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India and Globalization Studies

Sumita Sen, Department of International Relations, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India


Background

As the most important country in South Asia, India’s geopolitical role, its multi-ethnic and multilingual population, alongside its functioning democracy and turbulent political neighbourhood reveal its "Indianness," with respect to regionalism as well as globalization. How globalization processes are understood at the popular level, the government level, the corporate level, or within academic circles reveals the existing divide in the knowledge of globalization and that of the globalization of knowledge. Some general observations can be made in this regard:

Any research on globalization in India is conditioned by the nature, traditions, and relations existing within the society where features of both tradition and modernity prevail and which make it altogether difficult to identify a common epistemology. Another consideration is the rise of a powerful middle class in India that plays an important role in any research area. A close look at the policy initiatives and plans of the government reveal that these provide benefits and incentives that cater to the interests of the middle class. Globalization research dwells upon three major stakeholders — the state, the corporate sector, and civil society — in dealing with issues like social inequity, economic development, multiculturalism, or framing dialogue tools. The positions of different scholars advocating globalization or anti-globalization are, thus, to be read against this background.

As with other types of research in India, globalization research, with some exceptions, usually takes the same parameters of analysis used by the West which often makes the entire exercise limited When indigenous parameters are applied in analysis, often they do not receive support or endorsement by different stakeholders. What is more, the funds commonly provided for undertaking research have clear-cut conditions or requirements attached to them. Funding bodies often have one or more objectives in providing funds which often determine the results to be achieved. This is perhaps also true in many developing countries.

Data on research carried out in the country is not always available. Many pieces of important research on policies, governance, and development, carried out by national scholars, are difficult to access as they are not systematically published. Hence the present problem of finding common dialogue tools becomes very complicated. The need for research in a few individual countries in different geographic regions can provide ample opportunities for building dialogue after such research in multicultural societies. For instance the negotiating mechanisms commonly used in Bihar, Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Sikkim, or Arunachal Pradesh within India, are still to be comprehensively researched in India. One falters to name studies where there is adequate reference to a given society’s understanding let alone where that understanding is well-documented and analyzed.

Another limitation to research and building dialogue is the commonly accepted practice of conducting fragmented rather than integrated research, the results of which can be gauged from some of the examples given earlier in this paper. Now a gradual process has started to take note of this limitation in India. Joint Forest Management in India, coastal zone management, and participatory decentralized governance are some initiatives favouring integrated research.

In a country where class, caste, and community and regional differences still exist, research frequently gets limited to academic debates, often to avoid these problems, and the result is the continuation of the problem of free exchange of "knowledge of globalization" and "globalization of knowledge." On the other hand, people continue to experience chaos and conflict in facing economic deprivation, social identity issues, and political instability that slowly spills over to neighbouring areas and impacts upon the people of both areas. This also makes the task of finding mechanisms for dialogue difficult.

Keywords

Some keywords for understanding globalization in India are:

Key Readings

In the following section I list a number of Indian scholars and/or foreign scholars writing on globalization.

Samir Amin. Amin has written a number of works on the changing nature of capitalism (see, for example, Amin 1997), the North-South divide, and issues of development in the era of globalization. Amin rejects a passive acceptance of the inevitability of globalization in its present form. Amin's writing integrates economic arguments with political arguments based on history which is determined not just by material realities but also by social response to such realities.

Amartya Sen. An economist and social thinker, Sen brought to the fore how development is to be understood in the broadest sense of the term with an emphasis on social opportunities and capabilities for improving the quality of life. His observation that "…when economic reforms were initiated in 1991…the focus of attention in the programme has been almost exclusively on the opening of the Indian economy and on broadening the reach of markets…but the lack of social opportunities and capabilities for quality of life during the reform period were left to the background" (1999).

Ranajit Guha and Partha Chatterjee. The Subaltern Studies Series by the Subaltern Studies Group employs an approach that can be described as "history from below" in looking at the post-colonial and post-imperial societies of South Asia in particular and the developing world in general. The studies in the series provide a new narrative history of India and South Asia focusing on non-elites as agents of political and social change.

Arjun Appadurai (1996; 2000). Appadurai, an eminent anthropologist, has stated that the "new global cultural economy" must be understood as a complex, overlapping, disjunctive order, which can no longer be understood in terms of existing center-periphery models. Moreover, the globalization of culture is not the same as its homogenization, rather it destroys the very character of the local culture. According to him, "the central problem of today’s global interaction is the tension between cultural homogenization and cultural heterogenization."

