, more and morecultural interpenetration is taking place. In other words, we can put it thatthe acceleration of globalisation hasten the pace of cultural change.Cultural interpenetration through the exchange of commodities is today sopervasive that it is difficult if not impossible to distinguish between original Historically cultural dynamism has been greatest where trade and exchange ingeneral have been voluminous and frequent. National and regional cultures areinvariably a product of assimilation of various elements from other cultures, ofa synthesis of elements that is a product of cultural interpenetration.Seaports and river ports have historically been centres of cultures and

civilisation. Today in the hi-tech communication era, in which ICTs madecommunication easier, faster and cheaper than in the past, more and morecultural interpenetration is taking place. In other words, we can put it thatthe acceleration of globalisation hasten the pace of cultural change.Cultural interpenetration through the exchange of commodities is today sopervasive that it is difficult if not impossible to distinguish between originaland imported cultural attributes. Consider a person drinking ‘Turkish Coffee’in Istanbul. The coffee originated in Ethiopia, the sugar in India or NewGuinea, the porcelain cup in China, the tablecloth in the restaurant is madefrom cotton, which originated from a plant domesticated in Central America,and the restaurant itself is a French invention. Likewise diseases, whichoriginated in one place of the world, are exported to other parts of the world,e.g., HIV/AIDs exported from Africa to the rest of the world. The penetrationof global music has resulted in the marginalisation of traditional music amongdifferent cultures of the world. Today, pop music and its local variations canbe heard in all social settings from weddings to religious festivals and birthdaycelebrations.b) The Globalisation of CultureTrade agreements have removed all obstacles and resistance to corporateinvasion and control of human society. With liberalisation of telecommunications,corporate culture is set to rule the world. Today the whole world is wired andplugged into the same TV programmes, movies, news, music, lifestyles andentertainment. Satellite cables, phones, Walkman, VCDs, DVDs and retail giantsand other marvels and wonders of entertainment technology are creating themass marketing of culture and expansion of consumer culture. This may leadto a homogenised global culture. In the case of the media industry, the logicof profit and competition has driven media corporations to enlarge media andspace markets, and to break down the old boundaries and frontiers of nationalcommunities.With the advancement of science and technology and the improvement ofmarkets, the earth has turned into a global village. It has also resulted in theemergence of global mass culture due to the increase in consumerism. It maymake for increasing similarities in life styles around the world evading localcultural heritage.The contemporary global communication technologies lead to a globalisation ofculture, which may undermine the meaning of community and traditionalinstitutions and values of life. For example in India it has ended the traditionof story telling through which the old handed over their experience, culture,traditions, oral history and way of life to the young who had a sense of placeand their roots (Mander 1996). Likewise the computers become the substitutefor human interactions.Our own culture is being systematically appropriated and “commodified”. Folkand tribal festivals are being packaged and marketed through electronic media,plucked out of context and cut off from their roots (Panikkar 1995).

c) Development of Hybrid CultureLike the two faces of Janus, globalisation at times has been inclusive andintegrating and at other times unequalising and exclusivist. This is true ofcultural impact also. As globalisation may lead to one single world culture or a homogenised culture, it is also likely to lead to new permutations, newcombinations, new options and new cultures (Griffin 2004). Thus globalencounters and interactions may produce inventive new cultural forms. In thissense there emerges a “third culture” or hybrid culture the trademark ofwhich is social innovation and change co-existing with continuities and traditionin social and cultural life.d) Resurgence of Cultural Nationalism

Globalisation also gives rise to active cultural campaigning to defend localidentities. Nations reject global cultural integration and people remain loyal tolocal histories, identities and traditions. For example, European countries havecampaigned against the threat of Americanisation (standardisation) and havedefended the diversity and difference of European cultures. It is also possibleto have attempts within the country by certain sections of people who refuseto integrate or adopt alien cultures as well as conduct massive movementsagainst this trend. For example Shiv Sena activists have been campaigningagainst Valentine’s Day celebrations in India.

The dark side of globalisationGlobalisation has brought us closer to “the end of geography” as we have known it. The compression of time and space triggered by the Third Industrial Revolution —roughly, since 1980 — has changed our interactions with the international environment. For many, globalisation — the intensified cross-border exchange of goods, services, capital, technology, ideas, information, legal systems, and people — is both desirable and irreversible, having underwritten a rising standard of living throughout the world. Others recoil from globalisation as they feel it is the soft underbelly of corporate imperialism that plunders and profiteers on the back of rampant consumerism.

Globalisation is not uncontrolled. The movement of people remains tightly restricted. The flow of capital is highly asymmetrical. Over the last two decades, overseas development assistance from the rich to poor countries has totalled $50-80 billion per year. In the same period, every year, $500-800 billion of illegal funds have been sent from the poor to rich countries. That is, for every one dollar of aid money over the table, the West gets back $10 under the table and, for good measure, lectures the rest on corruption.

The benefits and costs of linking and delinking are unequally distributed. Industrialised countries are mutually interdependent; developing countries are largely independent in economic relations with one another; and developing countries are highly dependent on industrialised countries. Brazil, China and India are starting to change this equation.

There is a growing divergence in income levels between countries and peoples, with widening inequality among and within nations. Assets and incomes are more concentrated. Wage shares have fallen. Profit shares have risen. Capital mobility alongside labour immobility has reduced the bargaining power of organised labour.

The deepening of poverty and inequality — prosperity for a few countries and people, marginalisation and exclusion for the many — has implications for social and political stability among and within states. The rapid growth of global markets has not seen the parallel development of social and economic institutions to ensure balanced, inclusive and sustainable growth. Labour rights have been less sedulously protected than capital and property rights, and global rules on trade and finance are inequitable. This has asymmetric effects on rich and poor countries.

Even before the global financial crisis (GFC), many developing countries were worried that globalisation would impinge adversely on economic sovereignty,

cultural integrity and social stability. “Interdependence” among unequals translates into the dependence of some on international markets that function under the dominance of others. The GFC confirmed that absent effective regulatory institutions, markets, states and civil society can be overwhelmed by rampant transnational forces.

Globalisation has also let loose the forces of “uncivil society” and accelerated the transnational flows of terrorism, human and drug trafficking, organised crime, piracy, and pandemic diseases. This is the subject of our new book, The Dark Side of Globalization (UNU Press, 2011). The growth of these transnational networks threatens state institutions and civil society in many countries.

What can developing nations do to manage the challenges of globalisation?

The outright rejection of globalisation and a retreat into autarky is neither practical nor desirable: who wants to be the next Myanmar or North Korea? As one wag has put it, opposing globalisation is like opposing the sun coming up every morning, and about as fruitful. Equally, though, who wants to be the next Iceland, Greece or Ireland? The notion that endless liberalisation, deregulation and relaxation of capital and all border controls (except labour) will assure perpetual self-sustaining growth and prosperity has proven to be delusional. The three Baltic nations that embarked on this course (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) — to which, for good measure, they added the flat tax — all had double-digit negative growth in 2009.

For developing countries, lowering all barriers to the tides of the global economy may end up drowning much of local production. Raising barriers that are too high may be counterproductive, if not futile. Countries that find the golden middle, like Chile and Singapore, tend to thrive, channelling the enormous opportunities offered by an expanding world economy for the benefit of their citizens. Those that do not, like many in Central and Western Africa, are marginalised and left behind.

Finding the right, if difficult, balance between openness and regulation requires keeping a watchful eye on trans-border crimes that thrive in the interstices of the national and the international. Illicit trade, accounting for 10 per cent of global economic product according to some estimates, could be growing at seven times the rate of growth of legal trade.

The growth in transnational flows has not been matched by an equivalent growth in global governance mechanisms to regulate them. And yet the very nature of the structure of globalised networks, which intertwine global actors and interests, ensures that no single power is able to maintain its position within the newly emerging global disorder without making compromises with other global players.

In Africa, home to 36 of the world's 50 least developed countries, state weakness often has opened the door to transnational crime and terrorism. Garth le Pere and Brendan Vickers highlight six pathologies that are particularly prevalent across Africa: illegal exploitation of natural resources, terrorism, the drug trade, illegal migration and human trafficking, gun running, and money laundering. According to some, Guinea Bissau has already become the world's first narco-state.

One response to global governance gaps that have made these illegal activities possible has beenregional governance. The transfer of state functions to supranational forms of regional governance could enhance the capacity of individual states to combat uncivil society. The sharing of expertise, institutions, policy tools, personnel and other resources can go a long way in stemming the tide of unwanted activities.

Human trafficking is among the darkest sides of globalisation, turning human beings into commodities bought and sold in the international marketplace. Women and children are among the most exposed to it. NGOs from all continents attempt to cope with this nefarious activity and report on those involved in it.

Southern Africa has witnessed the rise of elaborate transnational crime organisations. The illegal trafficking in narcotics, mineral resources, ivory, counterfeit products and stolen property is thriving. International crime syndicates exploit government weaknesses to make huge profits. Illegal migration and money laundering rob the state of valuable human and material resources, in a region that desperately needs them.

A different kind of challenge is posed by insurgencies that thrive as a result of the inequalities created by globalisation. The “development dichotomy” explains why dramatic national-level progress in India has gone hand in hand with an ever greater gap between the prosperity of urban, middle-class Indians and the squalor still seen in many of its 600,000 villages where most Indians live. Uprooted from ancestral lands and unable to adapt to the demands of a modern economy, aboriginal populations (Adivasis) often see revolutionary redemption as the only way out of their predicament.

Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers, on the other hand, might well have been one of the most globalised terrorist movements anywhere. Part of the reason for their considerable, if ultimately transient, success was the effective way they relied on the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora both to obtain resources and to marshal political support for their cause.

Jihadists have excelled at using modern IT and telecom technology to promote their cause and foster their objectives, building on the link between the drug trade and terrorism pioneered by the CIA in Southeast Asia, Central America and Afghanistan. Jihadis have perfected into an art form the international transfer of funds in ways that are essentially untraceable, by relying on ancient mechanisms that replicate the old-fashioned way Osama bin Laden gets his information — through pieces of paper brought to him by hand by loyal messengers — which is one reason he remains at large.

