John Samuel
(This note is based on a recent paper by Arjun Sengupta, KP Kanana and Ravindran in the Economic and Political Weekly of India, on March 15, 2008)
Poverty is not merely about numbers. Poverty is the denial of right to live with dignity and perpetuated by an active process of impoverisation that emerge out of unequal and unjust power relationship.
The notion of impoverisation (or the process of the active creation of poverty with in society or economy) needs to be seen in the context of social, economic and political inequality. Such inequality is perpetuated by entrenched identities, emerging out of cumulative marginalization; poverty is no longer a humanitarian issue, but a deeply political issue. Such political economy of impoverisation, resulting in active denial of social and economic rights, may induce more violent conflicts and political unrest in a given society. Such conflicts may further pose problem for economic growth and social security.
A recent paper (Economic & Political Weekly, March 15, 2008 49 .India’s common people: Who are they, How Many are they and How Do they live? Arjun Sengupta, K P Kannan, G Raveendran) very clearly demonstrates the link between poverty, inequality and identity in the Indian context.
To give a sense about the broader arguments of the paper, I quote the key highlights from the paper :
“This paper attempts to define the common people of India in terms of levels of consumption and examines their socio-economic profile in different periods of time, since the early 1990s with a view to assessing how the economic growth process has impacted on their lives. The findings should worry everyone. Despite high growth, more than three-fourths of Indians are poor and vulnerable with a level of consumption not more than twice the official poverty line. This proportion of the population which can be categorised as the “common people” is much higher among certain social groups, especially for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. There is also evidence to suggest that inequality is widening between the common people and the better-off sections of society.”
The authors sum up their excellent analysis with the following findings:
“To sum up, an overwhelming majority of the Indian population, around three quarters, is poor and vulnerable and it is a staggering 836 million as of 2004-05. This includes 70 million or 6.4 per cent who may be characterised as extremely poor with a per capita consumption of less than or three-quarters of the official poverty line. To this should be added 167 million of those who are poor with consumption not more than that fixed as the official poverty line. If this is relaxed to include those with a per capita consumption of up to 25 per cent above the poverty line, called marginally poor here, then we find another 207 million. These three groups account for 444 million or 40.8 per cent of the population. To this we add those with a per capita consumption between 1.25 and two times the poverty line as vulnerable and this group of poor and vulnerable comes to 836 million of Indians or well over 75 per cent of the population.
The next major finding is the close association between poverty and vulnerability with one’s social identity. The two social groups who are at the bottom by this classification are the SCs/STs, who constitute the bottom layer, and the Muslims, who are in the next layer. This does not mean that the other groups are far better off. The next group is the OBCs but better than the two bottom layers. Even for those who do not belong to any of these groups, the incidence is 55 per cent.”
This analysis confirms the policy and political arguments some of us have been making for the last many years. This also validates our argument against the present notions and definitions of the "Poverty Line"
But the key questions are:
a) What are the policy and political implications of such an analysis?
b) Whether the present policy and budget paradigm and the mode and pattern of economic growth perpetuate the existing marginalization and the growing inequality?
c) What are some of the key policy prioritization required to transform the situation in a more proactive and positive way in the next five to ten years?
Here are some of my responses (only meant for those who are further interested in the paper)
1) The methodological framework gives a far better analytical mode to compare poverty across classes, particularly in terms of status of Education, Work etc. Such a comparative analytical perspective also gives a sense about the nature and character of economic inequality, in relation to poverty and social inequalities. Such an analysis also helps to develop far more focused policy prioritization and interventions. (If it all there is Political Will to do so)
2) The paper clearly points out how cumulative marginalizations (in terms of cast/social hierarchy, access to education, access to employment etc) perpetuate impoverisation and multiple forms of inequality. It would have been good to get a sense about the gender dimension in the analysis.
3) When inequality has a direct correlation with identity, social locations and historical marginalization that is indeed a recipe for political discontent, contestations and consequent violence and political unrest. The consequences of inequality, cumulative marginalization and entrenched social identity may challenge and change the present political equations and formation in India.
4) The fact that there is an assertive middle class in all sections (SC/ST/ Muslim/ OBC. etc) will enable the potential emergence of an articulate and assertive leadership among these sections and this will eventually influence the political process. This is already evident in many states like Tamil Nadu, UP, Bihar etc.
5) While the study is based on the 2005-6 data, it will be good to know whether CMP, NREGA etc of UPA Government made any difference. Apart from the rhetoric of the so-called "Aam Admi"( 75 percent of the population) ,to what extend the UPA public policy and Budget allocation made a difference ?
In fact, even in this budget, there is hardly any increase in the allocation for SC/ST. Even the writing off the agricultural loans may benefit the "Others" more than SC/ST, Muslims - though OBC also may get some benefits. While it is good to have 20% increases in the allocation for Education, that is not good enough to substantially change the conditions of SC/ST and Muslims.
6) The fact of the matter is more than 40 percent of the population is really , really poor and at the receiving end of cumulative marginalization. The vulnerable poor( most of them may be OBCs) still may have better bargaining power and also tend intervene in the mainstream political process. But the marginalized poor and poor may challenge the mainstream political process, by initiating a serious of "micro" struggles or even armed contestations to the state to challenge the existing custodians of the state and corporate power.
7) This shows that India is at the threshold of a new political transition in the next ten years. If the main-stream parties( Congress, Left etc) fail to significantly challenge and change their present assumptions and approaches, they will lose a significant constituencies and new actors and new political formations( both reactionary and mainstream) will emerge on the scene in the next ten to fifteen years.
8) The present mode of urban-centric, service sector driven growth , at the cost of agriculture, small and medium level enterprises and rural infrastructure will create new population pressure, rural-urban migration and new forms urban poverty and consequent increase of crime and violence.
It would have been great if the paper has given some in-depth analysis of the rural-urban implications and how social and economic locations affect access to quality education and gainful employment.
9) It seems more than 80 % of the beneficiaries of the economic growth are the upper cast, urban , professionally educated class. This will have implications in terms real estate ownership pattern( for instance there are number of "vegetarian" housing societies or exclusive "cast" apartments-without making it obvious- in the new Metros), English media( as upper cast-educated will be the consumers) and corporate leadership( who tend to appropriate or control the mainstream political process through election funding and new forms of patronage).
We do need a new Policy and Political Paradigm to ensure a stable, secure , democratic and vibrant India. I am not sure how many Political Parties are even thinking beyond the next election or next six months! If so, that is not a good sign for the future of Indian Democracy.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Unhappy Highways
Economic Growth, Technology and Alienation
John Samuel
Economic Growth and technological innovations are the two key drivers of change in the modern world. Economic growth is expected to increase surplus income with more access to services and comforts. Technology and economic growth feed in to each other and access to economic growth and technology is supposed to make life more comfortable. But the key paradox of economic and technological growth is that both of them often tend to increase comfort and tend to decrease the level of happiness. While rapid economic growth can create access to income, it can also create the paradox of abundance- where in quantity of money and comforts subvert and undermine the quality of time, life, living and environment.
When the growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) does not produce a corollary growth in Gross Domestic Happiness (GDH), one has to ask serious questions about the purpose of economic growth and use and misuse of technology. Economic Growth is not a bad idea. But abundance can be a sin when it unleashes the demons within us- replacing a sense of freedom with that of fear- ceasing to trust each other, with increasing insecurity, paranoia and violence.
Technology is both beauty and the beast at the same time. Technology is a double edged sword. Every tool's validity depends on who uses it for what? Tool itself may not be political- but the use of tool is always an exercise of Power. Hence, deeply political.
Technology has been the main protagonist in the drama of economic growth in the modern and post-modern times. The growth of technology was not merely propelled by the need for more comfort, facilities or to increase productivity. From a historical perspective, there seems to be direct correlation between innovations in technology, innovations in warfare and innovations in domination and controls. Hence, technology is not only a means for better facilities, but paradoxically the same technology also becomes an effective tool for “control”, “domination” and war.
.
Technology did make a difference to human condition, comforts and lives. Technology helped to heal as well as helped to make holocaust possible. Technology has almost acquired God-like- power to create, sustain and destruct; and at the same time a means for the search for perfection; conquering stars and cloning life. The ground zero in New York, the blazing bullets and exploding young men on a busy street symbolize the frightening dance of technology.
It is the unequal and asymmetric access to technology that also propelled various kinds of dominations. In fact, technology, as means of domination- as means to travel great distance, communicate and as a means to confront an "enemy' with more "productive" killing power( weapons of mass destruction- played a very important role in all conquests. Those who had access to horse breeding, gun powder, steam energy, ship technology, missiles, space technology used all these to create muscle power to dominate. This power play and technology are still being played out across the world. The origin of this very technology- Internet- too is in the defense labs of the US.
There is a clear connection between patterns of conquests, colonialisation, technology and natural resources. Colony went where there was coal, timber, iron, and food. Hence, in the 18nth or 19th century the so called “middle east” did not exist in the imperialist scheme of things. Railway lines happened wherever there were some resources to be ripped off. The printing press created new politics of knowledge, and new rules for domination. Of course, printing press also unleashed a linguistic revolution- through hundreds of new grammar, new dictionaries, new Bibles and new books. Translations translated and transformed lives and times. Shipping technology helped us to cross the sea to hold hands as well as to capture lands. The moment technology shifted from Steam based mechanics to Oil one could see the shift in focus of imperialism. There is a direct connection between the discovery of oil in the early twentieth century and the shift of imperial interests to the so called “Middle East"(erstwhile Persia and Arabia).
Even the original "mother goddess"( as fertility cults and creative impulse) concept was also co-opted or subjugated by powerful "Male" Gods of war, plunder and domination( with a direct correlation with the improvement of technology- and use of fire- "the Ygnas" or various sacrifices too had a technological element). Even in India, the advent of " Vishnu"- with that of new technology- on the scene changed the power dynamics and also the marginalization of "mother goddess" from the mainstream to the periphery (as family deities or village deities) This seems to be the beginning of patriarchy- based on the notion of Power Over or power as a means to control- as means to dominate and subjugate. While technology provided the hardware for such subjugation, religion provided the software for such subjugation.
The mode of technology often determines the mode communication. The mode of communication tends to determine the mode of community and mode of thinking and action. While the radical shift in the digital technology and Internet transformed the mode of communication, it also seems to have transformed the character and nature of community. This shift seems to have created new identity crisis and alienation in the real lives of people. The cyber world, social networking on the net etc creates different sort of distant and imagined communities, while subverting and undermining human communities in real lives. When the cyber-world helped us to create virtual “Skype”, “msn” or “yahoo” neighbors, we get less time to meet the next door neighbor. The one in our immediate vicinity becomes an anonymous other- a potential threat- if he or she does not have the same colure or look When we are busy in chat rooms in the cyber world- in search of a companion or friends- we simply do not have enough time discover or feel for a potential friend next door. We look for quick information, quick gratifications and quick desires on the information highways- in search of elusive images, slippery love, and virtual intimacies.
Some of these tensions between economic growth, technology and happiness play out in a dramatic manner in the Japanese society. These days if one travels by the metro train in Tokyo, most of the young people are glued to their mobile, playing games, browsing Internet, chatting with someone on line and they hardly even notice the person sitting next. This is also a usual sight in many other "developed" countries. Earlier (it is still there a bit in London), people used to read newspaper or magazines and at least they used to exchange news paper or magazines and do a bit of chat. These days, while people are connecting with some in the distance, they are alienated from the person sitting or living next door. This sort of alienation also seems to affect the creative instincts.
Communication, community and creativity are closely interlinked. And such relationships are facilitated, controlled or undermined by technology. So as the economic growth and communications have changed the notions of community, creating alienated forms of individuation, there has been a declined in the general creative urges in search of beauty. As a result, in such situations, people tend to innovate more for utility and less for a sense of beauty. This sense of erosion of aesthetics from human relations and society tend dehumanize the society and the world.
For instance, in an economically developed country like Japan, young people are too busy to fall in or rise in love. Thirty thousand people commit suicide every year- one of the highest in the world. Everyone seems to be so pre-occupied with his or her own economic survival, at the cost of emotional security and consequent social/community disintegration. As everyone is busy to find a job, to prove his or her sense of self-worth as a "hardworking" professional with " sincerity" to the role, there is no time to hold hands, or to walk in a park or to sing a song. Everything is highly automated and when life is so automated and orderly without a possibility of anarchic thinking and life, creativity takes a back seat and productivity takes a front seat. Livelihood takes precedence over living and living takes precedence over life. Efficiency of our work goes up and the effectiveness of life gets discounted.
