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Impact of globalisation on value system debated

PHOTO: Gopal Sunger

Yes, No: (From left) Arun Maira, Aruna Roy, Swami Agnivesh, Vishakha Desai, Gurucharan Das, H.S. Narula and Swapan Dasgupta participating in the debate on the last day of Jaipur Literature Festival on Sunday.

JAIPUR: The impact of globalisation on the country’s value system and the overall well being of the countrymen was debated and voted for at the concluding session of the week-long Jaipur Literature Festival here by a group of eminent persons before an audience getting ready to pack up for home.

The discussion on, “Greed for globalisation is killing India’s soul,” chaired by Vishakha Desai, president of Asia Society, generated heated, and at times, acrimonious debate with one group warning against the growing inequalities and mindless exploitation of resources and the other, terming it as an opportunity for India and China to “conquer” the world.

Swami Agnivesh, Aruna Roy and Arun Maira, arguing in favour of the motion cautioned against market forces being let loose in the country. The growth which was being branded as progress would only add on to the deprivation and further marginalisation of the poor, they said. Those who opposed the argument—Gurucharan Das, Swapan Dasgupta and H.S. Narula — said globalisation had several facets and the country should not blame the process for all the evils faced by it.

“It is the theocratisation of the market place which is disturbing us. By glorifying globalisation we are glorifying greed,” Swami Agnivesh, social activist and winner of Right to Livelihood Award, noted. “A new god is emerging from the market forces and there is no place anymore for social and economic justice,” he said.

“Perhaps we have a truncated form of globalisation,” the Swami said after a few rounds of discussion. “In the present form globalisation is all about grabbing than sharing and caring,” he said. In the real sense globalisation should have allowed free movement of people across the nations and more liberal immigration laws, he said.

Gurucharan Das, management expert and author of India Unbound, said liberalisation had led to improvement in standard of living. “Convergence happens when you are linked,” Mr.Das said pointing out that today 95 per cent of the people live in linked economies in the world against 20 per cent in the past.

“I would like a more just and humane world. This kind of development is not my kind of development,” Ms.Roy, social activist and Magsaysay award winner, said talking about total absence of transparency and accountability in the activities of market forces. “If you don’t have economic freedom then there is no meaning in the political freedom,” she warned.

Ms.Roy, who led the Right to Information movement in the country said talking about progress was meaningless when 60,000 women still carried night soil on their head in Rajasthan alone. The human development indices put India below even Sub-Saharan Africa, Bangladesh and Pakistan, she pointed out. “This unequal growth. Economic globalization should be based on equality,” she asserted.

Mr.Maira, head of the Boston Consulting Group, said globalisation had many arms and some of them were benign and some others harmful. “The bigger man is not always the better man,” he said talking about growing inequalities and absence of fair play.

Senior journalist Swapan Dasgupta said Indians were the most adoptable people and the threat of losing “soul” was not real. Globalisation might have its sins but for India it did a lot of good especially considering the condition here prior to opening up. According to Mr. Narula, a consultant, it was not India but the world, which should be afraid of the edge globalization would provide to this country.

At the end of the debate in which the listeners too joined in with questions and comments the gathering seemed to be equally divided with 73 persons finding the threat real and 71 others perceiving it as not. Four voters said they really did not know.

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Impact of globalisation on value system debated

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