It remains to be seen whether the GFC has brought to an end globalisation as we have known it for three decades. But there is little doubt that the “dark side” of globalisation is here to stay.

analysing the  development of capitalism, one seminal point that he made was that as capitalism develops, there

is a tendency towards centralisation and concentration of capital and over a period of time, you will have fewer

and fewer capitalists but larger and larger capitalists. This, I think,   in the era of Globalisation has turned out to

be absolutely true. Because, what we see developing particularly before this new offensive which we call

Globalisation came into being in the world, is a very high degree of concentration of capital in a few hands.  The

water shed, in that sense, the distinguishing characteristic of this phase of Globalisation is what is now often

defined as Globalisation of finance capital. This finance capital which essentially was capital that used to live of

and live on the industrial capital has branched of to become a powerful source on it’s own. It’s dimension can be

understood, for instance, by the fact that world trade today is some thing to the tune of seven trillion dollars

annually. The financial flows in the world today are to the tune of some thing like 400 trillion dollars. That is

more than 50 times the actual trade in the world is actually taking place in terms of financial speculation and

financial activity.  This finance capital that has grown in such a dimension has specific features.

Thanks to the technological advances it is instantly mobile across the globe in it’s search for profits. It can travel

across the globe within seconds. So there is no barrier so to speak for the movement of this financial capital and

since the barrier for movements don’t exist the immediate demand that follows from this development is that no

sovereign nation or a country can  impose any barrier on this flow. So the development of this phase of

Globalisation, with the expansion and concentration of this international finance capital, makes a corollary

demand for maximising it’s profits: There cannot be any conditions, restrictions or barriers for it’s movement

across the countries.  This is the first characteristic, the demand on sovereign countries to adopt Financial

Liberalisation, i.e., do not impose any conditions on the flow of finance capital. This is one part that the

developments taking place.

The other part of development that is taking place internationally was the  high degree of concentration of

industrial capital. All of you are aware about the growth of the multinational corporations and the dominance

that they actually have over the world. In fact, some of these corporations have annual sales, which are larger

than the GDPs of many countries.  American multinational corporations and, in fact, the top 200 companies in

the world today are estimated to account for nearly one-third of the world’s income. This concentration of

industrial capital also demands that in the search for maximisation of their profits, conditions where there are

minimal or no restrictions imposed on the inflow and outflow of this capital into various countries. So therefore,

the demand that came in from the internationalisation of finance capital to do away with all restrictions on it’s

flow, is buttressed by the demand that comes from the centralisation of industrial capital which also says

restrictions should be removed and no country will have the right to impose any conditions on the entry of this

industrial capital into  those countries in search of maximisation of their profits by exploiting their resources and

their cheap labour etc.

Therefore from both ends, from the development of finance capital and the development of industrial capital,

there was a tendency in the international development of capitalism  to move towards this phase of

Globalisation, that we see now.  Add to this the similar demands on having no restriction on trade flows and the

picture of globalisation is complete.

This is not happening because of the will of somebody but this is happening because internal  dynamics of

capitalism itself is such that it brings you to this point  where the higher degree of concentration capital demands

a newer global order. So that the fundamental aspect of capitalism, that of maximisation of profits, continues

unhindered. So the objective law of capitalist development is pushing the world towards this phase of

what we call Globalisation. It is, therefore, the system and not a set of any individuals or countries

that are responsible for this development. The second aspect is the subjective utilisation of these

objective conditions by the western countries particularly by the United States of America-led

imperialism. With the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the economic

counter-veiling power that existed globally collapsed. These former socialist economies were also

sucked into the vortex of the global capitalism. Once this happened, the onward march of global

capital for maximising it’s profits did not have any sort of an obstacle that it used to face during the

four decades after the second world war. In such a situation, you had a vision of a new world order

that was articulated by present Bush’s father, i.e., Bush senior, when he was the President of United

States of America. This vision envisaged the global domination of the West particularly of

imperialism under the leadership of United States of America. It was given a concrete and also a

legal shape. The institutions of the IMF, the World Bank, and the later-formed WTO in 1994 -- all

became the instruments to put into practice this new world order. The main objective in my opinion

is to create conditions where by the rest of the world, that is the developing world, is again brought

back into a bondage of economic slavery. Globalisation, as it is currently envisioned by imperialism,

is actually a blueprint for the economic recolonisation of the developing world. That is put together

13 per cent goes to two-thirds of the humanity and 87 per cent goes to the top one third and this

trend that is widening. The essential point that emerges is the intensification of the exploitation of

the people on a global scale. There are more than 100 countries who are actually poorer today than

they were 15 years ago. That is, in absolute terms, there is a decline in their incomes

correspondingly, in absolute terms, there is increase in profits generated by the global capital from

their countries. This process of Globalisation, therefore, represents the classical shift in the balance

of forces away from the people towards big capitalists. This is the political impact of this

Globalisation: shift in favour of multinational capital and their profits at global level and, in the

process, economic exploitation of third world countries or the developing world has been

intensified. Therefore, the singular-defining feature of Globalisation at the international scale is the

growing of inequalities. The growing of inequalities between countries and the growing of

inequalities inside countries between the rich and the poor. The classic feature of liberalisation has

been the intensification of exploitation, capitalist exploitation of the Indian people where by profits

have grown , people’s capacity to spend has decreased, as a result of which, overall economy is in a

phase of recession. This is very typical of a liberalised economy, because the objective is not overall

economic growth but to maintain and increase the levels of profits of your capitalist class. nothing

typifies the actual graphic description of this liberalised economy as the mountain of food stocks you

have on one hand and the starvation deaths and distress suicides of farmers on the other. It has

wide ranging impact on everything else connected with our lives. It impacts our entire culture or the

entire value system, on the milieu in which we are living. Again I go back to Marx. 150 years ago, he

actually said that capitalism not only produces the object for the subject but it also produces

subjects for the object. He made a very penetrating statement. In today’s advertising world if you

see this what is actually being created. You are creating human beings who are capable of

consuming certain products. The emphasis is no longer on creating the products that are required by

the human beings rather creating human beings that are required for the products. This is essentially

the defining feature of culture under Globalisation. Human beings are reduced to the status of

products who will consume the other products that capitalism produces. This entire trend of culture

-- consumerism, degeneration etc -- creates it’s own atmosphere which effects every aspect of our

life and society. One immediate impact can be seen in the declining political culture. Globalisation has thrown

up in India absolutely newer avenues for corruption, which were unheard of or unconceivable ten years ago. The

entire range of corruption that you find in our country today and the political corruption that you find as a

consequence --  flood gates have been opened by this process of Globalisation.

Globalisation and liberalisation mean the opening up of areas for kickbacks and commissions to a large extent.

In the process, the entire culture of corruption if we may call it, has undergone a `revolutionary' change where

you find the ways in which money can be made has not only expanded but it is having a tremendous impact on

the political life of this country. This is an important aspect because the causality here is actually genuine

democracy and the obvious consequence is the very sharp rise in political opportunism. This sharp rise in

political opportunism also is creating a degree of political instability which will seek to move the polity towards

authoritarianism. The degeneration of polity seeks to divorce politics from all democratic content and reduce it

to sordid bargaining and manouvering.

The type and scope of corruption in the Globalisation period is enormously enlarged. This is having a

direct impact on the polity: who will form the governments and who will not form the governments.

So, with this Globalisation, liberalisation you have an active involvement of the corporate sector and

big money in defining or deciding on what type of government you will have, what sort of parties

will come together with whom and there fore the entire process of your political institutions and the

political structure of our country itself is being altered significantly. Globalisation is having a serious

impact on the content of democracy that we have, spread of democracy that we have. Let us return

to culture at large.  Globalisation is accompanied by a need to homogenise the product, even the cultural

product. The more homogenous the product, the  greater the market it has whether. Where ever you go in the

world, you will have the same soaps, same toothpaste, and the same sort of other products that you will find in

our country. The homogenisation of the product is the first step in a globalised economy for maximisation of

profits by the multinational corporations. Homogenisation of products also has a natural consequence in the

homogenisation of culture. Studies have shown that in Sub-Saharan Africa, people may not have anything to eat,

they may not know how to read and write but the moment you show them Walt Disney's mickey mouse, they

will recognise it. This is  homogenisation of a certain thought process and homogenisation of certain symbols.

Homogenisation of symbols requires cultural products to be produced on mass scale. One immediate impact is

that all the rich variations in the cultural legacies will be eliminated in order to create the homogenised product.

This is the essence of culture of globalisation -- homogenisation of cultural products and symbols.

In India, the communal forces and communalism in a way also requires the homogenisation of  culture.  For

them, this is essential to portray that the entire cultural heritage of this country is a monolithic heritage that is

derived only from the Hindu religion.  The plurality and the diversity and all that variety that we have is actually

sought to be erased by giving a communal interpretation of culture. The impact you will find also in education

and in the entire area of knowledge. Therefore, to homogenise this culture requires efforts to actually rewrite or

redefine our own diverse cultural heritage and put it into one singular monolith.  This is the ideological project

of the communal forces.

So globalisation's need for homogenisation of cultural products globally dovetails with the communal forces

need to homogenise cultural products domestically. Saffronisation of education, rewriting of Indian history, or

the symbolism that is constantly being shown or assimilation of non Hindu religions into the Hindu fold, this

entire process that is taking place at the ideological subterrian is directed towards this project of creating a

homogenised culture which actually suits the agenda of communalism. n the sphere of polity, we have

situations where political alignments are decided by which type of economic policies will be pursued.

The nature of political culture is defined on the basis of your commitment towards liberalisation and

to that extent the fall in political morality also takes place correspondingly with a higher dosage of

liberalisation and globalisation that takes place. Globalisation uses it for it’s agenda of mass

production of cultural products. Together they are wreaking havoc with Indian society. It is a serious

danger for India's unity and integrity. All those of you who are familiar with computer technology and use

your e-mails will know a big movement is growing today and has millions of followers world wide called the

free software movement -- the Linnux/GNU movement.  What is that? It is a revolt taking place at one level. We

have to recognise that this is a revolt that is taking place against new manifestation of capitalistic exploitation.

This is telling Microsoft that we will not give you super profits for your control of your copy right of the

software.  We will have our alternative and  millions of people are doing this all over the world voluntarily, not

really connected with each other through any party or through any mass organisation. But their voluntary

response,  that is the essence of what Marx said, capitalist exploitation by itself generates the rebellion against

exploitation and that is what has to be organised in order to over throw capitalism. But the fact that it is

triggering a rebellion is something we will have to understand. What is it the other new area where the struggles

are emerging? I am sure many of you are familiar with a book called NOLOGO by a person called Naomi Klien.