So when human beings cease to be creative and tend to be productive, the seeds of alienation bloom in to a cancer of social disintegration and depolitisation. One ceases to be a part of a community but a loner in the midst of an anonymous crowd. This tragedy is so evident in Japan- where an aggressive economic growth and an invading technology seem to have created more people using Internet to find a "mate' to sleep with or to do "love- networking, and young people using technology to get a high kick to make "suicide- pact" on the net. When even love, passion and feeling get automated and orderly with sense of perfect routine, life becomes a boring burden: where life cease to give any excitement, people may search excitement in death!
We need to locate Economic Growth in relation to Culture, Social Psychology and socio-political contexts.
1) Culture Matters: Economic growth and technological interventions/innovation seem to have a two-way relationship in relation to culture and society. The dominant culture and power systems in a society may have an influence on the modes of economic growth and the negotiations with technology. Similarly, economic growth and technological interventions have different impacts in terms of social psychology and political process in different cultural contexts. Economic growth and technology may increase the access to comforts, but may also induce new individuation (transforming people from "social animal" to "economic animal" driven by economic compulsions), social disintegration, new paranoia and consequent loss of time or mindset for poetry, politics, love, companionship or community.
This paranoia, emotional insecurity and loss of community also create a new market for spiritualism and new adapted form of market-driven religious denominations. Maharishi Yogi to Osho to quick Nirvanas to various shades of Charismatic movements is thriving as a result of the market induced emotional and social insecurity among people who have becomes the villains and victims of the mega-markets!
2) Sudden waves of Economic Growth may induce Social dislocations and corollary socio-political issues.
In fact, sudden economic growth (due to multiple reasons) can induce more demands in some sectors of economy and as a result prices may go up in a steep manner. Such growth often concentrated in urban centres induces multiple forms of migrations and new population pressures.
For example, the sky rocketing real estate prices, smashed the dreams of millions of ordinary people to have a house to live in. The increased income of a miniscule minority also propelled new consumerism with consequent increase in cost of living. This in turn reduces the real purchasing capacity and increase the discontent of those who did not get much out of economic growth. This creates new economic and political tensions, making the recipe for an economics of violence. But depending on the size of a country, economy and the cultural and social diversity, this sudden economic growth can have different implications for different society. Hence there has to be a holistic approach to manage economic growth in relation to social and political dislocations.
3) Economic Growth based on “productive outputs" many not necessarily create social "outcomes" in a positive way.
Japan is arguably one of the more homogeneous countries. Sharp Economic Growth from the late sixties to early nineties created a whole lot of new social dynamics. In the beginning there was not enough skilled labour force- so instead of importing labour, the existing labour force sort of "doubled" there output- with a very handsome "overtime" salary package. So from the mid seventies most of the people got used to working late hours (something like the new culture induced by the Call Centres in the Indian cities). In the beginning this was a real economic incentive. But this higher income also induced higher cost of living- as the cost of real estate price and service sector shot up. So in the second phase from mid eighties, everyone was forced to work- both men and women- as a result of economic compulsions (as different from the earlier economic incentives). So Japan has a relatively high saving. But it is those who worked from sixties to eighties are the ones with savings and they are relatively rich and old.
The life expectancy too is one of the highest in the world, due to better healthcare facilities (of course for a higher cost). So here is a society with rich old people and relatively poor young people (as distinct from the case of India's emerging upper middle class). More than one third of the workforce in Japan is supposed to be on unstable job and income (hence difficult to get mortgage etc) and most of these are young people. And the cost of living is one of the highest in Japan- and hence all young people will have to work overtime or do multiple jobs (with no time of themselves or for companionship) for the sheer survival- ending up loaners in the anonymous crowd- returning home after 15 hours of work to sleep with their laptops or mobile phones!
The Economic Slowdown from the late nineties also induced different social dynamics and economics of survival- though Japan is one of the largest economies with high percapita-economic growth. The bureaucrats- politicians cartel that run the government are more worried about the emergence of a giant of China and a economically vibrant Koria- rather than the predicament of young people -with less job, less pay- in a relatively depoliticized society.
Japan had a vibrant left movement and was totally against Japan's joining the world war two. Though during the American Occupation between 1945 and 52, the government sought to first co-opt and then make them redundant, the Left political Movement was very strong in Japan. The new-left Magazine AMPO (Against Japan- American Security Pact in the early sixties) and a group of intellectuals were very active in the public sphere. However, when the economy began to grow at a rapid pace - every educated and skilled person was sucked in to the workforce with more economic incentives and corollary political disincentives. So the income grew and the political bargaining power went down. As a result, Japan has one of the weakest civil society movements and political process. Though there is a network of activists, there is hardly any strong social mobilization or political process among young people. Most of the young people are more preoccupied with their struggle for economic survival and less concerned about politics or social consequences.
It has become a case of an economic society superimposed on a very traditional socio-cultural society (hence new identify crisis) with pervading sense of new individuation and depoliticisation.
As many of the Asian Countries are on the path of rapid economic growth, it is high time to learn from the experience of Japan and other countries. It is important to manage economic growth with a long term perspective about the social, political and cultural consequences. If economic growth creates more social paranoia, social and emotional insecurity and consequent loss of mutual trust, we need rethink about the modes of economic growth and the about the effective use of technology.
John Samuel
Economic Growth and technological innovations are the two key drivers of change in the modern world. Economic growth is expected to increase surplus income with more access to services and comforts. Technology and economic growth feed in to each other and access to economic growth and technology is supposed to make life more comfortable. But the key paradox of economic and technological growth is that both of them often tend to increase comfort and tend to decrease the level of happiness. While rapid economic growth can create access to income, it can also create the paradox of abundance- where in quantity of money and comforts subvert and undermine the quality of time, life, living and environment.
When the growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) does not produce a corollary growth in Gross Domestic Happiness (GDH), one has to ask serious questions about the purpose of economic growth and use and misuse of technology. Economic Growth is not a bad idea. But abundance can be a sin when it unleashes the demons within us- replacing a sense of freedom with that of fear- ceasing to trust each other, with increasing insecurity, paranoia and violence.
Technology is both beauty and the beast at the same time. Technology is a double edged sword. Every tool's validity depends on who uses it for what? Tool itself may not be political- but the use of tool is always an exercise of Power. Hence, deeply political.
Technology has been the main protagonist in the drama of economic growth in the modern and post-modern times. The growth of technology was not merely propelled by the need for more comfort, facilities or to increase productivity. From a historical perspective, there seems to be direct correlation between innovations in technology, innovations in warfare and innovations in domination and controls. Hence, technology is not only a means for better facilities, but paradoxically the same technology also becomes an effective tool for “control”, “domination” and war.
.
Technology did make a difference to human condition, comforts and lives. Technology helped to heal as well as helped to make holocaust possible. Technology has almost acquired God-like- power to create, sustain and destruct; and at the same time a means for the search for perfection; conquering stars and cloning life. The ground zero in New York, the blazing bullets and exploding young men on a busy street symbolize the frightening dance of technology.
It is the unequal and asymmetric access to technology that also propelled various kinds of dominations. In fact, technology, as means of domination- as means to travel great distance, communicate and as a means to confront an "enemy' with more "productive" killing power( weapons of mass destruction- played a very important role in all conquests. Those who had access to horse breeding, gun powder, steam energy, ship technology, missiles, space technology used all these to create muscle power to dominate. This power play and technology are still being played out across the world. The origin of this very technology- Internet- too is in the defense labs of the US.
There is a clear connection between patterns of conquests, colonialisation, technology and natural resources. Colony went where there was coal, timber, iron, and food. Hence, in the 18nth or 19th century the so called “middle east” did not exist in the imperialist scheme of things. Railway lines happened wherever there were some resources to be ripped off. The printing press created new politics of knowledge, and new rules for domination. Of course, printing press also unleashed a linguistic revolution- through hundreds of new grammar, new dictionaries, new Bibles and new books. Translations translated and transformed lives and times. Shipping technology helped us to cross the sea to hold hands as well as to capture lands. The moment technology shifted from Steam based mechanics to Oil one could see the shift in focus of imperialism. There is a direct connection between the discovery of oil in the early twentieth century and the shift of imperial interests to the so called “Middle East"(erstwhile Persia and Arabia).
Even the original "mother goddess"( as fertility cults and creative impulse) concept was also co-opted or subjugated by powerful "Male" Gods of war, plunder and domination( with a direct correlation with the improvement of technology- and use of fire- "the Ygnas" or various sacrifices too had a technological element). Even in India, the advent of " Vishnu"- with that of new technology- on the scene changed the power dynamics and also the marginalization of "mother goddess" from the mainstream to the periphery (as family deities or village deities) This seems to be the beginning of patriarchy- based on the notion of Power Over or power as a means to control- as means to dominate and subjugate. While technology provided the hardware for such subjugation, religion provided the software for such subjugation.
The mode of technology often determines the mode communication. The mode of communication tends to determine the mode of community and mode of thinking and action. While the radical shift in the digital technology and Internet transformed the mode of communication, it also seems to have transformed the character and nature of community. This shift seems to have created new identity crisis and alienation in the real lives of people. The cyber world, social networking on the net etc creates different sort of distant and imagined communities, while subverting and undermining human communities in real lives. When the cyber-world helped us to create virtual “Skype”, “msn” or “yahoo” neighbors, we get less time to meet the next door neighbor. The one in our immediate vicinity becomes an anonymous other- a potential threat- if he or she does not have the same colure or look When we are busy in chat rooms in the cyber world- in search of a companion or friends- we simply do not have enough time discover or feel for a potential friend next door. We look for quick information, quick gratifications and quick desires on the information highways- in search of elusive images, slippery love, and virtual intimacies.
Some of these tensions between economic growth, technology and happiness play out in a dramatic manner in the Japanese society. These days if one travels by the metro train in Tokyo, most of the young people are glued to their mobile, playing games, browsing Internet, chatting with someone on line and they hardly even notice the person sitting next. This is also a usual sight in many other "developed" countries. Earlier (it is still there a bit in London), people used to read newspaper or magazines and at least they used to exchange news paper or magazines and do a bit of chat. These days, while people are connecting with some in the distance, they are alienated from the person sitting or living next door. This sort of alienation also seems to affect the creative instincts.
Communication, community and creativity are closely interlinked. And such relationships are facilitated, controlled or undermined by technology. So as the economic growth and communications have changed the notions of community, creating alienated forms of individuation, there has been a declined in the general creative urges in search of beauty. As a result, in such situations, people tend to innovate more for utility and less for a sense of beauty. This sense of erosion of aesthetics from human relations and society tend dehumanize the society and the world.
For instance, in an economically developed country like Japan, young people are too busy to fall in or rise in love. Thirty thousand people commit suicide every year- one of the highest in the world. Everyone seems to be so pre-occupied with his or her own economic survival, at the cost of emotional security and consequent social/community disintegration. As everyone is busy to find a job, to prove his or her sense of self-worth as a "hardworking" professional with " sincerity" to the role, there is no time to hold hands, or to walk in a park or to sing a song. Everything is highly automated and when life is so automated and orderly without a possibility of anarchic thinking and life, creativity takes a back seat and productivity takes a front seat. Livelihood takes precedence over living and living takes precedence over life. Efficiency of our work goes up and the effectiveness of life gets discounted.
So when human beings cease to be creative and tend to be productive, the seeds of alienation bloom in to a cancer of social disintegration and depolitisation. One ceases to be a part of a community but a loner in the midst of an anonymous crowd. This tragedy is so evident in Japan- where an aggressive economic growth and an invading technology seem to have created more people using Internet to find a "mate' to sleep with or to do "love- networking, and young people using technology to get a high kick to make "suicide- pact" on the net. When even love, passion and feeling get automated and orderly with sense of perfect routine, life becomes a boring burden: where life cease to give any excitement, people may search excitement in death!
We need to locate Economic Growth in relation to Culture, Social Psychology and socio-political contexts.
1) Culture Matters: Economic growth and technological interventions/innovation seem to have a two-way relationship in relation to culture and society. The dominant culture and power systems in a society may have an influence on the modes of economic growth and the negotiations with technology. Similarly, economic growth and technological interventions have different impacts in terms of social psychology and political process in different cultural contexts. Economic growth and technology may increase the access to comforts, but may also induce new individuation (transforming people from "social animal" to "economic animal" driven by economic compulsions), social disintegration, new paranoia and consequent loss of time or mindset for poetry, politics, love, companionship or community.
This paranoia, emotional insecurity and loss of community also create a new market for spiritualism and new adapted form of market-driven religious denominations. Maharishi Yogi to Osho to quick Nirvanas to various shades of Charismatic movements is thriving as a result of the market induced emotional and social insecurity among people who have becomes the villains and victims of the mega-markets!
2) Sudden waves of Economic Growth may induce Social dislocations and corollary socio-political issues.
In fact, sudden economic growth (due to multiple reasons) can induce more demands in some sectors of economy and as a result prices may go up in a steep manner. Such growth often concentrated in urban centres induces multiple forms of migrations and new population pressures.