Joseph Stiglitz. Stiglitz (2002) contends that in the policy of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) towards developing countries there are "…mistakes in sequencing and pacing, and the failure to be sensitive to the broader social context…forcing liberalization before safety nets were put in place, before there was an adequate regulatory framework, before the countries could withstand the adverse consequences of the sudden changes in market sentiments that are part and parcel of modern capitalism; forcing policies that led to job distraction before the essentials for job creation were in place; forcing povertization before there were adequate competition and regulatory frameworks."

Philip G. Cerny. On the extent of globalization’s problem with democracy, Cerny (1999) has stated that "national liberal democratic systems are not easily transplantable (as Third World experience since the 1960s demonstrates) …globalization is not only inherently less permeable to democratically grounded values and conceptions of the public interest or collective goal, but also less capable of generating the policy outcomes that people want."

Jagdish Bhagwati. In defense of globalization, he writes about the opportunities it provides with the introduction of economic reforms by individual states.

Jeremy Brecher, Tim Costello, and Brendan Smith. These authors (2000) have proposed a global "new deal" based on several principles for the ultimate objective of redistribution of wealth to the South while making global markets subject to more effective democratic social control.

Vandana Shiva. Vandana Shiva is an eminent scholar and social activist who writes on globalization and its impact on the position of women as well as on the rights of the farmers of the Third World. According to Shiva, the global economy has drawn all domestic matters related to ethics, values, ecology, food, culture, knowledge, and democracy into the global arena as matters of "international trade." She interrogates the current development paradigm that focuses exclusively on incomes and cash flows as measures of wealth, making women and the environment insignificant as indicators of development (1994).

Prabhat Pattanaik. Pattanaik argues that in the contemporary process of globalization, terms of trade have moved against primary commodities affecting the developing countries.

Bina Agarwal. Bina Agarwal’s idea of the "bargaining approach" and cooperative conflict includes implicit control in power relationships and decision-making processes with gender issues the focus of research. The "bargaining approach" calls attention to the unequal playing field in political and social decision making.

Martha Nussbaum. Nussbaum (2000) advocates a new kind of feminism by arguing for the application of ethical values to all thoughts about development planning and public policy while calling for social justice for the poor women in the Third World.

T.N. Srinivasan. This eminent economist is well known for his studies on India’s external trade policies (see, for example, Srinivasan 2003). He has argued that the growth associated with globalization will generally create an outward shift in the demand for wage labour and for goods and services produced by the self-employed. According to Srinivasan, globalization can also benefit the poor through more efficient financial intermediation which will have long-term benefits in terms of investment in both physical and human capital.

Dipak Nayyar. Dipak Nayyar (1999) speaks about the new rules of the globalization game. Earlier the game was dominated by powerful states, but has now been taken over by transnational corporations and the international banks, making nation-states the secondary economic players.

Manfred B. Steger. Steger (2002) rejects the very notion that we find ourselves at the end of ideology and that democracy has won. Instead he argues that the first decade of the twenty-first century created the battlefield of clashing ideologies. As the chief protagonist of neo-liberal market ideology, Steger calls it globalism. Steger observes that the demonstrations against the WTO are the opening of the battle over the globalization issue.

C.P. Rao. Rao's edited volume, Globalization, Privatization and the Free Market (1998) provides an in-depth analysis of the entire process and its features.

Kenichi Ohmae. Kenichi Ohmae foresees (1990; 1995) the rise of a "borderless world" brought about by the forces of capitalism whereby the nation-state becomes irrelevant in the global economy. He argues that nation-states have lost their role as meaningful units of participation in the global economy. He observes that the process of such globalization leads to the decline of territory as an important component for assessing socio-political changes.

Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye Jr. The writings of these scholars (e.g., Keohane 2001; Keohane and Nye 2000) are extensively referred to in analyses of regimes as well as for understanding the growth of international institutions and other regional trading blocs as important aspects of globalization and development.

Linda Weiss. Weiss observes (1998) that in the process of globalization, nation-states have begun to assume a more active and strategic role contrary to the view that globalization is a constraining force on nation-states restricting their freedoms and initiatives across a range of policy areas.