If you are not, I seriously suggest you procure a copy and read it. Two weeks ago, the London Economist, one

of the most respected but right wing journals of the world, had a cover story on this NOLOGO calling it

PROLOGO. The book is against corporate brands and the main point it makes is that modern day capitalism is

no longer interested in producing products, as I told you earlier. It is interested in familiarising brands like 

Nike, Coca-Cola etc. Where the product is produced is not important. The product might be produced in

Thailand or it may be produced in Malaysia or produced anywhere but it is the brand that is important because it

is the brand that sells.  As a result,  in the advanced countries, millions of people are loosing jobs.  She explains

the whole situation and then she notes the protests that are emerging in the universities of the west. How are

these protests emerging? Suddenly in the night, she says, in Toronto a group of youngsters decided to go and

blacken all the logos, all the major advertisements and destroy their Neon signs. Who are these youngsters?

Why are they doing this? Behind this is the expression of revolt against capitalist exploitation under new

conditions.  It is finding newer forms.

Globalisation and nationalism

IT IS fashionable to argue, especially amongst the Left, that globalisation and belligerent Hindu nationalism are two sides of the same coin. This argument is premised, in part, on a historical conjuncture. During much of the 1990s, India's integration into the world economy and Hindu nationalism seemed to rise in tandem. In part, this association was a consequence of the fact that Hindu nationalism seemed so effectively to be able to mobilise a globally mobile and well-networked diaspora for its own ends. It received funds from them, used their considerable social and intellectual influence for its ideological purposes. And what could be better proof of the thesis that integration into the larger world economy generates an identity crisis that feeds into a belligerent nationalism, than the fact that the most successful of Indians seemed to be susceptible to Hindu nationalism?

While this association of globalisation with the rise in Hindu nationalism had surface plausibility, the evidence of their interconnection is thinner than is normally supposed. For one thing, this thesis assumes that there was something extraordinarily distinctive about nationalist politics during the 1990s. In actual fact, Hindu nationalism has a long and powerful pedigree that predates globalisation and was squarely a product of causes that have little to do with globalisation: the politics of paranoia that the Congress fuelled during the 1970s and 1980s, the uncertainties in the economic outlook that were produced by the lack of reform rather than as a result of it, and a brilliant technique of political mobilisation perfected by the Bharatiya Janata Party, all of which had little to do with globalisation.

There is no doubt that greater integration into the world economy, or even the aspiration, transforms an understanding of national interest. For one thing, greater integration into the world has made the BJP a little more solicitous of India's image. India always cared a good deal about what the rest of the world thought of it but it now cares for a more tangible measure of its success: its ability to attract investment and jobs from overseas. It is difficult to think of this as mattering unless India had greater aspirations to integrate into the global economy. In subtle ways, the desire to present India in a certain light has forced the Government to confront questions about India's credibility; it has nudged it to make sure that India gets the headlines for the right reasons.

Take another area of promise: the burgeoning free trade agreements within South Asia, including the prospect of South Asian Free Trade Area, an important means towards regional peace and stability. It is difficult to even contemplate a discourse on free trade agreements in the region independently of a context where these economies were not thinking of globally integrating. SAFTA is far from being done, but if a modicum of regional peace comes to the sub-continent, globalisation will have a lot to do with it.

Belligerent nationalism feeds on a politics of anxiety. Compared to the early 1980s, the politics of anxiety seems to have diminished in intensity. This is, in no small measure, due to two factors. India has become more confident of its ability to deal with the rest of the world, and it is difficult to imagine this confidence in the absence of the process of globalisation. Rather than producing an identity crisis, globalisation has given an opportunity to India to feel less insecure. In an autarkic world, we had no sense of how we might prove our possibilities. Globalisation, by providing opportunities for international success, has made that anxiety less pressing.

Arguably, the diaspora and globalisation have, at least for the time being, helped India to ensure that balance of payments crises are things of the past. It is not accident that despite high fiscal deficits, the BJP can think of doling out huge sops without running the

risk of inflation or a run on the currency. If we did not have these foreign exchange reserves, our economic policy options would be even fewer than they are now. Governments would have no option but to mobilise on nothing but identity politics. At least, globalisation has given something of a cushion to governments to flirt with doling out goodies to various constituencies to shore up their power. Imagine how few options the BJP would have had if we were running a real risk of a balance of payments crisis or high inflation. Globalisation has helped ensure that our politics is a little more about economics than it used to be. The burden of this argument has been to suggest merely that it is not at all clear that globalisation exacerbates Hindu nationalism. It might even be the cunning of history that globalisation will contain its adversary, nationalism, and recast it in more palatable terms rather than energise it. Belligerent nationalism feeds on a politics of anxiety. Globalisation, by providing opportunities for international success, has made that anxiety less pressing.

The onset of globalisation has also witnessed a growing polarisation of capital in few hands in every society. This has created new sets of “under-privileged” in society. Twenty years down the line no one knows how strong or weak they would be numerically. If the economic growth of the state is achieved without particularly addressing the problems of this section of society in terms of reducing its poverty and inequity, the nation state could face a legitimacy crisis which in turn can lead to a revolutionary change in the very set of state apparatus in many societies. These newly created societal structures might not be as welcoming of the forces of globalisation as its predecessors.

Also correlated is the subject of preparedness on the part of the state to survive the negative consequences of globalisation such as economic crisis and economic downturns. A state which can provide safety nets to its people to “cushion off” the jerks caused by crisis can effectively deal with the problems of poverty and inequity in the longer run. It will be interesting to observe how global trade in its neo-liberal wrappings  equip states with the capacity, instruments and the intentions to provide equitable distribution of resources to its people. A mere economic growth based on few indicators would not necessarily mean that the problem of poverty and inequity has been taken care of.

In the year 2030, states will face forces both from within (because of problems of poverty and inequitable distribution of resources) and without (forces of globalisation.) The real challenge would be on how to deal with the twin problems in such as way that negative consequences of both are neutralised. Without it, economic growth, globalisation and equity may become mutually exclusive sets leading to greater tension in the states in years to come.

Effects of globalization on Indian society

Economic impact:

Positive Impact:

1. Trade with other countries tremendously increased. Exports and imports boomed due to opening up of trade markets.

2. Global food chain / restaurants3. Liberalization of Indian markets for foreign players. This has increased the inflow of

men, money, material, labour, technology etc from foreign countries to India. 4. Markets expanded. Many of the Indian industries have global markets and India

serves as a market for many foreign companies 5. Globalization is responsible for the growth of many industries in India and especially

software industry.6. Growth of MNC’s7. Globalization has given nations greater access to global markets, technology, financial

resources and quality services and skilled human resources.

8.  Improvement in and greater access to quality goods and services and an exponential increase in the volume of trade.

9. Access to global capital resources via the stock market and international debt depending on the economic potential of nations and their markets.

10. Access to technologies depending on the nations responsiveness to respect to protection of IPR and the responsible usage of technologies.

11. Access to the world markets to the skilled human resources from nations with inherent intellectual and technical capabilities (the outsourcing of IT, Pharma, BPO and KPO work).

12. Increase in exports of goods and services in which nations have their respective competencies.

13. Increased the purchasing capability of the nation through the creation of a sizeable middle class which is hungry for quality goods and services while there coexists a large poor class.

14. Shifting of labour force from agricultural sector to industrial sector and thus reducing disguised employment in agricultural sector

15. High quality and low cost products flooded Indian markets increasing consumers’ choices.

16. Growth of organized retail chain.17. Just few years back in India land phone was a prestige symbol but now mobiles can

be seen in the hands of many rich and poor people. 18. In agricultural sector new varieties of farm equipment, new agricultural practices,

applications of biotechnology like drought resistant, pest resistant varieties etc are indirectly due to globalization.

19. Indian companies adopting international standards in the areas of accounting, inventory management, Human resource, marketing, customer relationship management practices etc.

20. Increase in flow of investments from developed countries to developing countries, which can be used for economic reconstruction.

21. India gained highly from the LPG model as its GDP increased to 9.7% in 2007-2008.22. The free flow of Information both general and commercial.

Negative impact:

1. Rich poor divide increased due to unequal distribution of wealth2. Ethical responsibility of business diminished3. Tribes are unable to integrate in the era of globalization and they are facing many

problems due to industrial expansion like land alienation, loss of livelihood, displacement etc

4. High growth but problem of unemployment5. Price hike and inflation of every daily usable commodities6. Native traditional industries in India got badly affected as they are unable to compete

with foreign players.7. Government driven public sector units are in sale due to increased privatization

8. Growth in different sectors became uneven.9. More inflow of money has aggravated the problem of corruption.

Cultural impact:

1. Language:Positive impact:a. Many people in India became bilingual or multilingual than before.b. Prominence of English as a language increased and importance of many regional

languages decreased. Negative impact:a. Some languages got extinct.b. Traditional knowledge that is expressed in the languages that are becoming extinct

is getting unutilized. Many patents are filed internationally which is already mentioned in our traditional literature.

2. Music, dance, entertainment:Positive impact:a. Many foreign musical instruments flooded Indian market.b. Foreign movies became widely available in Indian markets.c. Indian classical music has gained worldwide recognitiond. Fusing western music with Indian traditional music is encouraged among

musicians.e. Many foreigners are learning Indian dance forms like Bharatanatyam while many

Indians are getting attracted to foreign dance forms like salsa, hip-hop etc.

Negative impact:

a. The penetration of global pop music has marginalized the traditional Indian music. b. There is an increase in tendency of playing western songs and pop music during

marriage functions, birthday celebrations, engagements etc.c. Folk and tribal music is nearly extinct. Government is taking steps to preserve it.d. One can see in India that inhibitions have been diluted because of the advent of

media and the medium of entertainment. This has also naturally had some affect on the old cultural values with the focus now being on consumerism and success.