For example, the sky rocketing real estate prices, smashed the dreams of millions of ordinary people to have a house to live in. The increased income of a miniscule minority also propelled new consumerism with consequent increase in cost of living. This in turn reduces the real purchasing capacity and increase the discontent of those who did not get much out of economic growth. This creates new economic and political tensions, making the recipe for an economics of violence. But depending on the size of a country, economy and the cultural and social diversity, this sudden economic growth can have different implications for different society. Hence there has to be a holistic approach to manage economic growth in relation to social and political dislocations.
3) Economic Growth based on “productive outputs" many not necessarily create social "outcomes" in a positive way.
Japan is arguably one of the more homogeneous countries. Sharp Economic Growth from the late sixties to early nineties created a whole lot of new social dynamics. In the beginning there was not enough skilled labour force- so instead of importing labour, the existing labour force sort of "doubled" there output- with a very handsome "overtime" salary package. So from the mid seventies most of the people got used to working late hours (something like the new culture induced by the Call Centres in the Indian cities). In the beginning this was a real economic incentive. But this higher income also induced higher cost of living- as the cost of real estate price and service sector shot up. So in the second phase from mid eighties, everyone was forced to work- both men and women- as a result of economic compulsions (as different from the earlier economic incentives). So Japan has a relatively high saving. But it is those who worked from sixties to eighties are the ones with savings and they are relatively rich and old.
The life expectancy too is one of the highest in the world, due to better healthcare facilities (of course for a higher cost). So here is a society with rich old people and relatively poor young people (as distinct from the case of India's emerging upper middle class). More than one third of the workforce in Japan is supposed to be on unstable job and income (hence difficult to get mortgage etc) and most of these are young people. And the cost of living is one of the highest in Japan- and hence all young people will have to work overtime or do multiple jobs (with no time of themselves or for companionship) for the sheer survival- ending up loaners in the anonymous crowd- returning home after 15 hours of work to sleep with their laptops or mobile phones!
The Economic Slowdown from the late nineties also induced different social dynamics and economics of survival- though Japan is one of the largest economies with high percapita-economic growth. The bureaucrats- politicians cartel that run the government are more worried about the emergence of a giant of China and a economically vibrant Koria- rather than the predicament of young people -with less job, less pay- in a relatively depoliticized society.
Japan had a vibrant left movement and was totally against Japan's joining the world war two. Though during the American Occupation between 1945 and 52, the government sought to first co-opt and then make them redundant, the Left political Movement was very strong in Japan. The new-left Magazine AMPO (Against Japan- American Security Pact in the early sixties) and a group of intellectuals were very active in the public sphere. However, when the economy began to grow at a rapid pace - every educated and skilled person was sucked in to the workforce with more economic incentives and corollary political disincentives. So the income grew and the political bargaining power went down. As a result, Japan has one of the weakest civil society movements and political process. Though there is a network of activists, there is hardly any strong social mobilization or political process among young people. Most of the young people are more preoccupied with their struggle for economic survival and less concerned about politics or social consequences.
It has become a case of an economic society superimposed on a very traditional socio-cultural society (hence new identify crisis) with pervading sense of new individuation and depoliticisation.
As many of the Asian Countries are on the path of rapid economic growth, it is high time to learn from the experience of Japan and other countries. It is important to manage economic growth with a long term perspective about the social, political and cultural consequences. If economic growth creates more social paranoia, social and emotional insecurity and consequent loss of mutual trust, we need rethink about the modes of economic growth and the about the effective use of technology.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Ideas and People can Change the World!
Only, Ideas and People Can Change the World!
John Samuel opens-up for the Interns of the National Centre for Advocacy Studies, his life, his experience and his views of change and how to bring it about.
John Samuel is currently the International Director of Actionaid, based in Bangkok.
Mihir Bhonsale brings you an excerpt from an interaction with John Samuel.
Q: How did you become an activist?
JS: I became aware of Politics during the Emergency (1975-1977) even before I became a teenager. I acquired my political sensibility and activism through discussions, debates and reading in our village library. Kerala had a vibrant library movement and it enabled and empowered many young people. I come from a village near Adoor, and Adoor Gopalakrishnan is also from the same area.
My parents were educated and they were working outside- as I lived initially with my maternal grant parents and then with paternal grandmother. I studied in a local Government school with dalit and poor children. So I was aware about cast discrimination and poverty and felt very uneasy and angry about it.The library had all kinds of news-papers and I used to read all newspapers and books all without knowing the political ideology or inclination- for the sheer joy of reading. I got into reading from childhood.
During the Emergency regime, many of my friends (who were in their twenties and thirties got arrested, which made me angry. I was aware about the politics of the time, and the J.P. Movement through the newspapers. Much later did I realize that two of my friends who were arrested were Naxalities and two of them were of the RSS
I started my political activism and advocacy against emergency- often taking part in study classes by local Marxist intellectuals, helping the anti-emergency activists with information .There was a culture of silence and fear. It is very difficult to explain the difficult times now. I used to cycle away two kilometers to pass on information from one activist to another.
I got into active political activism during the general election in 1977. I was campaigning for the Left front against Emergency regime. Though Congress (I) lost the election in rest of India, in Kerala congress managed to win that election. Our candidate too lost. During those formative years, I was very much into learning about socialism and Marxist theory of change. I used to attend study classes and read every available book on the topic. After my initial enthusiasm with SFI, CPM and other party politics , active in the students politics, I gradually got disillusioned with the party power politics as I could not find any real commitment to idealism and ideology in most of the parties. Though I am a great supporter of political party systems( then and now) , there has been a degeneration in terms of ideological commitment as well the quality of leadership. Political parties have been reduced to electoral network to capture state power by hook or crook. That is what disillusioned me. Otherwise I would have been working with a political party , rather than choosing to work in civil society or directly with citizens.
By the time I grew up, I got equally interested in literature, writing and editing. So in my 11th grade I along with a group of friends started a students’ cultural group and started a printed Journal- Pratidhawni- for students. It was a great learning experience as we ran it for five years, though not bringing out regularly. During those years, I interviewed many poets, writers and also wrote. So when I got disillusioned with mainstream party politics, I was keen to take up a creative vocation. I was keen to come to Pune , partly due to the Film Institute- hoping to become a film maker- and partly because of one of my very good friends( from our cultural group) joined Pune University. As my parents were against me joining politics or Films, as a sort of compromise they allowed me to choose English Literature, leaving my Science background.
Q: Please elaborate on your views on change and how to bring it about?
JS: Though I finished my BSc, I joined the Pune University for MA English. We started a group called Bodhi, which became one of the biggest student groups of Pune University. People said we are ultra-left and all. We also started a street-theatre group and I was the key organizer. We used to visit the slums of Pune and performed there. University campus provided me an opportunity to develop a pan-Indian perspective, and to learn more about social theory, history and political process. Bodhi discussions on every Wednesday became very popular and I learnt to speak in fluent English during those discussions, often moderated by me.
If you really want to do something and be sincere about that then you have to put in your Dil (heart) Dimaag (brain) and Dum (Dynamism). If there is no Dil( or real belief or commitment) no change is possible within you or around you. That is the first thing about change. You should feel angry for the injustice happening next door, I felt angry about injustice from the age of ten. There are so much atrocities happening in the society against girl child, against women, against dalits, but most of the people keep quiet. Anger and dream are very important. So, solidarity comes from the Dil. Only Dil does not help, otherwise you feel burned-out. To transform that anger into something positive, one should think through possible alternative and options and hence Dimaag( thinking) is very important along with commitment. If you do not use your mind, the World is not an innocent place. You will be completely outmaneuvered. But the will to act come from the internal drive , fire in the belly(Dum) that brings out a sort of dynamism in all our work. Dil gives you a sense of passion, Dimaag can translate that passion in to a sort of vision and mission and Dum is the internal energy and will to realize that sense of mission. These qualities of commitment, competence and a will to translate mission in to action are very crucial for any good leadership.
But, if you have the force of commitment, courage of conviction and a clear sense of vision, nothing can stop you in the world. This is what I have learnt over a period of time and NCAS is sort of witness to that.
I still remember the initial ridicule that I had to face when we began the NCAS as an idea, with few files, in hole in the wall arrangement in a small room in Lower Parel, Mumbai, sharing a very dingy office space with Unique Features.
Most of the people do not treat the young as equal. I realized that feudal values, patriarchy and identity issue are still alive even in the NGO or so-called civil society sector. Though everyone discouraged me and overall environment was discouraging, I was committed to the idea of advocacy , social transformation and to that of NCAS. Since I was there for an idea, and due to courage of conviction and less for a job or career, I was least bothered about initial adversity to the NCAS project from various quarters. I was convinced that NCAS can make a difference in this country in the years to come. I was convinced that I am here with a sense of mission rather than for a job. In the course of years, it seems some of my convictions were valid enough to transform NCAS from a mere name and a file that I inherited to an important social change resource centre in India and global south. NCAS has influenced ideas ( of advocacy and human rights) across the social action groups and civil society in India and internationally.
What Makes Change happen?
Only two things can change the World, ‘Ideas and people’. All other things are peripheral. Money or wealth or weapons can not change the world in the long run. You cannot kill an Idea, you can only challenge an idea. The moment you put an idea, it’s like a seed, it will come up in different forms, so you can challenge Marx, but you cannot kill Marxism, as an idea. Savarkar proposed Hindutva- you can not kill that idea , one can only challenge it. Ideas are more dangerous than anything else. Mussolini was more scared about the ideas of Antonio Gramsci. So Mussolini said : ‘his mind should stop working’. Mussolini said, ‘jailing him won’t help, his mind is more dangerous than his body’. Gramsci’s, Prison Notebooks are one of the best books in influencing social change.
Ideas are the most powerful weapons in the World. But, ideas become active, when people live with it and live to propel it , translate it and use those ideas as means to transform the society and world. Young people with ideas and ideals are the force, which can change the World. Ideas and Ideals create whatever imagination. The best of the Dil, Dimaag and Dum are in the young people.
Every moment of life you have to live and feel the life . Living is an art of feeling, thinking and doing- making a difference wherever you are. Living is also an art of unleashing your imagination and creativity – magic of discovering the world within you and around you.
Every human being does eat, shit and procreate, and life seems so simple!! That makes Life into such a monotonous routine of existence , without creative impulse or transformative potential.
Experience is very important. One should be able to feel, touch and smell with a sense of passion and intensity. Experience is one of the biggest sources of learning and inspiration. But the tragedy is that one is not even often aware about one’s own experience in a life of routine- devoid of the sense of curiosity and wonder. Skills and tools are also important.
What is the difference between human beings and animals? Human beings have creativity, community and communications. The creative and power instincts of human being propel to give birth as well to kill, to create as well as to destroy, to imagine as well as to impose.
Human beings have vanities about power, they are full of vanities and these vanities of power are often built within the social system.
Ideas give rise to imagination and Imagination can propel new ideas. Courage of conviction in those ideas and ability to inspire , initiate and nurture young people , the rest will happen. Knowledge is power. But Imagination is more important than knowledge. Imagination is the impulse to creativity. Human Creativity and Conviction are what make change happen. They together make the will act. They are the moving force behind history. All other things like wealth, weapons etc are mere enabling factors. Remember Confucius, Vedas, Buddha, Jesus, Prophet Mohammed, Newton, Marx, Einstein, or Gandhi influenced world more than the great warrior kings or the richest people.
As young people, you should dare to dream! You have to learn to dream about the society and you. You have to imagine that you can change the world. You need to nurture your self awareness and creative impulse. You have to believe in your ability to transform yourself and the world around you. You need to have the courage of conviction. Then, you can indeed change the world!
Making change happen is the most exciting thing in the world- a proof our living, a sign of our creative impulse, a responsibility to go beyond yourselves , to touch, feel and smell the world- to be an agent of transformation. Why not?
Our society is in full of contradictions, the society is yet very feudal, the power structure is still problematic based on caste, religion, and language. In the N.G.O’s also, who are the people who call the shots ? They are Urban, Upper Class, Upper Caste, and English speaking people . They come from elite institutions and privileged background. For many of them , NGOs are a more relaxed way of working , a bit of an alternative style, and a bit of do-good impulse; not necessarily means to challenge the satus quo or transform the world. More often, it is the same class of people who take the leadership in top bureaucracy, corporate sector and NGO.
There is less opportunities and choices for rural youth – with out adequate skills in English or the enabling kind of exposure. While many of the English speaking privileged class encourage the rural people and less privileged one’s to speak in local languages or Hindi, they unwittingly foreclose the possibility of further exposure or learning to such people. So often, those who speak or write Hindi ends up in a small organisation or work at the district level and those who have access to language, knowledge and exposure end up leading the more privileged urban NGOs or INGOs. Somehow there is indeed a language connotation to our power structure- that emerged out of the colonial process. It is also because of the diversity of India. English is the only connecting language across the middle class of India. So while it is good to know Tamil and Hindi, without communication skills in English, you may end up having less advantage. Hence , I used to insist every one to learn to write and speak in English. You need to go beyond your comfort zone to learn new things and new skills.
