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Back to the Future
Possible Solutions

Some solutions have been suggested by M.N.Srinivas, doyen of Indian sociologists:[218]

• People’s movements at the grass-root level transcending local boundaries to contain corruption and ensure that development is not environment-destructive, provides gender equality, combats consumerism, decentralizes power. Reports of such efforts have started coming in.[219] The Indian President’s address to the nation in 1996 urges the same mobilization of the power of the people.

• The individual’s realization that happiness lies not in accumulating unnecessary goods but in doing work that gives income as also satisfaction.

• Those who are talented have to realize their obligation for using it for the good of society, for helping the weak, and not just for self-aggrandizement. This extends the trusteeship concept from the wealthy to include the gifted.            

In a recent workshop on “Partnership to meet development challenges in South Asia” held in Kathmandu in May 2002 M.P. Shrestha put forward his ideas on tackling the ills of globalization by replacing its exploitation and furthering of monopolized advantage by “globalisation of social justice, equity, knowledge and information, science and technology, global resources and human good without walls of any sort and, if possible, without a need to possess.” He urges that all human beings, particularly those at the bottom of the barrel, should “have opportunity to mature politically, socially, culturally, economically and spiritually.” Instead of fuelling globalization by the “forced dominance-dependence relationship between privileged echelons and the vast mass of exploited people” he calls for working together to produce a “new paradigm of globalization where primacy of people is recognized and accepted as a guiding principle.”[[1]] What he is urging can only be brought about through the process that Paulo Freire called the praxis of Conscientization, tried out in Chile leading to this priest’s imprisonment by the government.

Dr. Bengt Gustavsson, Professor and management consultant in Stockholm, has written on the dangers inherent in the current process of importing technological know-how, capital and values since “All three represent aspects of the Indian inheritance ravaged during the colonial era…we may very well pose the question whether this development is nothing but a new colonial order in disguise if we reflect on the consequences.” Trade and business being major transmitters of values today, he stresses the critical need for restoring the Indian’s faith in his ability and his own values if the nation does not wish to “be a slave under, not foreign powers, but her own infidelity to her own Self.” Perceptively he points out, “The most powerful change comes from the new values rolling in…through the mass and electronic media…buy yourself happy (sic.) and free from your problems…Is India faced with a new invasion…of conquering the Soul of India, transmitting values in the collective consciousness towards consumerism?”[220]

It is in the light of all this that former Chief Justice of India, V.R. Krishna Iyer exhorts: “Tearing through government obfuscation, MNC glamorization and media ‘Murdochisation’, the common people and patriotic intelligentsia must gather together to defeat the sweeping strategy of global economic rollback.”[221]

Playwright and management consultant Gurcharan Das urges that there is no denying the inexorable growth of globalization, but it must have safeguards, viz.

• Be ethical, i.e. protect against violation of human rights;

• be equitable and inclusive by reducing disparities and avoiding marginalization of people;

• provide social security to stabilize societies; stress growth that sustains, not ruins, the environment; and

• ensure less poverty through development.[222]

In the 2001 India Economic Summit session of the World Economic Forum, a common theme was the need to cultivate corporate social responsibility (complying with law, ethical business practices, concern for the environment and the interests of various stakeholders such as customers, the supply chain, employees and the community at large). Speakers like Bertrand Collomb, CEO Lafarge, and R.L. Thompson, Managing Director, Novartis India, pointed out that firms cannot grow by compromising the future of the world because short-term profits cannot be sustained in the long run by ignoring corporate social responsibility. By living in harmony with the society and environment, the Infosys CEO Narayana Murthy pointed out, there are gains in the long run though corporations may loose in the short run.[223]

The question remains: how is this consummation, devoutly wished, to come about?

– Pradip Bhattacharya
August 17, 2003

Back To The Future

–  Westerners on the West 
–  The New World  
–  The First World  
–  The Western Response  
–  The World Situation 
–  The Eastern Scene 
–  Changing Asian Values 
–  India Darshan 
–  Urbanization, Globalization and Consumerism
–  Possible Solutions 
–  Bureaucracy in India  
–  The Counterpoint  
–  India's Heritage  

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