3. Food and Dress:Positive impact:a. Many dresses of foreign brands are available in Indian local markets. Dressing

style, costumes, etc of Indians changed due to globalizationb. Male and female dresses distinction is getting blurred.c. Food and dress habits are internationalizedd. Pizzas, burgers, Chinese foods, and other western foods have become quite

popular. e. Fusion of Indo western clothing is the latest trend. Ex: wearing western jeans and

Indian pyjama or kurtha.

f. A distinct change in life-styles with rapid adaptation to worldwide trends

Negative impact:a. Our traditional food and dress habits are getting changed generation after

generationb. Due to intake of western and fast foods there is a threat of non communicable

diseases like obesity, hyper tension, cardio vascular diseases etc.

4. Religion:Positive impact:a. India is birth place of different religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism,

Sikhism etc. Due to globalization new religions like Christianity entered India and have multi dimensional impact on the culture of India.

Negative impact:a. Conversions to Christianity increased by the financial and institutional support of

western players.

5. Festivals: Positive impact:a. Western festivals like valantines day, friendship day etc are spreading across

India.Negative impact:a. Importance of our traditional native festivals getting decreased. b. Sacred component in our religious festivals is getting decreased and there is

increase of secular component in the form of social gatherings during festivals.6. There is increase in interaction between people of different countries leading to

admixture of cultures.7. Nations have built greater awareness of themselves and the other countries and

cultures of the world. India is not an exception

Social impact:

1. Marriage:Positive impact:a. Love marriages increased and thus parents preference for children wishes

increased.b. Inter religious and inter caste marriages increased and thus caste rigidities and

inequalities getting reduced.Negative impact:a. Divorce rate increased

b. Marriage changed from religious sacrament to civil contract.c. Unmarried boys and girls are sharing same apartment and staying away from their

parents. Thus without marriage live-in relationships are happening in India2. Family:

Positive impact:a. Previously all the members of the family did the same type of work but after

globalization the same family has adapted different types of work depending upon availability and their economic benefits.

b. As husband and wife are employed in most of the cases the child care is taken by day care centers or crèches.

c. Family controls on children are getting weekend and children wishes are seldom ignored

d. Social gatherings are getting increased than religious gatherings.Negative impact:a. Nuclear families increased at the expense of joint familiesb. Family ceased to be a unit of production.c. The voice and decision of elders in the family matters decreased.

3. Education:Positive impact:a. Foreign universities tie up with Indian universities increased.b. Literacy rate increasedc. Scientific and technological innovations have made life comfortable, pleasant and

enjoyable.d. Extension of internet facilities to rural areas and thus increasing awareness in rural

youth.e. Increased access to better and qualitative education.f. The choices for the children increased as there are many streams in education to

pursue. g. Extensive use of information communication technology.Negative impact:a. Education became commercializedb. Pressure on children increased by parents, teachers, peers to get succeed in

education which is essential to compete in this globalized worldc. Education is measured in the number of degrees a person holds rather than the

useful knowledge he gained.4. Society:

Positive impact:a. People shifting from unorganized sector to organized sectorb. Distinction between polluting and non polluting castes getting weakened. c. Social taboos are getting weakenedd. Caste based occupations are getting converted to merit based occupations.Negative impact:a. Rural, urban divide increasedb. Migration of people from rural areas to urban areas due to urbanization

c. Due to extreme mechanization demand for manual labour is decreasing day by day. This leads to increase in unemployment

Political impact:

Positive impact:

a. Awareness about the right to vote increasedb. Opinion forming in many political issues increased with the help of ICT.c. International obligations creating pressures on domestic political system.d. India say in international matters increasede. Financial support from international organizations to India became possible due to

globalizationNegative impact:a. Politico-bureaucracy-industrial nexus increased which is affecting badly the common

manb. Criminalization of politics and politicization of criminals increasedc. Organized crime with political support increased

Environmental impact:Positive impact:a. Awareness and concern about environmental problems increasedb. Technology and financial support from international organizations to combat climate

changeNegative impact:a. Excessive emission of green house gases which leads to climate change and global

warmingb. Land degradation due to excessive use of chemical fertilizersc. Degradation of ozone layer due to release of ozone depleting substances like chloro

floro carbons (CFCs)d. Excessive mining and deforestation caused displacement of millions of people

without proper rehabilitation and resettlement provisions.

. The steps/processes which includes and vis-à-vis fasten the processes of globalization are:-

1. Opening of World Trade,2. Development of advanced means of transport & communication so as fasten the

process of integration,3. Internationalization of World markets,4. Relaxed Population/ Labour migration world vide,5. Increased mobility of persons, goods, ideas, data, capital etc,6. Multi National Companies,7. Multi National Identities, etc.

India’s tryst with globalization: from the very beginning of Indus Valley Civilization India had trade and cultural relations with other countries of world notable are Mesopotamia, South east Asian nations, Greece, Roman Empire, china, Iran/ Iraq etc. In Ancient Civilization we have records of students from various nearby countries coming to Nalanda and Taxila University for receiving education in various fields.

India’s trade relations with Europe grew in Modern times during British occupation of India and continued to remain so till independence. After Independence India’s relation with rest of globe continued to grow through agencies such as NAM & U.N. (both of which India was a founding member).

After that in 1990, Rao-Manmohan LPG model (Liberalization, Privatization & Globalization) = growing economy + globally competitive = growing globalization. This model includes various steps which give a boost to globalization such as:-

1. Scrapping of Industrial licensing regime,2. Reduction in the number of areas reserved for Public sector,3. Amendment of the monopolies & restrictive trade practices Act,4. Start of privatization programme,5. Reduction in tariff areas,6. Change over from controlled to Market determined exchange rates, etc.

Merits and Demerits:

Merits:

1. Jobs from developed countries to developing countries => increase in employment. E.g. BPO/KPO/IT/ Pharmacy jobs from USA/UK/Japan to India => India as a back office of world.

2. International Market for Companies (Global Markets) => their product renounced over worldwide => increase in sales and presence. E.g. Mac Donald’s joint at Kashmiri gate, New Delhi.

3. Consumers have an option to choose from a wide range of products => they can have cheapest, best thing. Choice

4. Increase in flow of foreign capital in form of FDI(back stage cold storage) + FII (hot capital in share markets) => Financial development

5. Flow of information between countries through TV, Internet, etc.6. Cultural interaction => overcome cultural barrier.7. Technological development in developing countries8. Boom in Telecommunication & service industry9. Increase in volume of Trade => development10. Foreign industries are collaborating with different Indian universities => education =>

control on illiteracy + Access to better & quality education/medical services

11. Increased in the purchasing capability of the nation through the creation of a sizeable middle class which is hungry for quality goods and services while there coexists a large poor class whose time is yet to come due to trickledown effect of globalization & development.

12. Extension of internet facilities even to remotest rural areas + Infrastructure development in rural areas => rural development, Inclusive growth, brings rural to main stream economy.

13. We can export what we produce in excess => less wastage + Import what we produce in deficient => meeting of requirements. Win-Win situation

Demerits:

1. Trade deficit (as in case of India) which hurt most in case of under-developed & developing economies & widen the gap between the developed & not so developed economies?

2. Drugs – Arms – Human Trafficking.3. Outsourcing of jobs from developed countries to developing countries =>

Phase 1: loss of jobs in developed countries => unrest in developed countries Phase 2: protectionist measures as recently in USA & Saudi Arabia => against the spirit of globalization + unrest in developing countries workers

4. Spread of communicable diseases like bird flu, swine flu, Japanese encephalitis5. Interlinked economies => slowing down of economies of big players (USA, UK, etc)

=> cause havoc result on economies of developing & under- developed countries. E.g. Global recession which starts in USA => loss in jobs worldwide, economy of almost all countries more or less suffers.

6. Agriculture sector not improved as much as Service & Manufacturing sector. Agriculture share in GDP decreased, numbers of landless families increase, increase in farmers committing suicides. Matter of serious concern for countries like India which being an agriculture economy, more than 80% population directly or indirectly dependent on Agriculture.

7. Workers for same service in developing & under-developed countries are not paid equally to their counterparts in Developed countries => against the principle of equality for all

8. For smaller developing countries at the receiving end, it could indirectly lead to a subtle form of colonization

9. MNC’s ruling the globe.10. Not inclusive & equitable growth, rich becomes richer and poor becomes poorer11. Not sustainable growth, development on growing negligence of environment,

forests, wildlife etc.12. In lure of easy money India’s youth leaving the education in mid-way & joining

BPO’s => decreasing skill level.13. Destruction of traditional service providers. E.g. old restaurants, parathas & lassi

are replaced by Mc. Donald’s, Fast food & Chinese restaurants, cold drinks. In place

of old cinema halls, multiplexes are coming up. In place of local kirana shops, malls have come up.

14. Advanced equipments. This equipment utility reduced the need of human labour force. Hence the rural people are shifting from place to place for want of labour for their livelihood.

15. Natural manure is replaced by synthetic fertilizers environment consequences.16. As there is a shift from food crops to export crops, the prices of food items went on

high, and the poor people couldn't buy from their meager income. Similar trend for clothing, housing health. Inflation

17. Developed countries fetching more benefits while developing & under developed not so much.

Conclusion:

Her GDP has increased since 1991.

She is getting a global recognition and slowly moving towards to become a major economic & political strength.

Though the development is progressing rapidly, still many basic problems like rural poverty, corruption and political instability remained unsolved.

One would expect that the fruits of liberalization and globalization would have a trickledown effect through the collection of taxes and revenues by Government due to increased trade and commerce.

Globalization must be build upon the economic notion that free trade helps everybody and lift the poor out of poverty.