It is also important to truly respect diversity and pluralism wherever you are. It is equally important to stand up and speak out for those who are less privileged in a given situation. I tried to do that whenever there was an opportunity. Now Actionaid has an affirmative recruitment policy. Few years ago all leaders came from upper cast and upper class and majority religion. Now we have many senior leaders from dalit , tribal back ground. We have more women in leadership.
Perspective is another important force of change. Every one keeps interpreting the world around us with one perspective or to other. However, what you see depends on where you stand!
The mind can often end up rationalize everything as per the convenience. It can be used to rationalize Hitler or Stalin. The mind can also become very cynical. Such cynical rationalism can often be counter productive and dangerous.
The solidarity is shared sense of feeling and a sense of collective commitment. You can not derive sense of solidarity or courage of conviction from text books or from social theory. Unless, you feel about causes and consequence of injustice and poverty, it is difficult for one to act . Descartes wrote: 'I think therefore I am'. This is a problem Cartesian mode of thinking largely prevalent in the European world – making a distinction between mind and body, experience and reason etc .!
After spending a week in a remote village in a river island( Choar Mumtaz) in Bangladesh, I write down my experience( available on the blog: www.bodhigram.blogspot.com) . I ended that reflection with a counter point to the Cartesian mode: “ I feel therefore I am; I think therefore I do”
We need both poetry and politics for a new wave of change. We need political imagination as well as poetry of power and passion to transform the barren landscape of our thinking and action.
(This is an Excerpt from the Interaction of Interns with John Samuel at the Conference Room, National Centre for Advocacy Studies, Pune).
John Samuel opens-up for the Interns of the National Centre for Advocacy Studies, his life, his experience and his views of change and how to bring it about.
John Samuel is currently the International Director of Actionaid, based in Bangkok.
Mihir Bhonsale brings you an excerpt from an interaction with John Samuel.
Q: How did you become an activist?
JS: I became aware of Politics during the Emergency (1975-1977) even before I became a teenager. I acquired my political sensibility and activism through discussions, debates and reading in our village library. Kerala had a vibrant library movement and it enabled and empowered many young people. I come from a village near Adoor, and Adoor Gopalakrishnan is also from the same area.
My parents were educated and they were working outside- as I lived initially with my maternal grant parents and then with paternal grandmother. I studied in a local Government school with dalit and poor children. So I was aware about cast discrimination and poverty and felt very uneasy and angry about it.The library had all kinds of news-papers and I used to read all newspapers and books all without knowing the political ideology or inclination- for the sheer joy of reading. I got into reading from childhood.
During the Emergency regime, many of my friends (who were in their twenties and thirties got arrested, which made me angry. I was aware about the politics of the time, and the J.P. Movement through the newspapers. Much later did I realize that two of my friends who were arrested were Naxalities and two of them were of the RSS
I started my political activism and advocacy against emergency- often taking part in study classes by local Marxist intellectuals, helping the anti-emergency activists with information .There was a culture of silence and fear. It is very difficult to explain the difficult times now. I used to cycle away two kilometers to pass on information from one activist to another.
I got into active political activism during the general election in 1977. I was campaigning for the Left front against Emergency regime. Though Congress (I) lost the election in rest of India, in Kerala congress managed to win that election. Our candidate too lost. During those formative years, I was very much into learning about socialism and Marxist theory of change. I used to attend study classes and read every available book on the topic. After my initial enthusiasm with SFI, CPM and other party politics , active in the students politics, I gradually got disillusioned with the party power politics as I could not find any real commitment to idealism and ideology in most of the parties. Though I am a great supporter of political party systems( then and now) , there has been a degeneration in terms of ideological commitment as well the quality of leadership. Political parties have been reduced to electoral network to capture state power by hook or crook. That is what disillusioned me. Otherwise I would have been working with a political party , rather than choosing to work in civil society or directly with citizens.
By the time I grew up, I got equally interested in literature, writing and editing. So in my 11th grade I along with a group of friends started a students’ cultural group and started a printed Journal- Pratidhawni- for students. It was a great learning experience as we ran it for five years, though not bringing out regularly. During those years, I interviewed many poets, writers and also wrote. So when I got disillusioned with mainstream party politics, I was keen to take up a creative vocation. I was keen to come to Pune , partly due to the Film Institute- hoping to become a film maker- and partly because of one of my very good friends( from our cultural group) joined Pune University. As my parents were against me joining politics or Films, as a sort of compromise they allowed me to choose English Literature, leaving my Science background.
Q: Please elaborate on your views on change and how to bring it about?
JS: Though I finished my BSc, I joined the Pune University for MA English. We started a group called Bodhi, which became one of the biggest student groups of Pune University. People said we are ultra-left and all. We also started a street-theatre group and I was the key organizer. We used to visit the slums of Pune and performed there. University campus provided me an opportunity to develop a pan-Indian perspective, and to learn more about social theory, history and political process. Bodhi discussions on every Wednesday became very popular and I learnt to speak in fluent English during those discussions, often moderated by me.
If you really want to do something and be sincere about that then you have to put in your Dil (heart) Dimaag (brain) and Dum (Dynamism). If there is no Dil( or real belief or commitment) no change is possible within you or around you. That is the first thing about change. You should feel angry for the injustice happening next door, I felt angry about injustice from the age of ten. There are so much atrocities happening in the society against girl child, against women, against dalits, but most of the people keep quiet. Anger and dream are very important. So, solidarity comes from the Dil. Only Dil does not help, otherwise you feel burned-out. To transform that anger into something positive, one should think through possible alternative and options and hence Dimaag( thinking) is very important along with commitment. If you do not use your mind, the World is not an innocent place. You will be completely outmaneuvered. But the will to act come from the internal drive , fire in the belly(Dum) that brings out a sort of dynamism in all our work. Dil gives you a sense of passion, Dimaag can translate that passion in to a sort of vision and mission and Dum is the internal energy and will to realize that sense of mission. These qualities of commitment, competence and a will to translate mission in to action are very crucial for any good leadership.
But, if you have the force of commitment, courage of conviction and a clear sense of vision, nothing can stop you in the world. This is what I have learnt over a period of time and NCAS is sort of witness to that.
I still remember the initial ridicule that I had to face when we began the NCAS as an idea, with few files, in hole in the wall arrangement in a small room in Lower Parel, Mumbai, sharing a very dingy office space with Unique Features.
Most of the people do not treat the young as equal. I realized that feudal values, patriarchy and identity issue are still alive even in the NGO or so-called civil society sector. Though everyone discouraged me and overall environment was discouraging, I was committed to the idea of advocacy , social transformation and to that of NCAS. Since I was there for an idea, and due to courage of conviction and less for a job or career, I was least bothered about initial adversity to the NCAS project from various quarters. I was convinced that NCAS can make a difference in this country in the years to come. I was convinced that I am here with a sense of mission rather than for a job. In the course of years, it seems some of my convictions were valid enough to transform NCAS from a mere name and a file that I inherited to an important social change resource centre in India and global south. NCAS has influenced ideas ( of advocacy and human rights) across the social action groups and civil society in India and internationally.
What Makes Change happen?
Only two things can change the World, ‘Ideas and people’. All other things are peripheral. Money or wealth or weapons can not change the world in the long run. You cannot kill an Idea, you can only challenge an idea. The moment you put an idea, it’s like a seed, it will come up in different forms, so you can challenge Marx, but you cannot kill Marxism, as an idea. Savarkar proposed Hindutva- you can not kill that idea , one can only challenge it. Ideas are more dangerous than anything else. Mussolini was more scared about the ideas of Antonio Gramsci. So Mussolini said : ‘his mind should stop working’. Mussolini said, ‘jailing him won’t help, his mind is more dangerous than his body’. Gramsci’s, Prison Notebooks are one of the best books in influencing social change.
Ideas are the most powerful weapons in the World. But, ideas become active, when people live with it and live to propel it , translate it and use those ideas as means to transform the society and world. Young people with ideas and ideals are the force, which can change the World. Ideas and Ideals create whatever imagination. The best of the Dil, Dimaag and Dum are in the young people.
Every moment of life you have to live and feel the life . Living is an art of feeling, thinking and doing- making a difference wherever you are. Living is also an art of unleashing your imagination and creativity – magic of discovering the world within you and around you.
Every human being does eat, shit and procreate, and life seems so simple!! That makes Life into such a monotonous routine of existence , without creative impulse or transformative potential.
Experience is very important. One should be able to feel, touch and smell with a sense of passion and intensity. Experience is one of the biggest sources of learning and inspiration. But the tragedy is that one is not even often aware about one’s own experience in a life of routine- devoid of the sense of curiosity and wonder. Skills and tools are also important.
What is the difference between human beings and animals? Human beings have creativity, community and communications. The creative and power instincts of human being propel to give birth as well to kill, to create as well as to destroy, to imagine as well as to impose.
Human beings have vanities about power, they are full of vanities and these vanities of power are often built within the social system.
Ideas give rise to imagination and Imagination can propel new ideas. Courage of conviction in those ideas and ability to inspire , initiate and nurture young people , the rest will happen. Knowledge is power. But Imagination is more important than knowledge. Imagination is the impulse to creativity. Human Creativity and Conviction are what make change happen. They together make the will act. They are the moving force behind history. All other things like wealth, weapons etc are mere enabling factors. Remember Confucius, Vedas, Buddha, Jesus, Prophet Mohammed, Newton, Marx, Einstein, or Gandhi influenced world more than the great warrior kings or the richest people.
As young people, you should dare to dream! You have to learn to dream about the society and you. You have to imagine that you can change the world. You need to nurture your self awareness and creative impulse. You have to believe in your ability to transform yourself and the world around you. You need to have the courage of conviction. Then, you can indeed change the world!
Making change happen is the most exciting thing in the world- a proof our living, a sign of our creative impulse, a responsibility to go beyond yourselves , to touch, feel and smell the world- to be an agent of transformation. Why not?
Our society is in full of contradictions, the society is yet very feudal, the power structure is still problematic based on caste, religion, and language. In the N.G.O’s also, who are the people who call the shots ? They are Urban, Upper Class, Upper Caste, and English speaking people . They come from elite institutions and privileged background. For many of them , NGOs are a more relaxed way of working , a bit of an alternative style, and a bit of do-good impulse; not necessarily means to challenge the satus quo or transform the world. More often, it is the same class of people who take the leadership in top bureaucracy, corporate sector and NGO.
There is less opportunities and choices for rural youth – with out adequate skills in English or the enabling kind of exposure. While many of the English speaking privileged class encourage the rural people and less privileged one’s to speak in local languages or Hindi, they unwittingly foreclose the possibility of further exposure or learning to such people. So often, those who speak or write Hindi ends up in a small organisation or work at the district level and those who have access to language, knowledge and exposure end up leading the more privileged urban NGOs or INGOs. Somehow there is indeed a language connotation to our power structure- that emerged out of the colonial process. It is also because of the diversity of India. English is the only connecting language across the middle class of India. So while it is good to know Tamil and Hindi, without communication skills in English, you may end up having less advantage. Hence , I used to insist every one to learn to write and speak in English. You need to go beyond your comfort zone to learn new things and new skills.
It is also important to truly respect diversity and pluralism wherever you are. It is equally important to stand up and speak out for those who are less privileged in a given situation. I tried to do that whenever there was an opportunity. Now Actionaid has an affirmative recruitment policy. Few years ago all leaders came from upper cast and upper class and majority religion. Now we have many senior leaders from dalit , tribal back ground. We have more women in leadership.
Perspective is another important force of change. Every one keeps interpreting the world around us with one perspective or to other. However, what you see depends on where you stand!
The mind can often end up rationalize everything as per the convenience. It can be used to rationalize Hitler or Stalin. The mind can also become very cynical. Such cynical rationalism can often be counter productive and dangerous.
The solidarity is shared sense of feeling and a sense of collective commitment. You can not derive sense of solidarity or courage of conviction from text books or from social theory. Unless, you feel about causes and consequence of injustice and poverty, it is difficult for one to act . Descartes wrote: 'I think therefore I am'. This is a problem Cartesian mode of thinking largely prevalent in the European world – making a distinction between mind and body, experience and reason etc .!
After spending a week in a remote village in a river island( Choar Mumtaz) in Bangladesh, I write down my experience( available on the blog: www.bodhigram.blogspot.com) . I ended that reflection with a counter point to the Cartesian mode: “ I feel therefore I am; I think therefore I do”
We need both poetry and politics for a new wave of change. We need political imagination as well as poetry of power and passion to transform the barren landscape of our thinking and action.
