As we have entered the new century, it is proper for us to look back and draw a balance sheet of our achievements and failures. We have made tremendous strides in science and technology. Mankind has got promises for a healthier, prosperous and comfortable life by means of rapid advances in biotechnology, genetic engineering, space technology and information technology. But the challenge before us is how to evolve a strategy for the right blend of technology and public policy so that 'maximum happiness for the maximum number' can be ensured. Uncontrolled growth of technology can led to disaster. Technological and scientific progress must be atuned to the social requirements.
Environmental degradation as a result of unbridled course of development is one of the most serious problems we face today. The developed societies are mostly to blame for this state of affairs. The pattern of development that they have chosen is detrimental to the interests of developing countries. The difference is that the developed countries have to know how and the where withal to contain the hazards of progress and, on the other hand, the developing countries are exposed to the dangers, with little resistance. The undesirable situation that exists today in the world is that unstainable life styles of the rich and unacceptable poverty co-exist.
Globalisation has accentuated the development dilemma of the world's poor. The developing countries cannot afford high cost approaches to contain the ebb of industrialization. What they need is low cost alternative approaches. There is no gainsaying that such approaches call for political will and national consensus in country like India. It also involves a multi disciplinary effort in which scientists and politicians of various shades have to work together for common interest. Countries such as Chile and Mexico have made some headway in this kind of endeavour. There is nothing to show that India has taken any meaningful initiative in this regard. We have been endlessly debating on Sweadeshi and Videshi. We are still groping in the dark in the search for the right technology. It is incumbent for us to address this problem seriously and chalk out strategies. How long can we afford luxury of inaction?
In the last 50 plus years since India became independent our aim been to catch up with the West as fast as possible. We tried to ape them in everything we did. We have had no alternate strategies to offer. We have borrowed the western science and technology and their concepts of modernization and industrialization. We paid no heed to the sane advice of Gandhiji to be rooted in our own soil. We believed that we could borrow western concepts and development paradigms without paying the price of uprooted ness and a breakdown of our social and cultural institution.
The tragedy of the country is that there exists continuity between the colonial period and the period of independence. The colonial rulers have been replaced by a new brand of native colonists. Essentially the story is one of continuing exploitation. And it is also a fact that the ruling elite in India and in many other developing countries have a common allegiance and affinity to the conceptual thinking as well as life style of the global elite.
It is natural that the ruling elite in India (This includes the politicians as well as the bearcats) will purse policies that may fit in well with their class-interests. Presently, this class is also the most vocal champions of globalisation. The new phenomenon is no doubt, serving the interests of the worlds rich. The poor are, at the receiving end. The sections who will have to bear the burnt of mindless development, suitable to he interests of the world's rich and their plan of globalisation, include not only the teeming millions of poor, as a whole, but especially also the marginalized sections like women in the south.
It is highly essential that who have a genuine concern for the welfare of the large number of people in India and other developing countries should rise upto the impending challenges that face them. Advocates of liberalistion will promise prosperity for everyone. They will ask you to reconcile yourself to the reality that is globalisation. Even the so called welfare economists like Amartya Sen., one who is vowed to give a human face to development, fatalistically accept that globalisation has come to stay and we have to finetune our lives to its dictates.
The advocates of globalisation point to the growing convergence of economic and cultural trends across the world. They speak of a global village. In this scenario there is no place or relevance for national identities, not to speak of the preservation of national cultures. Economic and polices of countries are to be adjusted to the world trends and to the interests of the world community. There is little room for local and national differences and initiatives National economic regulations are being dismantled. Supra national organizations like World Trade Organization and the World Bank dictate terms to the countries of the world, in the determination of their policies. The underdeveloped and developing countries like India re constantly advised to help in the worldwide integration of economics. They are led to believe that they stand to benefit from the process. But for the bounties that flow from global integration, these properties and contribute them to a world pool of resources. This wealth will multiply we are told, and all people and countries can partake of the benefits and grow with the world. The champions of globalisation assert that there is no scope for a country to chart out an independent course of development. Growth in isolation is ruled out.
But all these economic arguments come to a naught, at a consideration of the harsh political realities and past experiences. The process has very dangerous portents for developing countries like India. It is suffice to note that the most vehement champions of globalisation countries whose past record is a story of exploitation of the people of Asia. Africa and Latin in America, as their the colonial masters. As political colonization has ended, the former colonial powers are attempting a new form of colonialism. They are going to be the major beneficiaries of the process of globalisation.
The multinationals have flooded our markets with all sorts of unnecessary and mostly useless products. In our stage of development, we can live without them. They are dispensable and are in many ways helping to make the lives of majority of people better or happier.
The mega projects being launched with foreign participation are displacing villagers on a large scale. Besides that, they are also doing great damage to environment. The developmental policies pursed by the governments of countries like India are not for the benefit of the vast majority of people. If at all any benefit accrues from them, that goes to an affluent fringe of the domestic populations ofcourse, to the rich countries, their multinational pets and ultimately, to the world's rich as a whole.
Developing countries like India should make some rethinking on the desirability of blindly following the course of globalisation. We should not blindly buy technologies from the developed West because they need not necessarily be suitable for use here. As regards mega projects, we have to learn from the Bhopal experience and the Enron mess in Maharasthra. There are many other instances like the ones cited. We should develop technologies suitable to us and chart out a course of development which should be a product of our native genius. We should always be aware of the fact that globalisation is synonymous with economic colonization. Environmental destruction and the consequent degradation of the quality of human's lives are by products of the neo-colonialism that appears in the guise of globalisation. We must steer a path that will bring closer to us the horizon of the future, through the formulation of polices within our reach and suitable to our genius. The ethics of the new policy should be translated into educational, scientific, technological, economic and political measures.