Lecture
VII - India's economic environment: Past, present and emerging
challenges 02.11.11
disparity, a
land of diversity
Major three
Policy Periods
1950 –
1980 : Inward looking era, closed economic attitude, pure rely on
Indian way of doing. Experts estimate a max. growth rate of 3% for
India
1980 –
1991 : mild liberalization era with GPD at 5%
1991 –
present : extensive liberalization era (new age entrepreneurs) with
over 6% GDP growth
I and II
phase are marked by a lot of instability concerning politics,
economy, energy
III is
politically stable, BUT cautious attitude towards external influence
remains
What went
wrong since Nehru's president legacy? (Phase I)
Situation
outcome:
India
was one of the poorest countries in the world with 60% being poor of
the population; today 37%
not
enthusiastically about working and earning more
British
rule brought along many changes, e.g. higher education system, but
on the other side exploitation of India
The basic
idea to improve India's economy was to stimulate investment –->
that would lead to higher salaries.
Who should
make the investments?
government
decided that the public sector should be responsible for investments
private
sector may join during the process
Where should
the investments be done?
consumer
goods
capital
goods – were chosen because of India's economic situation, e.g.
steel, soap
Bombay Plan
of private investors
Nehru –
Nehru – Mahatamobis strategy
Since 1960
the food production started improving and India no longer was
dependent on aid by US.
In contrast
to South Korea, India neglected the education sector and refused to
open up its economy. Moreover, Bad Governance has been going on
until today.
A situation
where the population depends on the government while only 1% pay tax
in India.
Nowadays the
government is not getting richer despite the economic growth.
A lot of
leakage (commission) happens with tax money.
All about
bribery, status and power..
Introduction
of mild Liberation (Phase II)
freedom
is added for the industry to grow inside
new
opportunities and space
import
restrictions got a bit lose → economy started growing (e.g.
computers, goods)
Balance of
payment evolves from Import/ Export
The Golf war
impacted India's economy in the way that India depends to about 70%
on crude oil import. Moreover, the Golf area employs many Indians in
countries such as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, etc. During this time many
came back and made use of their remittances.
Extensive
Liberation (Phase III)
India
decided to borrow money from the IMF/ World Bank, which presented a
Blueprint of conditions.
The
expectations was to liberalize the country.
Although
India always wanted to remain sovereign “we do not beg from other”
the economic situation made them borrow money.
This
resulted in economic reforms that had a drastic and unexpected
change!
The result
was a change in basic principles. Before India was a very collective
society, that focused on giving people who had less. For example if
one person is making too much profit, that was not allowed, since
only one person profits from the community. Indians were against
competition.
However, the
changes and impacts of the IMF conditions required competition to
achieve efficiency. This was a new concept for Indian economy and
everybody was now able to earn as much as possible.
Future
questions that need to be addressed in India:
What is
the role of the government? The role of state and government needs
to be defined
How to
manage the crude oil import to meet future demand?
Lecture VI - Globalization
continued 28.10.11
Pitfalls of top down
approach
ignores social
situation and local group's needs
official statistics,
short studies by experts through survey methods and using
questionnaire (not connect to earth)
social researchers on
short visits tend to rely on information from people in position of
power “social power in hand's of men”
format questionnaire
structures present little opportunity for presenting new information
or divergent views. Such methods do little to analyse process of
change nor to link them to historical experiences/ cultural
practices
focus on realities of
powerful institutions and privileged groups and global and local
levels and may be blind to realities of disempowered groups
Globalization and socio
economic inequalities
SAP – structural
adjusting programmes –
few avenues that the
state had opened up for mobility monopolised by upper structure of
cast society using traditional resources like land, wealth,
privilege
Globalization and social
movements in India
environment/ ecology
gender
tribes and marginal
areas
opposition to one
world, one culture, one polity global order
NSM – Perception of
globalization
incarnation of an
idea of development representing explicit institutions of global
hegemonic power
intensification of
socio-economic inequalities
rejection of Indian
state's position for poor after NEP (1991)
NSM's ideas of development
non-hegemonic
(decentralized decision making)
pluralistic,
feminism, human rights
NSM features
ruling elite
(capital, growth...) views such movements as break down at order
onset of chaos, anarchy and suppresses them only to provoke them
further (e.g. Anna movement)
western influence as
a threat on Indian culture
Creative society
phase of development
when large number of potential contradictions become articulate and
active (make sense and communicate them)
- upsurges in tribal/
delit/ ecological/ women movements are signs
- does not aim to replace
existing society but expand the realm of democratic struggle
Modern Capitalism and
NSM
- Irony of capitalism “alienation of individuals”
Agriculture in India
more than 60% of
population is engaged
AOA – agreement of
Agriculture with WTO
cash crops vs food crops
example for withdraw of
Coca Cola factory due to water pollution in Plachimada
Women empowerment India
strongly obvious
within the last decade, but began 3 decades ago
reason 2001 Swashakti
Women Empowerment
more than 60% of all
agricultural workers are women
Issue of dowry
wealth of father is
distributed to his sons only after death.. to compensate this a
married daughter is gifted (dowry) “daughters treated as the
property of someone else, because she is going to leave anyway”
NOW; demand came as family
of the son started to demand certain things, e.g. car, house
“Not enough women in
India” maybe because of “killing of female infants” to avoid
dowry
Lecture V - Globalization
and its different categories 25.10.11
“Globalization is as old
as human history”
New social movements
examples for social
movements, African American, women, environmental etc.
goal is to eradicate
class differences in society (inspired by theory of Marxism)
in 70s Global Oil crisis
led to energy politics, which proposed an alternative development
during developed
world – hidden agenda → “Started new social movements”
late 1990's different
view and reaching a new height
Lenin said
“Imperialism is the highest form of Capitalism”, meaning to
enrich one own country, one needs to create new markets →
colonialism → exploit other countries and boost own country
through the wealth generated
Americanization, e.g.
Pizzahut, MTV, → symbols of new tendency leads to homogenisation
of global markets to create one common taste (cultural taste) to
suit the supply of American corporations... new scale/ dimension of
globalization that happens to coincide with technological
development
Three categories of
globalization
change vs. transformation
(1. end product of series of changes, 2. severe change)
1. Hyper globalists/
globalizers
highly critical in
context of development world
celebrity globalizers
blind advocates of
global markets
well fare state
withdrawal is consequence of globalisations
→ mechanism as tool for
exploitation
2. Sceptics
focus on economic
aspects
say no decline nation
– states autonomy
prefer to use
“internationalization”/ “regionalization”
3. Transformationalist
globalization is an
outcome of interrelated processes of technology, economical
activity, governance, culture
→ creates new forms of
global satisfaction
In 1991 India opened up as
an economy due to lack of money. India borrowed money from IMF, World
Bank under the condition to undergo structural adjustments
Similar with other
countries. IMF/ World Bank lends money based on adjusting structures
of governments
Nowadays 60 – 70% of
Indian population is occupied in Agriculture
WTO's involvement in
Agriculture trade liberalized, but led to severe drop in prices!
Local farmers have to compete with global corporations. During this
“mad rush” many farmers were struggling to make a living (using
pesticides and power seeds) without success and many began suicide.
Example Osissa – a
region in India that allowed Chinese company to mine there without
responding to concerns of tribes, who are dependent on the land →
they fight against and protect their land
→ Top Down Approach of
implementation
…......to be continued
….......
Lecture IV – Globalization 26.09.11
speech of “globalizing inequality” by P. Sainath 2005