(This is an Excerpt from the Interaction of Interns with John Samuel at the Conference Room, National Centre for Advocacy Studies, Pune).
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Development and Democracy in Asia
Development and Democracy in Asia: Trends and challenges
John Samuel
This is the transcript of the Key-note Address delivered at the International Meeting of the CARE International in Laos on 11th February 2008. A slightly revised version was delivered as the Key-Note Lecture on March 1, 2008 at the 35th year Conference of the Asia Partnership for Human Development in Bangkok.
Here is the good news! The economy of Asia is surging ahead. Sustained economic growth seems to have contributed to the reduction of poverty. The world bank report says that the poverty rates in Asia as whole almost halved in the last decade, with head count ratio ( based on the consumption level of less than $1 per day) falling from 34.3 percent in 1990 to 19.3% in 2003. Most of the countries are making steady progress towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) by 2015. China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam all witnessed more than 50% of poverty reduction since 1990 and these countries are supposed to be on track to meet the MDG targets of a further 50 % of reduction in income poverty by 2015. Literacy rates are going up, infant and maternal mortality is falling and people are living longer. Asian Cities are booming with the sign of prosperity. More and more billionaires are laughing their way to the banks- year after year. The pundits say that the time of Asia has come- it is an Asian Century. Booming economies, China as the global factory, India as the global office, and the stock exchanges are rocking! Asia is shining! Asia is rising! The story looks good!
The story looks good till you notice the underbelly of economic growth: unprecedented level of inequality, violence, epidemics, congested roads, teaming slums, polluted rivers and failing democracies. The story looks till you begin to hear the stories of Dalits, tribals, ethnic minorities, women from hinterlands of rural deprivation- the stories that you may never read in the Newspaper- unheard stories of invisible people: people who are displaced from the land and livelihood, people who prefer to commit suicide than selling their dignity, children go to bed hungry every single day. Two third of the world’s poor live in Asia. There will be still more than a billion people living with less than an income of $ 2 dollar a day in 2015. Asia is shining or whining? Economic growth is good for billionaires or billions of people?
What is the balance sheet of Asia’s Economic growth? Whose growth is it anyway? Who grows and who loses? Can economic growth along eliminate poverty in Asia? What are the key challenges for Development, Democracy and Human Rights in Asia? We need to situate the story of economic growth in the well being, human security and human rights of the most marginalized and excluded people in Asia. In spite of all the growth, if there are still more than one billion people with less than $ 2 a day in 2015, the story can turn sour! But it seems the ruling elite and media barons will not like to hear the bad news.
1. Growth with Inequality: Economics of Violence
Economic growth with inequality creates an economics of deprivation and violence. The present mode of economic growth displaces millions of rural and urban poor from their land and livelihood. As a result of unprecedented displacement due to mining, infrastructure projects, corporate farming, a new generation of social-economic refugees and new poor are emerging across Asia. They are growing in urban slums, rural deprivation and highly concentrated pockets of extreme poverty. A new discontent is brewing and it can adversely affect development, democracy and human rights in Asia.
While economic growth helps to create more opportunities for the more educated section of the middle class and a process of “trickle” down effect on a section of the poor, it is creating unprecedented level of inequality within countries and between countries.
Though China and India, two of the most populous countries in the world, are witnessing high rates of economic growth, there are lagging regions in both countries that have poor infrastructure or public service provisions. The urban and rural poor also face discrimination based on ethnicity, race, religion, cast, gender and place of origin. Women in are more marginalized and vulnerable to a systems that perpetuate inequality, discrimination and consequent poverty.
The economic growth is based on few urban centres and specially created economically dynamic zones in the coastal areas of many countries. The few urban centres are the key drivers of economic growth, while two third of the population in most populous countries- like China, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Pakistan, still live in rural areas depending agriculture for their livelihood. Hence, the historically marginalized sections like Dalits in India, ethnic minorities in China and South-East Asia and religious minorities in many countries are alienated from the economic growth or the mainstream political process.
This urban-centric, uneven and jobless economic growth perpetuate a sort of systemic inequality based on identity, gender and location all over Asia. Most of the communities, at the receiving end of exclusion are historically marginalized in terms of economical or political opportunities. When inequality has a direct co-relation with identity, it gives rise to new discontent. Such a sense of discontent and shared sense of alienation can often give rise to a new politics of violence- reacting to the prosperity of the dominant communities.
In the midst of islands of prosperity, there is a growing sea of poverty, discontent and consequent reactionary politics. This can perpetuate a cycle of violence, erasing the benefits of growth as well as the poverty reduction. So the paradoxical trend of growth with inequality may not be able to sustain growth on a long term basis. Political stability is a pre-requisite for economic growth. Inequality can create more political instability, adversely affecting sustainable economic growth. This can eventually perpetuate a new cycle of poverty, violence and the violation of human rights in Asia.
The present economic growth is vulnerable as it is largely dependent on service sector and largely export oriented manufacturing sector, often at the cost of the growth agricultural sector that provides livelihood for the large section of poor and marginalized sections in Asia.
The urban-centric growth, with very less investment in rural infrastructure, economy or agricultural, also lead to an unprecedented sort of migration from rural areas to urban areas. This explosion of populations in urban centres without adequate infrastructure and gainful employment opportunities can create a new generation of urban poor. Urban poverty and inequality- with direct links to identity- can create more occurrence of violence against women and crime rates in many of the countries.
This the present mode of neo-liberal economic growth is not sustainable in the long run as the billions of people are at the receiving end of marginalization and poverty can spoil the party- giving rise to a new cycle of poverty in Asia.
2) Emerging Agrarian Crisis: Erosion of Human Right to Food.
At the dawn of the Indian independence, Nehru said “Everything else can wait, but not agriculture”. This was based on the recognition the widespread poverty has its roots in agricultural stagnation.
One of the emerging trends is the potential agrarian crisis in different parts of Asia. This present mode of neo-liberal economic growth is largely dependent on trade and service, and there is consistent decline in the agriculture sector. There has been less investment in agriculture sector, in terms of irrigation, increasing the productive capacity, market facility or research. For instance, in spite of spending US$ 25 billions from 1990 to 2005 for constructing Dams, the actual areas of the irrigated land declined from 17.8 million hectares in the early 90s to 14. 3 million hectors in 2005.
As a result the economic growth in service and manufacturing sector is often accompanied by decline in agriculture sector. This has two consequences. Firstly it affects the livelihood and income levels of large number of small and marginal farmers and agriculture sector. Secondly it the decrease in food production makes countries vulnerable in terms of food sovereignty and food security and as a result of there will be fewer chances to regulate food prices.
Small scale farming has become increasingly unviable, in the absence of enabling economic and policy environment. Often cheap import of food products from rich countries adversely affected the viability of small farmers. As a result most of the marginal farmers either shift to cash crops (like rubber, cotton) or migrate to urban areas in search of new economic opportunities. Many of the small farmers are indebted due to wide fluctuations in food commodity prices. In the absence of subsidies or new investment in irrigation, most of the small farmers end up in vicious cycle of debt. When they fail to repay the debt, many of them end up committing suicide rather than losing their sense of dignity as self-reliant farmers with their own independent source of income and livelihood.
Less food production, more dependence of imported foods and increasing food prices in the international market perpetuate more poverty as poor people will not have enough income to buy food and essential commodities.
The increasing trend of corporate farming and the entry of big monopolies (like Reliance) in India can displace small farmers, petty traders and millions of rural poor from their livelihood. In the context of big corporate farming, small farmers end up selling their lands and end up as landless laborers in informal economic sector, with less bargaining power.
In the unprecedented level of growth in the urban areas have converted land from a productive assets to a market commodity. The new Special Economic Zone, Export Zone and Industrial Zone also displace millions of small farmers and agricultural workers from their land and livelihood. While a very small section of small farmers may benefit from the process of transition of agricultural land or productive assets to market commodity, it also creates new deprivation and discontent.
The new enthusiasm for biofuels, converting large tracts of agricultural land for the production of biofuels, can adversely affect the food production. The decrease in food production and increase in old prices can increase the prices of food in a dramatic way, making basic food unaffordable to large number of poor people. Actually US$ 1 dollar will not be able to meet even the basic needs of the poor people.
This will create the excluded and poor people more vulnerable in terms of their rights to food and nutrition.
3) Jobless Growth: Challenges to Rights to Livelihood.
While the present mode of neo-liberal growth helps to create relatively high-salary job to skilled workers and those with professional training, it does not create significant number of jobs for unskilled or semiskilled workers- who form the majority of the workforce.
For instance, the entire IT and BPO sector provided job for only 1.2 million workers among 500 million workers in India. Even in China, the manufacturing sector provides job largely for a minority of work force, while large number of small farmers and agricultural workers are forced to migrate in search of seasonal jobs in the construction sector.
Casualisation of ‘labour, along with an increasing number of workers in the informal sector, make the workers more vulnerable without even basic rights or social protection.
When there is an increasing number of unemployed youth in an unequal society, there is more chances of violence, instances of increasing crimes and consequent criminalization of society and politics. When many of the educated unemployed youth are from a particular social , ethnic, religious or regional groups they also become the recruiting grounds for terrorist organisations, Jihad groups and politically violent outfits such as Maoists. Such criminalization of society and politics will make economy vulnerable in the long run and also destabilize the political process.
4) Marketisation of DevelopmentDevelopment is the enhancement of freedom from want and freedom from fear. In a liberal democratic frame work, it is the primary responsibility of the State to ensure public provisions and social protections to facilitate development. While state has a key role in mediating between liberty and equality, the civil society organisations also play a very important role in ensuring and promoting development. With the advent of neo-liberal policy hegemony in most of the world and Asia, the developmental or welfare state is on retreat in terms of ensuring basic public services such as health, education, water and sanitation and ensuring gainful employment.
The poor in Asia still have less access to affordable or quality public services. Though private sector and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) play an important role in providing education, health and livelihood opportunities, such service may not reach the poor and excluded people on a large scale. As a result of unprecedented migration to urban areas, there will be new challenges to social and human development. The urban poor face economic deprivation, poor housing, and lack of basic services like water or sanitation and increasing criminality. There is indeed a need for large scale social and economic investment and public expenditure is required to address causes and consequences of urban poverty. As urban poverty will be one of the major trends in the next many years, there is an urgent need to ensure stable employment opportunities, access to residential land, housing and adequate public services like water, sanitation, health and education.
While NGOs have been supplementing the role of the state in providing services or advocating for the rights of the marginalized, most of the time such provisions were dependent on the International Aid or fund raised from the public in the rich northern countries. However, in the coming years there is a strong chance to shift the present development dynamics, primarily promoted by the state and NGOs.
Though the international aid from the OECD countries have increased in terms of quantity, the quality of the aid has been decreasing over a period of time. A very significant portion of the international aid is spending on security related issues or to fight war on terror. Though there has been significant increase in the volume of aid to countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan, most of it is spend on buying arms and ammunition from the same northern countries to fight war on terror. Another significant portion of the aid is spent to promote neo-liberal policy framework towards privatization of key sectors, including the public services. Though the volume of aid would gradually increase in short term, there will be substantial reduction of aid to Asian countries by 2015. In fact, if the present rate of economic growth sustains, there will be hardly any international development funds available for International and local NGOs. This will have implications in terms of the role and work of most of the INGOs- dependent on funding from bilateral and multilateral organisation.
While the international bilateral and multilateral funding to Asia may decrease in the next 7 to ten years, the role of Corporate Foundation and Trust will become more significant. Big corporate foundations like Gates Foundation or Tata Foundation may become key players in determining the funding dynamics in the international aid system. Over a period of time countries like China and India also may emerge as key donor countries and they may develop alternate mechanism to the Development Assistance Committee of OECD countries. The dynamics of the present fund-raising markets in the rich northern countries also may undergo a significant shift. The fund-raising market will be increasingly saturated and the cost of fundraising in the Northern countries will increase substantially in the years to come. When INGOs dependent on northern bilateral funding and northern fund-raising market will find hard to raise more money, they may be forced to scale down the number of staff and also change their present mode of operations. More resources may go to poorest African countries and this may create more challenges for raising money for the work in Asian Countries. A potential economic turn down in the next five years may create further challenges to the raise income for the INGOs.
