Effects of Globalization on India

The concept of globalization has transcended debate and become something of a stark fact. Today, it is more often the implications of globalization that are debated, not the subject of globalization itself. The forces at play in the modern world mass communications (including the Internet), free trade, and the rise of transnational corporations, popular culture, and democratization have combined to create a global reality that is becoming increasingly pervasive. For nations such as India, the effects of globalization are not yet wholly understood. Struggling to define themselves within the new global configuration, the poorer, hungrier nations of Asia and Africa must contend with the ill-effects of a globalized agriculture scheme, which can potentially leave the poorest worse off than ever before (Vidal). The debate over the implications of globalization for India is therefore rife with conflicting opinions. At issue, ultimately, are the people that live there. Will globalization render these citizens better or worse off than they have been in the past?

As Barbara A. Weightman writes in Dragons and Tigers, the "essence of globalization" lies somewhere amidst the legacy of the Cold War; since the fall of the Soviet Union, capitalism has been allowed to dominate, leading formerly communist nations to experiment with "privatization of ownership and entrepreneurial profit making" (19). Weightman warns that "as these countries become increasingly linked with global, cap

ct that the country has the highest number of illiterates in the world is glossed over (193)." The masses in India remain destitute and uneducated. Is globalization to blame? Thomas R. DeGregori, in a series of volumes dedicated to the relationship between modern technology and the natural world, tackles this issue by asking the "question that dare not be answered": "If modern science and technology are killing us, why are we so healthy and living so long? (xvii-xviii). By "we", DeGregori is referring to the planet at large, including those residing in nations such as India. As for the implications of globalization, DeGregori reminds the reader that "Globalization has been the mechanism by which the increasing global food production provides greater diversity of available foodstuffs and therefore greater choice� (168)." In this, the opponents of globalization are the opponents of modernity, the "food snobs" that advance an "antitrade", "antitechnology" agenda in order to preserve their own elitist sensibilities (DeGregori 168-9). On this view, it is a reluctance to surrender the "sense of exclusivity for the items which they consume" (DeGregori 168) that drives the anti-globalization protestor to criticize free trade and

Category: Foreign - E