Globalisation and Social Change

What we eat and drink at home with our family and friendsslowly changes. The same set of policy changes affects consumers and producersdifferently. What may mean greater choices for the urban, affluent consumermay mean a crisis of livelihood for a farmer. These changes are personal becausethey affect individuals’ lives and lifestyles. They are obviously also linked topublic policies adopted by the government and its agreement with the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Likewise macro policy changes have meant that instead of one television channel we have literally scores today. The dramatic changes in the media are perhaps the most visible effect of globalisation. We will be discussing this in greater detail in the next chapter. These are just few random examplesbut they may help you to appreciate the close interconnection that exists betweenyour personal lives and the apparently remote policies of globalisation. Asmentioned earlier the sociological imagination enables to make this connectionbetween the micro and the macro, between the personal and public. A study of a village not only meant study of different social groups and their ‘societies’ but would also have to take into account, the ways the village society was linked to the outside world. This linkage is more valid today than ever before. The sociologist or social anthropologist cannot study society as though it was an isolated entity. The compression of space and time has changed this. Sociologists have to study villages, families, movements, child rearing practices, work and leisure, bureaucratic organisations or castes taking this global interconnection into account. Studies will have to take into account the impact of WTO rules on agriculture and therefore on the farmer.The effect of globalisation is far reaching. It affects us all but affects us

differently. Thus, while for some it may mean new opportunities, for others theloss of livelihood. Women silk spinners and twisters of Bihar lost their jobs oncethe Chinese and Korean silk yarn entered the market. Weavers and consumersprefer this yarn as it is somewhat cheaper and has a shine. Similar displacements have come with the entry of large fishing vessels into Indian waters. These vessels take away the fish that used to be earlier collected by Indian fishing vessels. The livelihood of women fish sorters, dryers, vendors and net makers thereby get affected. In Gujarat, women gum collectors, who were picking from the ‘julifera’ (Baval trees), lost their employment due to the import of cheaper gum from Sudan. In almost all cities of India, the rag pickers lost some of their employment due to import of waste paper from developed countries.

It is obvious that globalisation is of great social significance. But as you saw its impact on different sections of society is very different. There are, therefore, sharply divided views about the impact of globalisation regarding its effect. Some believe that it is necessary to herald a better world. Others fear that the impact of globalisation on different sections of people is vastly different. They argue that while many in the more privileged section may benefit, the condition of a large section of the already excluded population worsens. There are yet others who argue that globalisation is not a new development at all.

ARE GLOBAL INTERCONNECTIONS NEW TO WORLD AND TO INDIAIf globalisation is about global interconnections we can ask whether this is really a new phenomenon. Was India or the different parts of the world not interacting with each other in earlier times?

THE EARLY YEARSIndia was not isolated from the world even two thousand years ago. We have read in our history textbooks about the famous Silk route, which centuries ago connected India to the great civilisations, which existed in China, Persia, Egypt and Rome. We also know that through out India’s long past, people from different parts came here, sometimes as traders, sometimes as conquerors, sometimes as migrants in search of new lands and settled down here. Global interactions or even a global outlook are thus not novel developments unique to the modern period or unique to modern India.

COLONIALISM AND THE GLOBAL CONNECTIONthat modern capitalism had a globaldimension from its very inception. Colonialism was part of the system thatrequired new sources of capital, raw materials, energy, markets and a globalnetwork that sustained it. Often globalisation today identifies large-scalemovement of people or migration as a defining feature. You know, however, thatperhaps the greatest movement of people was the migration of European peoplewho settled down in the Americas and Australia. You will remember howindentured labourers were taken away in ships from India to work in distantparts of Asia, Africa and Americas. And the slave trade that carted thousandsof Africans away to distant shores.

INDEPENDENT INDIA AND THE WORLDIndependent India retained a global outlook. In many senses this was inheritedfrom the Indian nationalist movement. Commitment to liberation strugglesthroughout the world, solidarity with people from different parts of the worldwas very much part of this vision. Many Indians travelled overseas for educationand work. Migration was an ongoing process. Export and import of raw material,goods and technology was very much part of development since independence.Foreign firms did operate in India. So we need to ask ourselves whether thecurrent process of change is radically different from anything we have seen in

the past.

UNDERSTANDING GLOBALISATIONThe important question is, however, whetherglobalisation is just about global interconnections. Or is it about some significantchanges in the capitalist system of production and communication, organisationof labour and capital, technological innovations and cultural experiences, waysof governance and social movements? These changes are significant even ifsome of the patterns were already evident in the early stages of capitalism.Some of the changes such as those flowing from the communication revolutionhave in a myriad ways transformed the way we work and live.We seek to spell out some of the distinctive features of globalisation below.As you go through them you will realise why a simple definition of globalinterconnection does not capture the intensity and complexity of globalisation. Globalisation refers to the growing interdependence between differentpeoples, regions and countries in the world as social and economic relationshipscome to stretch world-wide. Although economic forces are an integral part ofglobalisation, it would be wrong to suggest that they alone produce it. It hasbeen driven forward above all by the development of information andcommunication technologies that have intensified the speed and scope ofinteraction between people all over the world. Moreover, as we shall see, therewas a political context within which it grew.

THE DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS OF GLOBALISATIONTHE ECONOMICIn India we often use the terms liberalisation and globalisation. They are indeedrelated but are not the same. In India we have seen how the state decided bringsome changes in its economic policy in 1991. These changes are termed asliberalisation policies.a. The Economic Policy of LiberalisationGlobalisation involves a stretching of social and economic relationshipsthroughout the world. This stretching is pushed by certain economic policies.Very broadly this process in India is termed liberalisation. The termliberalisation refers to a range of policy decisions that the Indian state tooksince 1991 to open up the Indian economy to the world market. This markeda break with an earlier stated policy of the government to have a greatercontrol over the economy. The state after independence had put in place alarge number of laws that ensured that the Indian market and Indianindigenous business were protected from competition of the wider world. Theunderlying assumption of such a policy was that an erstwhile colonial countrywould be at a disadvantage in a free market situation. You have already readabout the economic impact of colonialism in chapter 1. The state also believedthat the market alone would not be able to look after all the welfare of thepeople, particularly its disadvantaged sections. It felt that the state had animportant role to play for the welfare of the people. You will recall from chapter3 how important the issues of social justice were for the makers of the IndianConstitution.Liberalisation of the economy meant the steady removal of the rules thatregulated Indian trade and finance regulations. These measures are alsodescribed as economic reforms. The basic assumption was that greaterintegration into the global market would be beneficial to Indian economy. The process of liberalisation also involved the taking of loans from internationalinstitutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF). These loans aregiven on certain conditions. The government makes commitments to pursuecertain kind of economic measures that involve a policy of structural adjustments.These adjustments usually mean cuts in state expenditure on the social sector

such as health, education and social security. There is also a greater say byinternational institutions such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

b. The transnational corporationsAmong the many economic factors driving globalisation, the role of transnationalcorporations (TNCs) is particularly important. TNCs are companies that producegoods or market services in more than one country. These may be relativelysmall firms with one or two factories outside the country in which they arebased. They could also be gigantic international ones whose operations crisscrossthe globe. Some of the biggest TNCs are companies known all around theworld: Coca Cola, General Motors, Colgate-Palmolive, Kodak, Mitsubishi andmany others. They are oriented to the global markets and global profits even ifthey have a clear national base. Some Indian corporations are also becomingtransnational.

The electronic economyThe ‘electronic economy’ is another factor that underpinseconomic globalisation. Banks, corporations, fundmanagers and individual investors are able to shift fundsinternationally with the click of a mouse. This new abilityto move ‘electronic money’ instantaneously carries it withgreat risks however. In India often this is discussed withreference to rising stock markets and also sudden dipsbecause of foreign investors buying stocks, making aprofit and then selling them off. Such transactions canhappen only because of the communication revolution,

d. The WeightlessEconomy or KnowledgeEconomyIn contrast to previouseras, the global economy isno longer primarilyagricultural or industrial inits basis. The weightlesseconomy is one in whichproducts have their base ininformation, as in the case with computersoftware, media and entertainment products and internetbasedservices. A knowledge economy is one in which much of the workforce isinvolved not in the physical production or distribution of material goods, but intheir design, development, technology, marketing, sale and servicing. It canrange from the neighbourhood catering service to large organisations involvedin providing a host of services for both professional meets like conferences tofamily events like weddings. We have a host of new occupations that wasunheard of a few decades ago, for instance event managers.

Globalisation of financeIt should also be noted that for the firsttime, mainly due to the informationtechnology revolution, there has beena globalisation of finance. Globallyintegrated financial markets undertakebillions of dollars worth transactionswithin seconds in the electroniccircuits. There is a 24-hour trading in

capital and security markets. Citiessuch as New York, Tokyo and Londonare the key centers for financial trading.Within India, Mumbai is known as thefinancial capital of the country.

GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONSImportant advances in technology and the world’s telecommunicationsinfrastructure has led to revolutionary changes in global communication. Somehomes and many offices now have multiple links to the outside world, includingtelephones (land lines and mobiles), fax machines, digital and cable television,electronic mail and the internet.Some of you may find many such places. Some of you may not. This isindicative of what is often termed as the digital divide in our country. Despitethis digital divide these forms of technology do facilitate the ‘compression’ oftime and space. Two individuals located on opposite sides of the planet – in Bangalore and New York – not only can talk, but also send documents and images to one another with the help of satellite technology.

Globally use of the Internet increased phenomenally in the 1990s. In 1998 there were 70 millionInternet users world-wide. Of these USA and Canada accounted for 62% while Asia had 12%. By2000 the number of Internet users had risen to 325 million. India had 3 million Internet subscribers and 15 millionusers by 2000, thanks to the proliferation of cyber cafes all over the country. (Singhal and Rogers 2001: 235)According to a CNN-IBN poll broadcast on August 15, 2006, about 7% of the country’s youth had access to theInternet while only 3% had computers to home. The figures themselves indicate the digital divide that continues to prevail in the country inspite of the rapid spread of computers. Cyber connectivity had largely remained an urban phenomenon but widely accessible through the cybercafes. But the rural areas with their erratic power supply widespread illiteracy and lack of infrastructure like telephone connections still remain largely unconnected.

Cellular telephony has also grown enormously and cell phones are part of the self for most urban-based middle class youth. This has been a tremendous growth in the usage of cell phones and a marked change in how its use is seen.

GLOBALISATION AND LABOUR

GLOBALISATION AND A NEW INTERNATIONAL DIVISION OF LABOURA new international division of labour has emergedin which more and more routine manufacturingproduction and employment is done in the Third World cities. You have already dealt with outsourcingin chapter 4 and contract farming in chapter 5. Here we simply draw upon the example of Nike companyto illustrate how this works. Nike grew enormously from its inception in the1960s. Nike grew as an importer of shoes. The founder Phil Knight imported shoes from Japan and sold them at athletics meetings. The company grew to a multinational enterprise, a transnationalcorporation. Its headquarters are in Beverton, justoutside Portland, Oregon. Only two US factories evermade shoes for Nike. In the 1960s they were made in Japan. As costs increased production shifted to South Korea in mid-1970s. Labour costs grew in South Korea, so in the 1980s production widened to Thailand and Indonesia. In the 1990s we in India produce Nike. However, if labour is cheaper elsewhere production centres will move somewhere else. This entire process makes the labouring population very vulnerable and insecure. This flexibility of labour often works in favour of the producers. Instead of mass production of goods at a centralised location (Fordism), we have moved to a system of flexible production at dispersed locations (post-Fordism).

