India was behind Western nations by approximately fifty years in various fields particularly in the fields of technology, science, even literature and philosophy. While existentialism and existentialist writings were at its peak in France and other Western nations, Indian writing was in the firm grip of romanticism and realism soon after that. While Franz Kafka, Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simon De Bovier were ruling the literary and philosophical world in European countries, Indian writers of that time were even ignorant about their writings. After a long spell, their writings became available in India through the translations by the Western writers. The aforesaid writers attracted our young generation and were greatly influenced by theses writers and their writings. Their influence was like an epidemic spreading fast among the reading public. Ironically, while the interest in existentialism writings were gradually declining among the Westerners, Indian writers were celebrating existentialism.
Such is the case with other fields also.
As Amartya Sen says Globalisation is neither new nor is it a folly. With the spreading of Globalisation in India from the nineties India underwent a sea-change in matters like economy, technology, urbanization, life-styles and even Indian culture.
With the opening up of economy, heavy investment flowed to India, market forces gained strength and with the lowering of import tariffs several items of mass consumption found place in markets at cheaper rates which resulted in the closing down of business by Indian entrepreneurs as they found it hard to compete with multinationals. Cut-throat competition and profit motive became the modern mantra as it was quite natural that those who proved to be the fittest survived ultimately.
One of the curses of Capitalism, really….
While globalised neo-liberalism provided enormous benefits to industrial tycoons of India- they extracted the maximum- in the form of mounting profits, those at the bottom of the ladder found it more and more difficult to make both ends meet. The farmers were left in the lurch and with the lowering of import tariffs, food grains and other inputs flowed to India on a massive scale and as a result the farmers couldn’t afford to purchase fertilizers at the previous rates as the Indian fertilizer companies began to run in red. As the government turned a deaf ear to their plight they were not provided with necessary financial assistance and they were forced to borrow money from the local money lenders at sky-high rates. Even Minimum Support Price (MSP) was not fixed by the ruling babus and as imported food grains were available in plenty at cheaper rates, the farmers couldn’t dispose of their harvest and were helpless in paying back the borrowed amount to the local money lenders. Finding no other way to feed their women and children, thousands then put an end to their lives. Those who were not willing to embrace death, after disposing of their properties moved to urban areas in search of jobs. The flow to urban areas continues unabated.
Can we put the entire blame on globalization?
As the famous Nobel Laureate mentioned, Globalisation is neither new nor is it a folly, we will have to squarely blame and put the entire responsibility on the heads of our rulers.
Why do they turn a blind eye to the social aspects of our society? Why are they focusing their attention entirely on the prosperity of industrial tycoons. Mahatma Gandhi said, “India lives in villages”. Our rulers always take pride to be the followers of Mahatma. At the same time, seventy percent of our population constituting farmers who are sweating it out in the fileds under the blazing Sun to feed the millions of Indians, are looked down with contempt and indifference.
Similar is the condition of children.
A Government which always swears by the improvement of elementary education is actually doing nothing for the poor children who are roaming through the streets with begging bowls. Amartya Sen never forgets to mention about the essentiality of providing elementary education to the poor children of India. He never misses an opportunity to point out the need for providing the down-trodden with nutritious food to prevent large scale deaths due to poverty and malnutrition. For a poor child to go to school, the foremost thing to do is to provide him mid-day meals daily. In the interior parts of India, even after 61 years of Independence, facilities like safe drinking water, electricity, elementary schools and good roads are absent. Those who live in the cities are not even aware of such pathetic conditions prevailing in the rural areas.
Urban-Rural divide in India is yet to bridged. When?
Whether our rulers have any answer- no idea…
If this is one side of the coin, the other side is entirely different.
With the spread of Globalisation on a massive scale, the unprecedented progress in the field of information technology was mind-boggling and amazing.
In India, the gigantic progress of information technology was within a short span. Today Bangalore, Hyderabad (Cyberabad), Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Cochin, Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida- it is a long line- enterprising , dynamic and hardworking youngsters are going on with their duties 24X7. No gender imbalance or discrimination. Before the downturn and subsequently recession shook US badly, the outsourcing of IT related works went on smoothly and the youngsters could amass huge salaries and perks. The outsourcing has gone somewhat sluggish now, with massive retrenchment due to the melt-down going on a daily basis and the slowdown has affected hardworking youngsters now and also a cut in their wages. Hope, things will turn for the better in the near future itself.
The exponential growth in technology, led to huge developments in Banking, Insurance and various other firms and alongside increase in mobility resulted. And with increasing mobility vast changes are taking place in human relationships also. The system of providing permanent employment to job-seekers is dwindling day by day. Contract labour has become more and more convenient to the firms. The bargaining power of Trade Unions are slowly losing its steam and if things are going on like this, Trade Union itself will become redundant in the near future. 10AM- 5PM, (8 hours) work schedule is gradually coming to be of not much importance. 24X7 is today’s dictum. This itself is a pointer to the diminishing influence of the trade unions.
Increasing mobility in the work places has led to the breakdown in friendships. Until a few years ago an employee was rooted in the same working environment till he retired from it. But now he/she has to go on a “merry go round” and in the process gets chances of meeting various kinds of people and after establishing short-duration friendship either of them will have to move in another direction. At the new working place, he/she mingles with new faces and there also duration of friendship may not be for a long time. Before coming out of the working place after retirement he/she will find it hard even to recall the faces of the co-workers and this is the case with all. An everlasting friendship in one’s life time is a dream. Imagine the friendships established by those who are working on contract basis in various firms!
Alvin Toffler, in his renowned work “Future Shock” had predicted the shape of things to come in the matter of human relationships particularly friendships as a result of phenomenal growth in the fields of Science and Information technology. While USA had already reached such an environment, India as usual, took much time to catch up with it- whether for good or bad is subjective.
While writing about human relationships, it is worthwhile to mention here the drastic changes happening in marital relationships. Due to the large-scale urbanization taking place, especially in Metros like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Chennai human relationships particularly man-woman relationships have undergone tremendous changes and contrary to Indian heritage and ethos, the sanctity of marital relationships is gradually losing and divorces are on the rise. Today an urban lady who is employed and is able to stand on her own feet, does not care much about the sanctity of being a typical Indian wife and for that matter the husband- both of them, if they don’t feel like living together decide to get separated and end the relationship on cordial terms. No sentiments. No tears. No pangs of separation. Only an ambience of happiness. Indian cultural ethos slowly giving way to Western culture…?
Now live-in-relationships are prevalent in cities. No obligation toward each other. N promises. No contracts. No interference in each other’s freedom. After all marriage is a bourgeois “art form”!
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