The shift in funding dynamics, coupled with the rise of corporate power and foundations, may further accelerate the marketisation of development and also that of public services. Increasingly big corporations will be forced to invest more money for public services like primary education, rural health and livelihood programmes (like micro-credit and micro-enterprises) through corporate foundation. As big foundations and corporations will largely working on market principles, and they will have less skills and domain knowledge, they may hire the services of big NGOs or Private Development Consulting Companies to “deliver” particular services on a tangible basis in a particular area. Thus there is an increasing possibility of new techno-business model dominating the entire formal development sector. The new CSR regimes and new corporate foundations may increasingly push NGOs and Development Consulting companies as a part of the new service sector economy. So in the future, many of the new players will increasingly look like BRAC in Bangladesh. This means they on the one hand become business enterprises in the market place and on the other hand they would invest a part of their income for the larger social causes, service delivery and advocacy. This is because of the fact that big corporations need politically stable environment, more skilled work forces and a more sustainable market. So investing in social sector becomes a core part of the business strategy to survive as well as to exert political influence, particularly in countries like Indian and China. Even state may give tax concessions and exemptions for such “social” investments.
In the last thirty years, NGOs and INGOs have gone through a dramatic transitions Many of the organisations only retain their brand- while their purpose, vision, mission and structures dramatically changed due to the funding dynamics and external soci-economic and political environment.. There is n strong possibility for them to adapt the shifting funding dynamics with another metamorphosis. This is because of the fact that all big organisations has a strong tendency for self-preservation and shift their strategies and mode of work adapting to the shifting market and demands. This marketisation of development and public services may change the very sociology of professionals in the development sector.
The marketisation of development also may lead to a new generation of Civil Society activism- often locally funded – in Asia. This shift will have very interesting consequences in the dynamics of politics and development. In the next few years, a significant number of competent and experienced NGO professionals may be hired by the corporate sector and number of activist- policy people may shift to mainstream political process.
Increasing inequality and consequent social unrest and violence will force the States to change their strategies. Hence, there is a chance for a new social-contract between the Sate and Market to develop a new “social stability-protection” regime. If the key Asian countries manage to sustain the economic growth, this will also substantially increase the revenue of the state, with more money available for public services. However, such public service provisions many be executed by NGOs or Development Companies more in techno-business delivery model.
The key challenge is whether such an approach will be able to address the causes and consequence of poverty and injustice. Though this will have adverse impact on the lives of the poorest of the poor, such an approach may help to address the issues of the vulnerable poor.
5) Environmental Injustice and Climate Change
The threat of global warming and climate change looms large on Asia, there in increasing possibility of drought, natural disasters, and unpredictable weather condition. The unpredictable weather conditions, natural disasters, scarcity of water and increasing drought may adversely affect the food production. The poor and excluded people will be more vulnerable to the impact of climate change. The increasing urbanization, pollutions, lack of adequate sanitation and consequent congestion may also increase the instances of new epidemics in Asia.
The unbridled industrialization, increasing number of cars- with less roads, increasing deforestation, pollutions of rivers, and more carbon emission will further the challenges that arise out of climate change. The present modes of polluting urban –centric growth on the other hand create social inequities and on the other hand increase the vulnerability to climate change.
There is also an increasing trend to privatize common property resources, forests lands and water resources. The increasing urbanization, prevalence of drought and the pollutions of rivers will make water one of the most contested commodities in the years to come. There is an increasing possibility for conflicts within countries and between countries on the issue of water resources. The new enthusiasm for bio-fuels and monoculture too will adversely affect the environment.
Environmental Injustice is often perpetuated by the rich and highly polluting countries over many years, the irresponsible economic growth and polluting industries, the misuse of energy and resources by rich countries and rich people. It is often the poor countries and poor people who are at the receiving end of such environmental injustice. They are the worst sufferers of natural disasters, new epidemics and consequent cycle of poverty and debt. The increasing instances of natural disasters may give rise to new disaster capitalism in Asia.
6) Democratic Deficit
Asia is a very heterogeneous region in terms of political system, governance and socio-economic conditions. Asia region spread from Central Asia to Pacific, from Mongolia to Indonesia, has a huge diversity in terms of ethnicity, religion, race, climate and political context. While there are few countries with a relatively stable democratic system, most of the countries in Asia are run by authoritarian rulers or military regimes.
In Asia, economic growth has also been accompanied by subversion of the democratic governance or an increasing instance of authoritarian governments. Though, in the last twenty years, many of the countries have moved to formal democratic political systems, based on multi-party elections, many of such countries are also facing very rather fragile democracies, often controlled by an elite power clique or military. There is an increasing influence of market forces, media establishments and military strong men in the political process and governance of many countries. As a result there is less space for civil society process and citizens activism in many of the countries.
Increasing inequality, new identity politics, weak political party system, corrupt governments and lack of competent and democratic leadership contribute to the deficit of democracy in many countries. Economic growth has often made rich richer and poor poorer. As a result, there are highly influential corporate monopolies emerging in many of the countries. The new class of corporate billionaires and the media barons often tend to subvert the governance and democratic process for their own vested interests. While economic growth has helped to create a new middle class, and an expanding market, there is an increasing trend of depolitisation among the middle class. This is also partly due to the weak, feudal and often corrupt political party systems. Citizens are often reduced to consumers, rather than active agents in political process or governance.
Often the so-called formal democratic system is superimposed on a very unequal and unjust society or feudal polity. As a result, in site of democratic rhetoric or posturing, in most of the countries of Asia, substantive democratic process is in crisis.
South Asia, home of the largest number of poor people in the world, has been facing political instability due to increasing inequality, ineffective governance, increasing ethnic, religious or political conflicts and corrupt governments. In spite of a relatively stable democratic system, India too is facing big challenges that emerge out of inequality, cast-driven politics and the rise of identity politics. The increasing inequality and persistent marginalization and injustice often give rise to politics of violence as ultra-left and revitalized Maoist groups are present in 160 districts out of 600 districts in India. The political process of South Asia is still driven by feudal values and identity politics. In almost all countries of South Asia, the ruling elite often promote their clan, family and dynasties. This has been evident in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and now in Nepal as well.
In many ways, the strength, limitations and the contradictions of the political party system get reflected in the process of governance and the character of the state
Erosion or subversion of the political party system contributes to democratic deficits in many of the countries in Asia. Political parties are often controlled by privileged families, power-cliques and fund mangers, blessed by media establishments and sustained by the corporate funds. As a result, elections are reduced to media stunts with “brand” slogans, rather empty “policy rhetoric”, devoid of any in-depth political process or social mediation. This leads to corporitization of party politics and consequent depolitisation of the citizens as they become almost like market constituency and consumers of governments.
In the absence of a multi-party system- with grass-roots presence, a committed cadre of leader and wide network with in the society- democratic process can be subverted and political process can be appropriated by a minority of vested interests. Though many of them may conveniently use one political party or even create one to serve their purpose of sustaining power, they tend to annihilate and subvert all other political party process. This is one of the single biggest challenges for the sustenance of a vibrant democratic system of governance
Political parties have been reduced to mere electoral mechanism or network to capture the power of the State. They are less and less social institutions or legitimizing agents of political process and increasingly turned in to “interest-networks” promoted by the larger economic forces and identity politics of various shades. This increasing dependence on media and corporate funds undermine the autonomy of political party system and democratic process. As a result, the new political-corporate elites are in the business of subverting the state as well governments to maximize profit for few dominant economic forces in a given economy.
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The social function and legitimizing role of political parties are under unprecedented strain. In most of the countries, political parties have rather less institutional history and social roots. Many of them emerged as a corollary to the state power and an instrument to sustain the state power. In most of the countries, particularly decolonized countries, the nation states as well as political parties are the consequences of decolonization rather than causes of decolonization
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Political parties are filled with career politician with a single point agenda of getting of piece of state power and the privileges and paraphernalia that come with the package. There are less and less poets, philosophers, visionaries, scholars, social activists, or policy experts in political parties. As many social activists, writers and intellectuals choose to work within the civil society, political parties are facing an acute deficit of creative and ethical leadership.
Though there is a trend towards local self governments, often such process are controlled by undemocratic political parties, or authoritarian governments, without substantive democracy, financial devolution or empowerment. Women and historically marginalized groups and religious/ethnic minorities are often excluded from the main steam political process or governance.
As a result of authoritarian regimes, or the governments controlled my Military Junta( as the case of Myanmar) and the subversion of democratic process, there an increasing instances of suppressing people’s struggles and consequent violation of human rights. The war on terror and increasing militarization further reduced the space of citizens and civil society in most of the countries of Asia.
Thus democratic process and system in Asia is under tremendous strain. There seems to be an increasing trend of corporate-media-military clique, along with the political elite-often with patriarchal and feudal character- subverting the state and democracy in Asia.
7) Increasing Conflicts and competing Fundamentalism
Most of the countries in Asia are the theatre of ethnic, religious or political conflicts. There is hardly any country in Asia without one or other kind of violent conflicts. While string authoritarian governments try to suppress such conflicts, there is an increasing inability of governments to address the causes and consequence of conflicts. This also leads to a sort crisis of governance in many countries.
It is the emergence of identity politics, increasing socio-economic inequality and competing fundamentalism that propel chain of violent conflicts in many parts of Asia. The new war on terror by the powerful countries further worsened the situation.
Increasing instance of political or ethnic conflicts, new forms of terrorism to counter governments and rival groups and armed insurgencies further strengthen the militarization in most of the Asian Countries. Often such conflicts are perpetuated by powerful interests and powerful countries in the North. In fact, violent conflicts in different parts of Asia sustain the small arms and weapons market in the global north. This also creates a whole parallel economy, based on trafficking of narcotics, arms and people. There is an increasing connection between criminalization of politics and politicization of criminal gangs.
One of the key reasons for the conflicts is the co-relation between inequality and identity. In many of the countries historically marginalized groups like tribal communities, Dalits or ethnic/religious minorities are at the receiving end of corporate and state power. They have less benefited from the economic growth. The urban –centric growth often helped the privileged class, creed or cast in many countries. Socio-economic inequality, political marginalization, and economic deprivation often propel new kinds of identity politics and consequent violence. As the states become increasingly week, corporate becomes more powerful and the arms industry grows without regulation, there is an increasing possibility of new kinds of conflicts within and between countries.
There is trend towards a neo-conservative politics and policy process in different countries. Imperialist globalisation and new militarization often give rise to different kind of religious fundamentalism and politics of exclusions. The rise of new fundamentalism in Islam and the increasing prominence of Hindu, Buddhist and Christian fundamentalism can create new kinds of political tensions, conflicts and instability in many of the countries. The rise of violent isalmist politics in many of the countries may further increase state repression and consequent chain of reactionary violence.
A potential economic recession in Asia also can create new right-wing nationalist political formations, new xenophobia, and increasing violence.
8) Emerging Hegemonic Powers
The rise of China and India as economic and military power will create new dynamics in the international political economy and political relationship. On the one hand these two countries will compete for natural resources and markets within Asia and on the other hand these countries will move towards more coordinated efforts to resist the power and manipulations by the G8 countries.
The emergence of China and India as global economic powers may also increase the arm race in the region, with a more entrenched military presence of the USA and NATO forces in the region. However, this also may give rise to new multi polar international politics. There is an increasing tendency of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) forming a new axis of economic power and military cooperation. The international political economy and political process is increasingly in a flux. With the emergence of new economic and military power, there can be either a potential for cooption by the G8 countries or a new conflicts( including military) for resources , market and for the maintenance of the global power hegemony of the US and allied countries.
Though at the moment India and China are more unilateral in their policy approach, there will be increasing pressure for them to work with regional economic and political formations such as ASEAN and SAARC. These countries may have to change their policy and political approach to sustain their growth and influence in the region and the world. They will have to increasingly dependent on their neighboring countries and people for their political and economic stability.
Way forward
The emerging trends and new challenges to Development and democracy need to be addressed with new political imagination, policy formulation and development priorities. This will require a whole range of actions including invest in a generation of leadership, increasing the social protection, higher investment in Agriculture and rural economy. There has to be move towards more sustainable and green growth trajectory that benefits a large majority of people in Asia. One of the biggest challenges in the next few years will be the increasing urban poverty, discontent and consequent violence. Hence, it is important to invest in urban housing, infrastructure as well as employment opportunities. At the same time it is important regenerate the rural economy and invests in rural business to stop the rural- urban migration.
The emerging trends and challenge will require the policy makers to develop social and economic policies, beyond narrow neo-liberalism, to ensure affirmative action, more political space for the marginalized and excluded groups, and very clear measures to address issues of inequality, injustice and identity.
The changing dynamics in development and democracy also may require a different strategic approach from the international development and non-governmental organisations. They may have to move into a mode that sustains international identity, while nationalizing its governance, management and fundraising. The social and political legitimacy of INGOs will be increasingly questioned by the new political elites as well as the media. The increasing difficulty to sustain the fundraising from bilateral and fundraising market will force many of the INGOs to further prioritize their work and change their strategic approach.
However, it is civil society process and citizens actions that can make the biggest difference to political and economic process. Hence, there is a need to invest in a new generation of civil society and citizens’ process, and new generation of leadership. Citizen Mobilization, reform of political parties and democratization of society and politics can make a qualitative difference to Development and Democracy in Asia. Regional Cooperation between countries, integration of market and people, and more democratic and just governance can turn the challenges in to new opportunities for social, economic and political transformation in Asia.