The largest number of poor people lives in South Asia. The poverty rate is particularly high in India, Nepal andBangladesh,” states an ILO report “Labour and Social Trends in Asia and the Pacific 2005”… The study provides a stark analysis of a growing ‘employment gap’ in the Asia region. It states that the creation of new jobs has failed to keep pace with the region’s impressive economic growth. Between 2003 and 2004, employment in Asia and the Pacific increased by a ‘disappointing’ 1.6 per cent, or by 25 million jobs, to a total of 1.588 billion jobs, compared to the strong economic growth rate of over 7 per cent.

GLOBALISATION AND EMPLOYMENTAnother key issue regarding globalisation andlabour is the relationship betweenemployment and globalisation. Here too weseen the uneven impact of globalisation. Forthe middle class youth from urban centers,globalisation and the IT revolution hasopened up new career opportunities. Insteadof routinely picking up BSc/BA/BCom degreefrom colleges, they are learning computerlanguages at computer institutes or takingup jobs at call centers or Business ProcessOutsourcing (BPO) companies. They areworking as sales persons in shopping mallsor picking up jobs at the various restaurantsthat have opened up. Yet as the box 6.9 showsbroader trends of employment aredisappointing.

GLOBALISATION AND POLITICAL CHANGESIn many ways it was a major political change, namely, the collapse of the erstwhile socialist world that hastened globalisation. And also gave a specific economic and political approach to the economic policies that underpin globalisation. These changes are often termed as neo-liberal economic measures. We have already seen what concrete steps the liberalisation policy took in India. Broadly these policies reflect a political vision of free enterprise which believes that a free reign to market forces will be both efficient and fair. It is, therefore, critical of both state regulation and state subsidies. The existing process of globalisation in this sense does have a political vision as much as an economic vision. However, the possibilities that there can be a globalisation which is different do exist. We, thus have the concept of an inclusive globalisation, that is one, which includes all sections of society.

Another significant political development which is accompanying globalisation is the growth of international and regional mechanisms for political collaboration. The European Union (EU), the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), South Asian Regional Conference (SARC) and more recently South Asian Federation of Trade Association (SAFTA) are just some of the examples that indicate the greater role of regional associations. The other political dimension has been the rise of International Governmental Organisations. (IGOs) and International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs). An intergovernmental organisation is a body that is established by participating governments and given responsibility for regulating, or overseeing a particular domain of activity that is transnational in scope. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) for instance increasingly has a major say in the rules that govern trade practices. As the name suggests, INGOs differ from intergovernmental organisations in that they are not affiliated with government institutions. Rather they are independent organisations, which make policy decisions and address international issues. Some of the best known INGOs are Greenpeace, The Red Cross and Amnesty International, Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders).

There are many ways that globalisation affects culture. We saw earlier that overthe ages India has had an open approach to cultural influences and have beenenriched because of this. The last decade has seen major cultural changesleading to fears that our local cultures would be overtaken. We saw earlier thatour cultural tradition has been wary of the kupamanduka, the frog that lives itswhole life within a well, knows nothing else, and is suspicious of everythingoutside it. It talks to no one, and argues with no one on anything. It merelyharbours the deepest suspicion of the outside world. Fortunately for us weretain our ‘traditional’ open-ended attitude to this day. Thus there are heateddebates in our society not just about political and economic issues but alsoabout changes in clothes, styles, music, films, languages, body language. Youwill recall from chapter 1 and 2 how the 19th century reformers and earlynationalists also debated on culture and tradition. The issues today are insome ways the same, in some ways different. What is perhaps different is thescale and intensity of change. HOMOGENISATION VERSUS GLOCALISATION OF

CULTUREA central contention is that all cultures will become similar, that ishomogeneous. Others argue that there is an increasing tendency towardsglocalisation of culture. Glocalisation refersto the mixing of the global with the local. It isnot entirely spontaneous. Nor is it entirelydelinked from the commercial interests ofglobalisation.It is a strategy often adopted by foreignfirms while dealing with local traditions in orderto enhance their marketability. In India, we findthat all the foreign television channels like Star,MTV, Channel V and Cartoon Network useIndian languages. Even McDonald sells onlyvegetarian and chicken products in India andnot its beef products, which are popularabroad. McDonald’s goes vegetarian during theNavaratri festival. In the field of music, onecan see the growth of popularity of ‘Bhangrapop’, ‘Indi pop’, fusion music and even remixes.

We have already seen how the strength of Indian culture has been its openended approach. We also saw how through the modern period our reformersand nationalists actively debated tradition and culture. Culture cannot be seenas an unchanging fixed entity that can either collapse or remain the same whenfaced with social change. What is more likely even today is that globalisationwill lead to the creation of not just new local traditions but global ones too.

GENDER AND CULTUREVery often defenders of a fixed traditional idea of cultural identity defendundemocratic and discriminating practices against women in the name ofcultural identity. These could range from a defence of sati to defence of women’sexclusion from education and participation in public matters. Globalisationcan then be taken as a bogey to defend unjust practices against women.Fortunately for us in India we have been able to retain and develop a democratictradition and culture that allows us to define culture in a more inclusive anddemocratic fashion.

CULTURE OF CONSUMPTIONOften when we speak of culture we refer to dresses, music, dances, food.However, culture as we know refers to a whole way of life. There are two uses

of culture that any chapter on globalisation should mention. They are theculture of consumption and corporate culture. Look at the crucial role thatcultural consumption is playing in the process of globalisation especially inshaping the growth of cities. Till the 1970s the manufacturing industries usedto play a major role in the growth of cities. Presently, cultural consumption (ofart, food, fashion, music, tourism) shapes to a large extent the growth ofcities. This is evident in the spurt in the growth of shopping malls, multiplexcinema halls, amusement parks and ‘water world’ in every major city in India.Most significantly advertisements and the media in general promote a culturewhere spending is important. To be careful with money is no longer a virtue.Shopping is a past time actively encouraged. Successive successes infashion pageants like MissUniverse and Miss World havelead to a tremendous growth inindustries in the fields offashion, cosmetics and health.Young girls dream of being anAishwarya Rai or SushmitaSen. Popular game shows likeKaun Banega Crorepatiactually made it seem possiblethat your fortunes could turnover a few games.

CORPORATE CULTURECorporate culture is a branch of management theory that seeks to increase productivity and competitiveness though the creation of a unique organisational culture involving all members of a firm. A dynamic corporate culture – involving company events, rituals and traditions - is thought to enhance employee loyalty and promote group solidarity. It also refers to way of doing things, of promotion and packaging products. The spread of multinational companies and theopportunities opened up by the information technologyrevolution has created in the metropolitan cities in Indiaclass of upwardly mobile professionals working insoftware firms, multinational banks, charteredaccountancy firms, stock markets, travel, fashiondesigning, entertainment, media and other allied fields.These high-flying professionals have highly stressfulwork schedules, get exorbitant salaries and are the mainclientele of the booming consumer industry.

THREAT TO MANY INDIGENOUS CRAFT AND LITERARY TRADITIONS AND KNOWLEDGE

SYSTEMSYet another link between cultural forms and globalisation is evident from thecondition of many indigenous craft and literary traditions and knowledgesystems. It is, however, important to remember that modern development evenprior to the stage of globalisation did make inroads into traditional culturalforms and occupations based on them. But the sheer scale and intensity ofchange is enormous. For instance about 30 theatre groups, which were activearound the textile mills area of Parel and Girgaum of Mumbai city, have becomedefunct, as most of the mill workers are out of jobs in these areas. Some yearsback, there were reports of large number of suicides by the traditional weaversin Sircilla village of Karimnagar district and in Dubakka village in Medak district,

both in Andhra Pradesh. These weavers with no means to invest in technology were unable to adapt to the changing consumer tastes and competition from power looms.

Similarly, various forms of traditional knowledge systems especially in the fields of medicine and agriculture have been preserved and passed on from one generation to the other. Recent attempts by some multi-national companies to patent the use of Tulsi, Haldi (turmeric), Rudraksha and Basmati rice has highlighted the need for protecting the base of its indigenous knowledge systems.

GLOBALISATION AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTSThe critics of globalisation look at it as a process that can increase disparities of wealthand power. They are of the view that economic liberalisation is exacerbating the gapbetween rich and poor virtually in all developing regions. Globalisation has empoweredsome countries more than others. Rules and norms about investment, environmentalmanagement and social policy are made by these countries because they have power tocontrol international institutions. Less powerful countries even more than in past arebecoming rule-takers. The advocates of globalisation focus on the opportunities that areseen as its concomitant. It has ensued a process that may change class structure, reinforcingcosmopolitanism. Globalisation is also transforming people’s definitions of selfhoodand identity. It is also averred that it has an inherent bias in favour of the middle classand hurts the interests of the underprivileged in material sense. The phase of globalisationhas been charged with being a phase of jobless growth. The labour sector has witnessedretrenchment, voluntary retirement schemes and casualisation of workforce. The labourreforms that seem to be accompanying globalisation process seem to hurt the interestsof workers at least in immediate sense. As part of conditions of General Agreement onTariffs and Trade (GATT) signed at Maracas developing countries including India arebeing pressurised to keep the subsidies to farmers up to ten per cent of their valueoutput. It has also introduced a patent regime. These developments have potential toaffect Indian agriculture and the interest of the farmers in a fundamental sense. The

process of globalisation also poses a major danger to environment because a mad racehas started among governments to create proper investment climate. This many timesmeans relaxing environment safety norms to reap economic benefits. Another importantquestion is how does globalisation affect the interests of women?