David Held. David Held and his co-authors (1999) describe the cultural, political, and ideological dimensions of globalization as reflections of deeper economic processes. According to Held, globalization can be examined through a transformationalist or modernist viewpoint. He offers an account of the way global interconnectedness may bring decline in state autonomy.

Amit Bhaduri. Amit Bhaduri is known for his writings on industrialization, development, building of capitalism, and labour issues. He notes (2005) that people have to fight not only against pro-rich industrialization but pave the way for an alternative pro-poor employment generating development which expands opportunity rapidly at the lower end of income distribution especially in rural areas.

Rajni Kothari. While highlighting the crisis in traditional identities, Kothari (1997) speaks strongly in favour of the role of civil society and social movements "with the erosion of a state based structure of national and international interactions."

R. Guha and J. Martinez-Alier. The authors (1997) write about globalization, the environment, free trade and the challenges facing environmental movements.

Concluding Remarks

In the context of India, the process of identifying dialogue tools and the ethics underneath them will have to take note not only of present economic programs but also the issue of multiculturalism and identities. The latter has clear manifestations in ethnic conflicts and religious disturbances within India and on India’s relations with its neighbours and other countries, as well as in the country's overall economic development, the social political context, the environment, and several strategic plans and policies.

It is therefore necessary to take up future studies that are regional in nature at the initial stage, to be followed by the identification of common and special dialogue tools as well as an epistemology that would broadly be acceptable. While there are several institutions and centres in India that work on different areas of globalization, there is no institution that is doing research exclusively on globalization. In this respect, individual researchers can work together on different sections for formulating a comprehensive document at the end. Such an exercise would bring in the common and differing perceptions and analyses of research on globalization from each region, which in turn would help to evolve a more general perception of making globalization work positively.

Works Cited

Amin, Samir. 1997. Capitalism in the age of globalization: The management of contemporary society. London: Zed Books.

Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Appadurai, Arjun. 2000. Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy. In Readings in contemporary political sociology, ed. Kate Nash, Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Babu, R.B. 1998. Globalisation and the South Asian states. New Delhi: S.A. Publishers.

Ballentine, Karen and Sherman, Jake. 2005. Foreword. In The political economy of armed conflict: Beyond greed and grievance. New Delhi: Viva Books.

Bhaduri, Amit. 2005. Development with dignity. New Delhi: National Book Trust.

Brecher, Jeremy and Smith, Brendan. 2000. Globalization from below: The power of solidarity. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.

Cerny, Philip G. 1999. Globalization and the erosion of democracy. European Journal of Political Research 36 (1): 1-26.

Guha, R. and Martinez-Alier, J. 1997. Varieties of environmentalism: Essays on north and south. London: Earthscan.

Held, David, McGrew, Anthony G., Goldblatt, David, and Perraton, Jonathan. 1999. Global transformations: Politics, economics and culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Keohane, Robert O. 2001. Governance in a partially globalized world. American Political Science Review 95 (1): 1-13.

Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph F. 2000. Globalization: What's new? What's not? (And so what?). Foreign Policy 118: 104-19.

Kothari, Rajni. 1997. Globalisation: A world adrift. Alternatives 22 (2): 227-67.

Nayyar, Deepak. 1999. Globalisation: The past in our present. In Globalisation and development: Experiences and challenges, ed. D. K. Das, Delhi: Deep and Deep Publications.

Nussbaum, Martha Craven. 2000. Women and human development: The capabilities approach. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

Ohmae, Kenichi. 1990. The borderless world: Power and strategy in the interlinked economy. New York: HarperCollins.

Ohmae, Kenichi. 1995. The end of the nation state: The rise of regional economies. New York: Prepress.

Rao, C.P. (ed.). 1998. Globalization, privatization, and the free market economy. Westport: Quorum Books.

Sen, Amartya. 1999. Development as freedom. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Shiva, Vandana (ed.). 1994. Close to home: Women reconnect ecology, health and development. London: Earthscan.

Srinivasan, T.N. 2003. Integrating India with the world economy: Progress, problems and prospects. In Reforming India's external financial and fiscal policies, ed. Anne O. Krueger and Sajjid Z. Chinoy, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Steger, Manfred B. 2002. Globalism: The new market ideology. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Stiglitz, Joseph E. 2002. Globalization and its discontents. New York: W.W. Norton.

Weiss, Linda. 1997. The myth of the powerless state. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

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Glossary Terms