John Samuel
This is the transcript of the Key-note Address delivered at the International Meeting of the CARE International in Laos on 11th February 2008. A slightly revised version was delivered as the Key-Note Lecture on March 1, 2008 at the 35th year Conference of the Asia Partnership for Human Development in Bangkok.
Here is the good news! The economy of Asia is surging ahead. Sustained economic growth seems to have contributed to the reduction of poverty. The world bank report says that the poverty rates in Asia as whole almost halved in the last decade, with head count ratio ( based on the consumption level of less than $1 per day) falling from 34.3 percent in 1990 to 19.3% in 2003. Most of the countries are making steady progress towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) by 2015. China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam all witnessed more than 50% of poverty reduction since 1990 and these countries are supposed to be on track to meet the MDG targets of a further 50 % of reduction in income poverty by 2015. Literacy rates are going up, infant and maternal mortality is falling and people are living longer. Asian Cities are booming with the sign of prosperity. More and more billionaires are laughing their way to the banks- year after year. The pundits say that the time of Asia has come- it is an Asian Century. Booming economies, China as the global factory, India as the global office, and the stock exchanges are rocking! Asia is shining! Asia is rising! The story looks good!
The story looks good till you notice the underbelly of economic growth: unprecedented level of inequality, violence, epidemics, congested roads, teaming slums, polluted rivers and failing democracies. The story looks till you begin to hear the stories of Dalits, tribals, ethnic minorities, women from hinterlands of rural deprivation- the stories that you may never read in the Newspaper- unheard stories of invisible people: people who are displaced from the land and livelihood, people who prefer to commit suicide than selling their dignity, children go to bed hungry every single day. Two third of the world’s poor live in Asia. There will be still more than a billion people living with less than an income of $ 2 dollar a day in 2015. Asia is shining or whining? Economic growth is good for billionaires or billions of people?
What is the balance sheet of Asia’s Economic growth? Whose growth is it anyway? Who grows and who loses? Can economic growth along eliminate poverty in Asia? What are the key challenges for Development, Democracy and Human Rights in Asia? We need to situate the story of economic growth in the well being, human security and human rights of the most marginalized and excluded people in Asia. In spite of all the growth, if there are still more than one billion people with less than $ 2 a day in 2015, the story can turn sour! But it seems the ruling elite and media barons will not like to hear the bad news.
1. Growth with Inequality: Economics of Violence
Economic growth with inequality creates an economics of deprivation and violence. The present mode of economic growth displaces millions of rural and urban poor from their land and livelihood. As a result of unprecedented displacement due to mining, infrastructure projects, corporate farming, a new generation of social-economic refugees and new poor are emerging across Asia. They are growing in urban slums, rural deprivation and highly concentrated pockets of extreme poverty. A new discontent is brewing and it can adversely affect development, democracy and human rights in Asia.
While economic growth helps to create more opportunities for the more educated section of the middle class and a process of “trickle” down effect on a section of the poor, it is creating unprecedented level of inequality within countries and between countries.
Though China and India, two of the most populous countries in the world, are witnessing high rates of economic growth, there are lagging regions in both countries that have poor infrastructure or public service provisions. The urban and rural poor also face discrimination based on ethnicity, race, religion, cast, gender and place of origin. Women in are more marginalized and vulnerable to a systems that perpetuate inequality, discrimination and consequent poverty.
The economic growth is based on few urban centres and specially created economically dynamic zones in the coastal areas of many countries. The few urban centres are the key drivers of economic growth, while two third of the population in most populous countries- like China, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Pakistan, still live in rural areas depending agriculture for their livelihood. Hence, the historically marginalized sections like Dalits in India, ethnic minorities in China and South-East Asia and religious minorities in many countries are alienated from the economic growth or the mainstream political process.
This urban-centric, uneven and jobless economic growth perpetuate a sort of systemic inequality based on identity, gender and location all over Asia. Most of the communities, at the receiving end of exclusion are historically marginalized in terms of economical or political opportunities. When inequality has a direct co-relation with identity, it gives rise to new discontent. Such a sense of discontent and shared sense of alienation can often give rise to a new politics of violence- reacting to the prosperity of the dominant communities.
In the midst of islands of prosperity, there is a growing sea of poverty, discontent and consequent reactionary politics. This can perpetuate a cycle of violence, erasing the benefits of growth as well as the poverty reduction. So the paradoxical trend of growth with inequality may not be able to sustain growth on a long term basis. Political stability is a pre-requisite for economic growth. Inequality can create more political instability, adversely affecting sustainable economic growth. This can eventually perpetuate a new cycle of poverty, violence and the violation of human rights in Asia.
The present economic growth is vulnerable as it is largely dependent on service sector and largely export oriented manufacturing sector, often at the cost of the growth agricultural sector that provides livelihood for the large section of poor and marginalized sections in Asia.
The urban-centric growth, with very less investment in rural infrastructure, economy or agricultural, also lead to an unprecedented sort of migration from rural areas to urban areas. This explosion of populations in urban centres without adequate infrastructure and gainful employment opportunities can create a new generation of urban poor. Urban poverty and inequality- with direct links to identity- can create more occurrence of violence against women and crime rates in many of the countries.
This the present mode of neo-liberal economic growth is not sustainable in the long run as the billions of people are at the receiving end of marginalization and poverty can spoil the party- giving rise to a new cycle of poverty in Asia.
2) Emerging Agrarian Crisis: Erosion of Human Right to Food.
At the dawn of the Indian independence, Nehru said “Everything else can wait, but not agriculture”. This was based on the recognition the widespread poverty has its roots in agricultural stagnation.
One of the emerging trends is the potential agrarian crisis in different parts of Asia. This present mode of neo-liberal economic growth is largely dependent on trade and service, and there is consistent decline in the agriculture sector. There has been less investment in agriculture sector, in terms of irrigation, increasing the productive capacity, market facility or research. For instance, in spite of spending US$ 25 billions from 1990 to 2005 for constructing Dams, the actual areas of the irrigated land declined from 17.8 million hectares in the early 90s to 14. 3 million hectors in 2005.
As a result the economic growth in service and manufacturing sector is often accompanied by decline in agriculture sector. This has two consequences. Firstly it affects the livelihood and income levels of large number of small and marginal farmers and agriculture sector. Secondly it the decrease in food production makes countries vulnerable in terms of food sovereignty and food security and as a result of there will be fewer chances to regulate food prices.
Small scale farming has become increasingly unviable, in the absence of enabling economic and policy environment. Often cheap import of food products from rich countries adversely affected the viability of small farmers. As a result most of the marginal farmers either shift to cash crops (like rubber, cotton) or migrate to urban areas in search of new economic opportunities. Many of the small farmers are indebted due to wide fluctuations in food commodity prices. In the absence of subsidies or new investment in irrigation, most of the small farmers end up in vicious cycle of debt. When they fail to repay the debt, many of them end up committing suicide rather than losing their sense of dignity as self-reliant farmers with their own independent source of income and livelihood.
Less food production, more dependence of imported foods and increasing food prices in the international market perpetuate more poverty as poor people will not have enough income to buy food and essential commodities.
The increasing trend of corporate farming and the entry of big monopolies (like Reliance) in India can displace small farmers, petty traders and millions of rural poor from their livelihood. In the context of big corporate farming, small farmers end up selling their lands and end up as landless laborers in informal economic sector, with less bargaining power.
In the unprecedented level of growth in the urban areas have converted land from a productive assets to a market commodity. The new Special Economic Zone, Export Zone and Industrial Zone also displace millions of small farmers and agricultural workers from their land and livelihood. While a very small section of small farmers may benefit from the process of transition of agricultural land or productive assets to market commodity, it also creates new deprivation and discontent.
The new enthusiasm for biofuels, converting large tracts of agricultural land for the production of biofuels, can adversely affect the food production. The decrease in food production and increase in old prices can increase the prices of food in a dramatic way, making basic food unaffordable to large number of poor people. Actually US$ 1 dollar will not be able to meet even the basic needs of the poor people.
This will create the excluded and poor people more vulnerable in terms of their rights to food and nutrition.
3) Jobless Growth: Challenges to Rights to Livelihood.
While the present mode of neo-liberal growth helps to create relatively high-salary job to skilled workers and those with professional training, it does not create significant number of jobs for unskilled or semiskilled workers- who form the majority of the workforce.
For instance, the entire IT and BPO sector provided job for only 1.2 million workers among 500 million workers in India. Even in China, the manufacturing sector provides job largely for a minority of work force, while large number of small farmers and agricultural workers are forced to migrate in search of seasonal jobs in the construction sector.
Casualisation of ‘labour, along with an increasing number of workers in the informal sector, make the workers more vulnerable without even basic rights or social protection.
When there is an increasing number of unemployed youth in an unequal society, there is more chances of violence, instances of increasing crimes and consequent criminalization of society and politics. When many of the educated unemployed youth are from a particular social , ethnic, religious or regional groups they also become the recruiting grounds for terrorist organisations, Jihad groups and politically violent outfits such as Maoists. Such criminalization of society and politics will make economy vulnerable in the long run and also destabilize the political process.
4) Marketisation of DevelopmentDevelopment is the enhancement of freedom from want and freedom from fear. In a liberal democratic frame work, it is the primary responsibility of the State to ensure public provisions and social protections to facilitate development. While state has a key role in mediating between liberty and equality, the civil society organisations also play a very important role in ensuring and promoting development. With the advent of neo-liberal policy hegemony in most of the world and Asia, the developmental or welfare state is on retreat in terms of ensuring basic public services such as health, education, water and sanitation and ensuring gainful employment.
The poor in Asia still have less access to affordable or quality public services. Though private sector and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) play an important role in providing education, health and livelihood opportunities, such service may not reach the poor and excluded people on a large scale. As a result of unprecedented migration to urban areas, there will be new challenges to social and human development. The urban poor face economic deprivation, poor housing, and lack of basic services like water or sanitation and increasing criminality. There is indeed a need for large scale social and economic investment and public expenditure is required to address causes and consequences of urban poverty. As urban poverty will be one of the major trends in the next many years, there is an urgent need to ensure stable employment opportunities, access to residential land, housing and adequate public services like water, sanitation, health and education.
While NGOs have been supplementing the role of the state in providing services or advocating for the rights of the marginalized, most of the time such provisions were dependent on the International Aid or fund raised from the public in the rich northern countries. However, in the coming years there is a strong chance to shift the present development dynamics, primarily promoted by the state and NGOs.
Though the international aid from the OECD countries have increased in terms of quantity, the quality of the aid has been decreasing over a period of time. A very significant portion of the international aid is spending on security related issues or to fight war on terror. Though there has been significant increase in the volume of aid to countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan, most of it is spend on buying arms and ammunition from the same northern countries to fight war on terror. Another significant portion of the aid is spent to promote neo-liberal policy framework towards privatization of key sectors, including the public services. Though the volume of aid would gradually increase in short term, there will be substantial reduction of aid to Asian countries by 2015. In fact, if the present rate of economic growth sustains, there will be hardly any international development funds available for International and local NGOs. This will have implications in terms of the role and work of most of the INGOs- dependent on funding from bilateral and multilateral organisation.
While the international bilateral and multilateral funding to Asia may decrease in the next 7 to ten years, the role of Corporate Foundation and Trust will become more significant. Big corporate foundations like Gates Foundation or Tata Foundation may become key players in determining the funding dynamics in the international aid system. Over a period of time countries like China and India also may emerge as key donor countries and they may develop alternate mechanism to the Development Assistance Committee of OECD countries. The dynamics of the present fund-raising markets in the rich northern countries also may undergo a significant shift. The fund-raising market will be increasingly saturated and the cost of fundraising in the Northern countries will increase substantially in the years to come. When INGOs dependent on northern bilateral funding and northern fund-raising market will find hard to raise more money, they may be forced to scale down the number of staff and also change their present mode of operations. More resources may go to poorest African countries and this may create more challenges for raising money for the work in Asian Countries. A potential economic turn down in the next five years may create further challenges to the raise income for the INGOs.
The shift in funding dynamics, coupled with the rise of corporate power and foundations, may further accelerate the marketisation of development and also that of public services. Increasingly big corporations will be forced to invest more money for public services like primary education, rural health and livelihood programmes (like micro-credit and micro-enterprises) through corporate foundation. As big foundations and corporations will largely working on market principles, and they will have less skills and domain knowledge, they may hire the services of big NGOs or Private Development Consulting Companies to “deliver” particular services on a tangible basis in a particular area. Thus there is an increasing possibility of new techno-business model dominating the entire formal development sector. The new CSR regimes and new corporate foundations may increasingly push NGOs and Development Consulting companies as a part of the new service sector economy. So in the future, many of the new players will increasingly look like BRAC in Bangladesh. This means they on the one hand become business enterprises in the market place and on the other hand they would invest a part of their income for the larger social causes, service delivery and advocacy. This is because of the fact that big corporations need politically stable environment, more skilled work forces and a more sustainable market. So investing in social sector becomes a core part of the business strategy to survive as well as to exert political influence, particularly in countries like Indian and China. Even state may give tax concessions and exemptions for such “social” investments.