MEANING OF GLOBALISATIONAn important aspect of globalisation is state-led centralised and planned economicdevelopment being replaced with market led liberalised and globalised economicdevelopment. There seems to be disillusionment with the state and it is seen as sourceof all the evils and market is projected as panacea of all the economic evils. Dreze andSen are of the view that expansion of market is among the instruments that can help topromote human capabilities, and given the need of eliminating endemic deprivation inIndia it would be irresponsible to ignore the opportunity. State seems to be on theretreat. Even in India the state-centric developmental approach has come in for sharpcriticism. The central role assigned to state and its bureaucracy in developmental projectshas precluded participation of masses and local people in solving their problems. Themovement of international capital along with expansion of information technology haveresulted in the erosion of the boundaries and sovereignty nation-sates. This void causedby the retreating state necessitates a dialogue between globalisation and social movements.Social movements have succeeded in conveying a message clearly that any developmentalparadigm not providing for their participation will not be acceptable to them. In Indiainitial doubts and apprehensions about globalisation seem to have waned. There seems to be greater consensus in favour of globalisation today. According to Pranab Bardhan this consensus is inexorable and irreversible. An insulated, inward directed economy does not seem to be an option in today’s time. In this situation a more plausible option seems to be shaping globalisation. Powerful social movements with coordination and networking among them at local, national and global levels can go a long way towards this objective.

IMPACT OF GLOBALISATION

The economic policy Margaret Thatcher in England andRonald Regan in America represented what came to be known as rolling back the state.In a way this sounded the dwindling popularity of Keynesian economic model of welfarestate. The decline of the socialist model in the form of disintegration of former SovietUnion and adoption of capitalist path of development by its successor states and its once. satellite states of eastern Europe made the ideological props to the ideology of pervasivestate control ineffective. China’s economic success story in the post–reform period alsoseems to have firmed up India’s resolve to liberalise.Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen are of the view that government policy at this time seemsto be overwhelmingly concerned with removing counter–productive regulations. Thestate has been neglecting positive activities earlier also and continues to do so evennow. Zoya Hasan is of the opinion that economic liberalisation may hurt the interest ofthe disprivileged in material sense; hence there is need of imaginative strategies tosurmount the cleavages of deprivation and inequity between classes, castes, communities,genders and regions. There has been a lack of commitment on the part of the state towelfarist goals and insensitivity towards the condition of the marginalised. There isneed of vigorous social movements to reorient and remind the social commitment of thestate in the post-globalisation phase.

GLOBALISATION, SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND DEVELOPINGCOUNTRIESIn India social movements have played an important role both before and afterindependence. Globalisation seems to be throwing newer challenges before socialmovements. In the era of globalisation social movements all over the world have beenactive in ameliorating the conditions of people by launching movements against bothdemocratic and undemocratic states. Some movements have taken advantage of theopportunities offered by globalisation for creating international networks. At the sametime some movements have been busy fighting the negative effects of globalisation.

Charles Oman holds that the challenge before globalisation is that it should strengthensocial cohesion not weaken it. This can happen if all segments of society within countriesand internationally share the benefit and perceive to benefit, from the raising ofproductivity levels to which globalisation can contribute. But the problem is that thepolitical economy of the world is managed by a small number of multilateral institutionsmainly the trio of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the WorldTrade Organisation. The policies of these organisations are determined by the richestindustrialised countries, which are the members of the Group of seven. Together thesecountries control over 60 per cent world economic output and over 75 per cent of worldtrade. The report of the South Commission in 1992 held that inequalities tended towiden, as the economy grew and became more industrialised. The gap of income,knowledge and power was growing and large segments of the population experiencedno significant improvement in their standard of living. The economic management bythe three organisations the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO has caused massivereorganisation in the economy and society in developing countries. Globalisation in asense has meant narrowing of policy options for the countries of the South. This alsoseems to be undermining their sovereignty.For the vast number of developing countries high growth economic activities propelledby globalisation pose serous threat to their environment and these activities may alsolead to faster depletion of their resources. Globalisation has started a competition amongthe governments of the developing countries to create better investment climate. Manytimes this also means relaxing environmental safety guide -lines for attracting foreign investment. It is obvious that environment safety norms are compromised in the nameof higher economic growth. This kind of growth has led to exploitation of Chile’s nativeold-growth forest, the massive expansion of shrimp aquaculture in Honduras with the

destruction of mangrove ecosystem. It also led to extraction of minerals on the scale ofBrazil’s Cajaras scheme. All this exploitation of renewable and non- renewable resourceshas a common aim — generating export earning. In parts of India environmental pollutionhas reached disastrous proportion. Both the major rivers the Ganga and Yamuna havebecome polluted and the major cause of pollution is disposal of untreated industrialwaste into these rivers. In places like Vapi, Ankleswar, Nandesari and Baroda in Gujaratthe victims of pollution from factories and industries complain about holes in theirclothes, death of buffaloes or elephants by drinking polluted water released in rivers,ponds or open spaces or farmers complain about crop destruction due to the pollution.The polluting industries refused to accept any responsibility. Latin America has becomepollution haven for corporations and production units driven out of the USA, Canadaand Western Europe because of stringent environment norms. Latin America’senvironmental crisis clearly demonstrates the logic of globalisation under the dominanceof transnational capital with benefits ultimately reaped in the rich industrialised countries.There is greater need for social movements to direct their energy to counter trendstowards global inequality, increasing vulnerability of the environment and livelihood inthe South.

GLOBALISATION AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN INDIAFarmersGlobalisation is likely to have serious implications for Indian agriculture. India signedthe General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade [GATT] at Maracas in 1994 and becamepart of the World Trade Organisation [WTO]. As part of the GATT agreement developingcountries including India are under obligation to introduce reduction in subsidies andkeep it to the 10 per cent of farmers’ value output. But cutting down on subsidies doesnot seem to be practical because of strong resistance of the farmers’ lobby. India together

with other countries of the third world has accused the WTO of following discriminatorypractices because the developed countries continue to give subsidies while they continueto pressurise the developing countries to cut subsidies. Another GATT– related problemaffecting the interest of the farmers is introduction of patenting in agriculture. A farmeris not automatically permitted to use seeds of the protected varieties which he saved forsowing next crop. He has either to pay compensation for the use of the seeds saved byhim or to obtain permission of the breeder. As most of the plant breeders are Multi-National Corporations and their main motive is profit the only option left with thefarmers is to buy the seeds again. Farmers in Karnataka had registered their protestagainst this arrangement by attacking the farm of Car gill seeds, a Multi-National SeedCompany. The farmers have been joined by the NGOs in their protest against the seedcompanies. Liberalising agricultural sector seems to be more contentious. A jump infood prices appears to be an inevitable outcome of liberalisation. This fear has a solidbasis. The international prices of food grains are higher than domestic prices. Any rise. in food prices would hit the poor hardly. This would make the government of the dayimmensely unpopular and might seriously jeopardise the electoral fortunes of the rulingparty. Overall the response of the Rich Farmers Movement towards the New EconomicPolicy and India joining the WTO has not been undifferentiated. Sharad Joshi an importantleader of farmers in the western part of the country has welcomed the new development.He expects opportunities for farmers in the phase of liberalisation. At the same timeMahender Singh Tikait in the north and Nanjundaswamy in the south are apprehensiveof negative fallouts of liberalisation on the agricultural sector. Economic reforms inagricultural sector have not met any serious protest because a section of rich farmers isfinding new investment opportunities in agro-based industries like sugar, rice mills,food processing, floriculture and horticulture. In the 1990s India has increased its exports

of both fresh and processed fruits and vegetables. As China has joined the WTO andis deepening its engagement with globalisation the biggest risk for India may be beingleft behind. It would mean losing out on opportunities offered by globalisation. Somepeople argue that the farmers’ movements should not oppose globalisation.

Working ClassesGlobalisation has thrown big challenges before the working class movement. An importantpart of the globalisation agenda has been privatisation of public sector units in India,which has meant disinvestments from, and privatisation of the public sector enterprises.Among the main planks of the New Economic Policy are closure of sick and lossmaking public enterprises. Workers have faced the prospect of retrenchment. Therehave been cases of Voluntary Retirement Schemes [VRS]. Casualisation andcontractualisation of workers have been other accompaniments of globalisation. Thepractice of keeping contract and casual labour in place of regular employees has becomewidespread. Many people have argued that post-economic reform period has been aperiod of jobless growth. As part of Stabilisation and Structural Adjustment Programmenumber of vacancies have come down. There has been a marked decline in the growthrate of total employment in the organised sector in the 1990s as compared to 1980s. Aspart of the New Economic Policy the policy of downsizing has started. This meansreducing overheads for cost reduction. Industrial Disputes Act 1947 lays reasonablerestrictions on employers intending to undertake retrenchment or closure. This actstipulates that in case of retrenchment or closure due notice will have to be given to theunion. In such situation the union and management have to devise ways and means toprotect employment of the workers. It is obvious that labour laws regarding job securityare being changed on the grounds of economic rationality. Downsising in developed

countries is less painful because of the fully developed social security system alreadyin place. This unfortunately is not the case in developing countries like India. However,a National Renewal Fund was created to provide social safety net to the labour forcerendered jobless as early as in 1992. Liberalisation has also meant relaxation ingovernment control over the private sector as a result of which the bargaining power oflabour vis-à-vis capital has come down. There have been strikes by trade unions toprotect the interest of workers in State Electricity Boards, ITDC hotels, nationalisedbanks etc. The introduction of the New Economic Policy has exposed the weaknessesof the working class movement. The response to the anti-labour reform policies cannot be effective because the trade unions are a divided house. Some scholars argue that working class movement should not be opposing privatisation and their focus should be protection of the interest of the workers. Ashutosh Varshney is of the view that it would be easier to launch bigger privatisation programmes, if it is decoupled from large- scale retrenchment.