In the last thirty years, NGOs and INGOs have gone through a dramatic transitions Many of the organisations only retain their brand- while their purpose, vision, mission and structures dramatically changed due to the funding dynamics and external soci-economic and political environment.. There is n strong possibility for them to adapt the shifting funding dynamics with another metamorphosis. This is because of the fact that all big organisations has a strong tendency for self-preservation and shift their strategies and mode of work adapting to the shifting market and demands. This marketisation of development and public services may change the very sociology of professionals in the development sector.
The marketisation of development also may lead to a new generation of Civil Society activism- often locally funded – in Asia. This shift will have very interesting consequences in the dynamics of politics and development. In the next few years, a significant number of competent and experienced NGO professionals may be hired by the corporate sector and number of activist- policy people may shift to mainstream political process.
Increasing inequality and consequent social unrest and violence will force the States to change their strategies. Hence, there is a chance for a new social-contract between the Sate and Market to develop a new “social stability-protection” regime. If the key Asian countries manage to sustain the economic growth, this will also substantially increase the revenue of the state, with more money available for public services. However, such public service provisions many be executed by NGOs or Development Companies more in techno-business delivery model.
The key challenge is whether such an approach will be able to address the causes and consequence of poverty and injustice. Though this will have adverse impact on the lives of the poorest of the poor, such an approach may help to address the issues of the vulnerable poor.
5) Environmental Injustice and Climate Change
The threat of global warming and climate change looms large on Asia, there in increasing possibility of drought, natural disasters, and unpredictable weather condition. The unpredictable weather conditions, natural disasters, scarcity of water and increasing drought may adversely affect the food production. The poor and excluded people will be more vulnerable to the impact of climate change. The increasing urbanization, pollutions, lack of adequate sanitation and consequent congestion may also increase the instances of new epidemics in Asia.
The unbridled industrialization, increasing number of cars- with less roads, increasing deforestation, pollutions of rivers, and more carbon emission will further the challenges that arise out of climate change. The present modes of polluting urban –centric growth on the other hand create social inequities and on the other hand increase the vulnerability to climate change.
There is also an increasing trend to privatize common property resources, forests lands and water resources. The increasing urbanization, prevalence of drought and the pollutions of rivers will make water one of the most contested commodities in the years to come. There is an increasing possibility for conflicts within countries and between countries on the issue of water resources. The new enthusiasm for bio-fuels and monoculture too will adversely affect the environment.
Environmental Injustice is often perpetuated by the rich and highly polluting countries over many years, the irresponsible economic growth and polluting industries, the misuse of energy and resources by rich countries and rich people. It is often the poor countries and poor people who are at the receiving end of such environmental injustice. They are the worst sufferers of natural disasters, new epidemics and consequent cycle of poverty and debt. The increasing instances of natural disasters may give rise to new disaster capitalism in Asia.
6) Democratic Deficit
Asia is a very heterogeneous region in terms of political system, governance and socio-economic conditions. Asia region spread from Central Asia to Pacific, from Mongolia to Indonesia, has a huge diversity in terms of ethnicity, religion, race, climate and political context. While there are few countries with a relatively stable democratic system, most of the countries in Asia are run by authoritarian rulers or military regimes.
In Asia, economic growth has also been accompanied by subversion of the democratic governance or an increasing instance of authoritarian governments. Though, in the last twenty years, many of the countries have moved to formal democratic political systems, based on multi-party elections, many of such countries are also facing very rather fragile democracies, often controlled by an elite power clique or military. There is an increasing influence of market forces, media establishments and military strong men in the political process and governance of many countries. As a result there is less space for civil society process and citizens activism in many of the countries.
Increasing inequality, new identity politics, weak political party system, corrupt governments and lack of competent and democratic leadership contribute to the deficit of democracy in many countries. Economic growth has often made rich richer and poor poorer. As a result, there are highly influential corporate monopolies emerging in many of the countries. The new class of corporate billionaires and the media barons often tend to subvert the governance and democratic process for their own vested interests. While economic growth has helped to create a new middle class, and an expanding market, there is an increasing trend of depolitisation among the middle class. This is also partly due to the weak, feudal and often corrupt political party systems. Citizens are often reduced to consumers, rather than active agents in political process or governance.
Often the so-called formal democratic system is superimposed on a very unequal and unjust society or feudal polity. As a result, in site of democratic rhetoric or posturing, in most of the countries of Asia, substantive democratic process is in crisis.
South Asia, home of the largest number of poor people in the world, has been facing political instability due to increasing inequality, ineffective governance, increasing ethnic, religious or political conflicts and corrupt governments. In spite of a relatively stable democratic system, India too is facing big challenges that emerge out of inequality, cast-driven politics and the rise of identity politics. The increasing inequality and persistent marginalization and injustice often give rise to politics of violence as ultra-left and revitalized Maoist groups are present in 160 districts out of 600 districts in India. The political process of South Asia is still driven by feudal values and identity politics. In almost all countries of South Asia, the ruling elite often promote their clan, family and dynasties. This has been evident in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and now in Nepal as well.
In many ways, the strength, limitations and the contradictions of the political party system get reflected in the process of governance and the character of the state
Erosion or subversion of the political party system contributes to democratic deficits in many of the countries in Asia. Political parties are often controlled by privileged families, power-cliques and fund mangers, blessed by media establishments and sustained by the corporate funds. As a result, elections are reduced to media stunts with “brand” slogans, rather empty “policy rhetoric”, devoid of any in-depth political process or social mediation. This leads to corporitization of party politics and consequent depolitisation of the citizens as they become almost like market constituency and consumers of governments.
In the absence of a multi-party system- with grass-roots presence, a committed cadre of leader and wide network with in the society- democratic process can be subverted and political process can be appropriated by a minority of vested interests. Though many of them may conveniently use one political party or even create one to serve their purpose of sustaining power, they tend to annihilate and subvert all other political party process. This is one of the single biggest challenges for the sustenance of a vibrant democratic system of governance
Political parties have been reduced to mere electoral mechanism or network to capture the power of the State. They are less and less social institutions or legitimizing agents of political process and increasingly turned in to “interest-networks” promoted by the larger economic forces and identity politics of various shades. This increasing dependence on media and corporate funds undermine the autonomy of political party system and democratic process. As a result, the new political-corporate elites are in the business of subverting the state as well governments to maximize profit for few dominant economic forces in a given economy.
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The social function and legitimizing role of political parties are under unprecedented strain. In most of the countries, political parties have rather less institutional history and social roots. Many of them emerged as a corollary to the state power and an instrument to sustain the state power. In most of the countries, particularly decolonized countries, the nation states as well as political parties are the consequences of decolonization rather than causes of decolonization
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Political parties are filled with career politician with a single point agenda of getting of piece of state power and the privileges and paraphernalia that come with the package. There are less and less poets, philosophers, visionaries, scholars, social activists, or policy experts in political parties. As many social activists, writers and intellectuals choose to work within the civil society, political parties are facing an acute deficit of creative and ethical leadership.
Though there is a trend towards local self governments, often such process are controlled by undemocratic political parties, or authoritarian governments, without substantive democracy, financial devolution or empowerment. Women and historically marginalized groups and religious/ethnic minorities are often excluded from the main steam political process or governance.
As a result of authoritarian regimes, or the governments controlled my Military Junta( as the case of Myanmar) and the subversion of democratic process, there an increasing instances of suppressing people’s struggles and consequent violation of human rights. The war on terror and increasing militarization further reduced the space of citizens and civil society in most of the countries of Asia.
Thus democratic process and system in Asia is under tremendous strain. There seems to be an increasing trend of corporate-media-military clique, along with the political elite-often with patriarchal and feudal character- subverting the state and democracy in Asia.
7) Increasing Conflicts and competing Fundamentalism
Most of the countries in Asia are the theatre of ethnic, religious or political conflicts. There is hardly any country in Asia without one or other kind of violent conflicts. While string authoritarian governments try to suppress such conflicts, there is an increasing inability of governments to address the causes and consequence of conflicts. This also leads to a sort crisis of governance in many countries.
It is the emergence of identity politics, increasing socio-economic inequality and competing fundamentalism that propel chain of violent conflicts in many parts of Asia. The new war on terror by the powerful countries further worsened the situation.
Increasing instance of political or ethnic conflicts, new forms of terrorism to counter governments and rival groups and armed insurgencies further strengthen the militarization in most of the Asian Countries. Often such conflicts are perpetuated by powerful interests and powerful countries in the North. In fact, violent conflicts in different parts of Asia sustain the small arms and weapons market in the global north. This also creates a whole parallel economy, based on trafficking of narcotics, arms and people. There is an increasing connection between criminalization of politics and politicization of criminal gangs.
One of the key reasons for the conflicts is the co-relation between inequality and identity. In many of the countries historically marginalized groups like tribal communities, Dalits or ethnic/religious minorities are at the receiving end of corporate and state power. They have less benefited from the economic growth. The urban –centric growth often helped the privileged class, creed or cast in many countries. Socio-economic inequality, political marginalization, and economic deprivation often propel new kinds of identity politics and consequent violence. As the states become increasingly week, corporate becomes more powerful and the arms industry grows without regulation, there is an increasing possibility of new kinds of conflicts within and between countries.
There is trend towards a neo-conservative politics and policy process in different countries. Imperialist globalisation and new militarization often give rise to different kind of religious fundamentalism and politics of exclusions. The rise of new fundamentalism in Islam and the increasing prominence of Hindu, Buddhist and Christian fundamentalism can create new kinds of political tensions, conflicts and instability in many of the countries. The rise of violent isalmist politics in many of the countries may further increase state repression and consequent chain of reactionary violence.
A potential economic recession in Asia also can create new right-wing nationalist political formations, new xenophobia, and increasing violence.
8) Emerging Hegemonic Powers
The rise of China and India as economic and military power will create new dynamics in the international political economy and political relationship. On the one hand these two countries will compete for natural resources and markets within Asia and on the other hand these countries will move towards more coordinated efforts to resist the power and manipulations by the G8 countries.
The emergence of China and India as global economic powers may also increase the arm race in the region, with a more entrenched military presence of the USA and NATO forces in the region. However, this also may give rise to new multi polar international politics. There is an increasing tendency of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) forming a new axis of economic power and military cooperation. The international political economy and political process is increasingly in a flux. With the emergence of new economic and military power, there can be either a potential for cooption by the G8 countries or a new conflicts( including military) for resources , market and for the maintenance of the global power hegemony of the US and allied countries.
Though at the moment India and China are more unilateral in their policy approach, there will be increasing pressure for them to work with regional economic and political formations such as ASEAN and SAARC. These countries may have to change their policy and political approach to sustain their growth and influence in the region and the world. They will have to increasingly dependent on their neighboring countries and people for their political and economic stability.
Way forward
The emerging trends and new challenges to Development and democracy need to be addressed with new political imagination, policy formulation and development priorities. This will require a whole range of actions including invest in a generation of leadership, increasing the social protection, higher investment in Agriculture and rural economy. There has to be move towards more sustainable and green growth trajectory that benefits a large majority of people in Asia. One of the biggest challenges in the next few years will be the increasing urban poverty, discontent and consequent violence. Hence, it is important to invest in urban housing, infrastructure as well as employment opportunities. At the same time it is important regenerate the rural economy and invests in rural business to stop the rural- urban migration.
The emerging trends and challenge will require the policy makers to develop social and economic policies, beyond narrow neo-liberalism, to ensure affirmative action, more political space for the marginalized and excluded groups, and very clear measures to address issues of inequality, injustice and identity.
The changing dynamics in development and democracy also may require a different strategic approach from the international development and non-governmental organisations. They may have to move into a mode that sustains international identity, while nationalizing its governance, management and fundraising. The social and political legitimacy of INGOs will be increasingly questioned by the new political elites as well as the media. The increasing difficulty to sustain the fundraising from bilateral and fundraising market will force many of the INGOs to further prioritize their work and change their strategic approach.
However, it is civil society process and citizens actions that can make the biggest difference to political and economic process. Hence, there is a need to invest in a new generation of civil society and citizens’ process, and new generation of leadership. Citizen Mobilization, reform of political parties and democratization of society and politics can make a qualitative difference to Development and Democracy in Asia. Regional Cooperation between countries, integration of market and people, and more democratic and just governance can turn the challenges in to new opportunities for social, economic and political transformation in Asia.
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