Middle ClassesOn the job front the complete story is not so dismal because globalisation has alsounfolded big opportunities for lots of people, particularly of the upper middle class. Thisis especially true about people having degrees from the famous IITs and IIMs who arein big demand both in India and the world over. The students from such premierinstitutions walk away with unheard of pay packets. India churns out more than 70000computers professional every year in addition to the graduates from the IITs. The Indiansoftware industry employed nearly 160000 professionals in 1998-99. Indian softwareindustry has earned a worldwide reputation. This feat has been achieved by leveragingIndia’s highly skilled technical manpower. India has emerged as a powerful player inthe world in the IT sector. India’s advance in the IT sector has attracted many Americanand European companies to locate their back office operations in Bengalore, Chennai,Pune, and Gurgaon etc. The shifting of back office operations of foreign companies has

been influenced by many factors like abundant supply of cheap labour, cheap satellitecommunication and the facility of Internet. While this development has createdtremendous job opportunities in India it has been used by foreign companies as a costcutting arrangement. These back office operations range from billing to payroll handling,airline reservation to answering customer complains. In case of both these kinds of jobswhether in the much famed IT sector or the Call Centers students coming from uppermiddle class and urban background are more likely to get these jobs. The reservationpolicy of the government has been in keeping with the idea of social justice. This wasfound that without reservation people from the disadvantaged section were unable to getjobs. As of now the private companies and the Multi National Corporations do notfollow any principle of reservation. Some representatives of disadvantaged sections lookat liberalisation as a ploy to deny the disadvantaged strata of society the benefit ofreservation. Many Dalit leaders like Ram Vilas Paswan and Social Justice Minister inthe UPA government led by Man Mohan Singh, Meira Kumar have appealed forreservation even in the private sector. Some people argue that apart from demandingreservation also in private sector the movement of the disadvantaged section shouldexert pressure on the government to improve the quality of education in government managedinstitutions. The people from the disadvantaged sections do not have themeans to afford quality education offered at high prices in elite schools meant for thewell-off sections of society. Thus the introduction of the new economic policy hasmarginalised a large section of the population, as they do not have the necessary skillsto benefit from the opportunities offered by globalisation. To make the marginalisedpartners in the bounty offered by globalisation process there is need of big investment in imparting that kind of skills in them that they do not lag behind aspirants from privileged section of society. Dreze and Sen are of the view that there is great opportunity here for channeling political activism in the direction of forcefully demanding expansion of basic

education, health care and social security for those who are left out of the system.

WomenGlobalisation can be seen as an ideology committed to production for profit, whichleads to relative or absolute deprivation of women, colonies and marginal groups andcommunities. The exigencies of competition and market are used to enforce policies,which aims at profit making at the expense of people and planet. Angela Miles is of theview that feminists all over the world have come to reject the profit-based marketsystem which compels private ownership of all the earth’s goods and recognises onlythose things as valuable which can be bought and sold for profit on the market. Thismarket does not value the work of nature and women. Feminists in developed countriesare fighting for recognition of the value of the goods and services produced by them inhomes. They are also fighting for men’s equal participation in such works. They alsodemand recognition of the value of the social support provided by women in the formof childcare, health and educational services. They are also struggling both in North andSouth to maintain traditional pattern and capacities of subsistence in the face of devastatingdevelopment process. The phenomenon of globalisation its commitment tocommercialisation, modernisation, export-oriented development, growing reliance onprivate sector and the obsession with profit motive has adversely affected the cause ofwomen in India also. There has been a sharp fall in women’s employment in theorganised sector in the era of globalisation. The expansion of informal sector has putwomen in the category of reserved army. They have joined the rank of poor. Thisincreasing feminisation of poverty is a matter of grave concern. Even in today’s Indiapatriarchal norms established nearly two thousand years ago continue to prevail. Themedia and the education system continue to project the ideals of motherhood and loyal

and faithful wife. The subordinate position of women in society is reinforced by a lookat declining sex ratio of girls, growing domestic violence of all kinds against women,the spurt in dowry deaths and rising rape cases. Derez and Sen hold that the persistenceof sharp gender inequalities in many different forms is one of the most striking aspectsof the Indian economy and it yields disparities in power, decision-making and wellbeing.They are of the view that subordination of women in Indian society tends toimpair their effectiveness in reducing deprivation in general. Woman’s emancipation inthe form of basic education and economic independence can have many positive impacts.Kerala is a shining example in this regard. There women’s emancipation has a directimpact on childcare and a noticeable check on fertility rate. The suppression of womenfrom participation in social, political and economic life hurts the society as a whole, notjust women. Women have often been active in demanding and working for basic socialchange. Social movements in general and women’s movement in particular should exertenough pressure on government so that proper policies for women’s emancipation shouldbe made and also implemented.5.5.5 Networking and CooperationMost of the social movements are generally preoccupied with their on particular struggle.They are gripped with the mindsets of “our movement” and “their movement”. Thisexclusiveness makes them vulnerable in the event of oppression unleashed by state.With networking and coordination among them these social movements can playimportant role in achieving democratic social transformation. The need of networkingand coordination is not limited to social movements within a country. EnvironmentMovements and anti–WTO movements have demonstrated global networking andcoordination. Aaron Pollack is of the view that social movements are increasingly goingglobal in their response to the neoliberal economics. The programmes and policies

which have impact on lives of people are not exclusively in the hands of nationalgovernments. Many times programmes and policies are direct consequence of thedecisions taken by global actors. This necessitates networking and coordination amongsocial movements on global level to bargain for a better deal. The communicationrevolution that has accompanied globalisation has created a situation in which any formof movement in any part of the globe can easily attract the attention of global community.This can very well create public opinion in favour or against some issues.Rodrik in his book Has Globalisation Gone Too Far? (1997) argues that economicglobalisation catalyses social protest in three ways. First, unskilled workers in thedeveloped countries perceive a decline in their bargaining power as a result of greatercapital mobility and feared increase in the elasticity of demand for domestic labour.Workers fear that capital has a decreased incentive to maintain the post-world War IIbargain, in which capital provided workers with a stable living wage in exchange forthe promise of labour peace. Accordingly, unskilled workers protest globalisation asthey now face increased uncertainity about wage custs, instability in labour markets, andlower benefits. Second, opposition can arise as globalisation eclipses domestic norms.Most countries uphold distinct norms about labour market standrads and acceptablemarket practices. When world markets are highly protected, these normative differencesare juxtaposed but rarely come into conflict with one another . With greater internationaleconomic integration, however, these normative differences clash directly and place insharp relief distinct and conflicting beliefs about state responsibilities vis-à-vis citizens.Where greater economic integration takes place at the expense of naional legal norms,globalisation processes can and do endanger political opposition. It also triggered offanti-child labour movements. Third, opposition arises as workers blame globalisationfor dismantling the welfare state. International institutions pressures to whittle away at

social programmes and arrangements that protected certain categories of workers in thepast from unstable, unpredictable, and more open markets.In india because of globalisation industrial growth has increased which provideemployment in informal sector. Hence workers get fragmented and compete amongeach other for security and job. It adversely affect organised struggles. What we haveis localised working class movements.Because of the increased international net work of activists for Human Rights,transnational collective action has increased. International pressure against Gujaratcommunal violence and support to the Narmada Bachao Andolan are some of the mostimportant examples. There is a greater need of powerful socialmovements in present context more particularly because state appears to be on theretreat. There is also a need of coordination and networking among social movementsboth on national and global levels to ensure sustainable and equitable development. Itis also necessary to ensure that development does not take place at the cost of rights andfreedom of the people.

GLOBALISATION AND ECONOMYIt is co-operativeventure, where organisations and people complement and supplement eachother in the service of the consumer. It is for this reason, that one now sees theinternational trend to source raw material from one country, process it in anothercountry and then market it worldwide. As a result, globalisation helps to synergiesthe roles of each country. Globalisation leads to quality assurance and it is as aguarantee of their quality that manufacturers brand their products. It means aborderless world where there is a free exchange of money, ideas and expertise,fostering partnerships and alliances to serve the consumer best. Globalisationrelies on the quality of people. No initiatives, no innovation, no solutions are possiblewithout outstanding people. The quality and training of people, their vision and theircommitment, is the very foundation of globalisation.Globalisation is the reversal of business from a macro to a micro point of view.What matters is the contact and collaboration between individuals and firms invarious countries. Globalisation is complete decentralization of location. It willinternationalise human resources and remove geographical boundaries.The policy of globalisation emphasises that export sector should form animportant ingredient of the national macro-economic aggregates Finally, since exportsare dependent on the GDP growth of the major trading partners, the domesticeconomy cannot grow at a rate much different from that in the world economies.

BENEFITS OF GLOBALISATIONi) Improved resource allocation due to the presence of a competitive environment

ii) Exposure to international economies would lead to the availability of better technology,inputs and intermediate goodsiii) Transfer of know-how and economies of scale

Thus, globalisation implies a regime of perfectly competitive markets with no entry or exist barriers. However, the onset of such an environment is not without fulfillment of certain preconditions on the part of the corporates – global vision and global capability. Global vision implies that the corporate should have the ability to analyse the dynamic competitive environment and should be able to develop superior strategies in a way, which is relevant to the new global opportunities, i.e., should have the vision of analysis and leadership.Global capability attributes, on the other hand, are reflected in the ability to amass and deploy productive human, technological and financial resources at the right time and at the right place.

i) Making India the premier production centre of the world. In several sectors,particularly in agro-based industries, India has the skills and the investments,which make it the lowest cost producer in the world.

ii) Indian corporations to go into world markets and to become India's “multi-nationalsabroad, with markets, and later, production centres spread across the globe.Here again, India has a natural advantage in certain sectors such as the knowledge-led services and wide range of agricultural, industrial and fashionproducts.iii) Attracting foreign investments to make India their home base for their worldmarkets. India has amongst the world’s largest trained manpower, includingfarmer and scientists, engineers and professionals, entrepreneurs and skilledworkers. The cost of people is much lower in India than in the developed worldand provides a significant competitive advantage to India.The introduction of full convertibility of rupee on current account will greatlyaccelerate not just foreign investments in India, but also the export-import trade.

To successfully participate in the world economy, India needs to build strategic alliances – not just between trading blocks, but between corporations; and not just between foreign partners and India but partnership within Indian industry itself. The existing framework of global governance is weak, ad hoc and unpredictable, with international economic decision-making dispersed over numerous institutions, which are mostly dominated by the rich countries. Continued inhospitable international economic environment will frustrate the developing countries’ determined efforts to end stagnation through liberalisation, market-oriented reforms and outward-looking policies. Denial of access to markets, debt burden, inequities in global monetary, financial and trade systems, barriers to transfer of technology, dwindling flows of concessional resources, reluctance of foreign direct investment to flow to developing countries are making quantum jump from stagnation to sustained growth almost impossible.

The institutions such as IMF, World Bank and WTO are emerging as the watchdogs and monitors of developing countries on behalf of the developed. The loans are sources of additional demand for the products of the developed.