Globalization

I heard about globalization a few years ago and there I began to find out what is this globalization. One old friend of mine who was a professor of economics told me that globalization is not a new thing as it is portrayed. Until First World War all the trade in the international commerce was based on globalization concept advocating for true free trade; and so we may call that as natural globalization. Only after that war international trade practice was controlled by British and other powers to help their dilapidated economies. Those controls were designed to serve the vested interests of these powers. This practice was further encouraged by nations formed after the second war as the erstwhile British Empire collapsed. These controls were also designed to serve the vested interest of those newly freed nations like India. These controls created hindrance for American business houses who are mainly multinational Companies. Other developed countries joined hands since they were also going to benefit in the process. And in this way we as a world body accepted today’s concept of globalization. Since the globalization was actually initiated by American interests the structure of this globalization is inherently designed to help developed countries in general and American Companies in particular. After telling me his he remarked that, the ancient globalization was natural in its structure based on needs and demand and supply position of international societies while what globalization we have accepted today is artificial type of globalization only to serve the powerful multinationals. He vehemently asserted that this globalization is designed to help only multinational Companies and not any nation; even America. He further said that with his type of globalization only multinationals will thrive at the cost of ordinary people of all nations.

Last few years we have been experiencing effects of Globalization on all aspects of life. All nations keep talking about practicing globalization in trade and other related topics. What is globalization? How it shall benefit all the people of the world is the question; always asked by many small citizens, and there is nobody to give a suitable reply. I wanted to know about the correct perspective of globalization and so began to investigate the subject.

One expert I happened to meet told me that globalization process is to initiate a concept “globe is nation”. If globalization is truly achieved in that sense we the people of this earth will be as citizens of one nation and that nation will be the globe of the earth. That means there will not be separate nations any more and we all people shall be as one people. This will help reduce strife amongst people of different nations on the ground of say, religion, language, cults and cultures and more... this idiosyncrasy is encouraged by many theorists who deliberately connive at the true nature of human societies.

Through trade they believed the process shall begin and so globalization is first tried on trade practice. I observed that whether we make globe as one nation or keep the present system the quarrelsomeness of human being will not stop people from continuing to keep on quarrelling on subjects of concern or otherwise. Ego of individuals and their ambitions and through that ego of the societies of different origins and nations shall not be removed by such exertions. I know that all the concerned people who originated the concept of globalization are also aware of this and so I was very much curious to find out what is the actual ultimate aim of these groups who have come with this concept.

Globalization in trade means any country can supply any merchandise to any country and no country can ban the imports or exports of any goods from any country save on quality and cost grounds. By this provision trading was expected to be free from any and all restrictions those may be put up by any Government on imports and exports of any goods to that country. Many nations joined the convention of globalization and so did our beloved India.

After some years of practice gradually some facts began to immerge. It became clear that the true purpose of this convention is to strengthen the arms of multinational Companies. Now they could sell their products to all countries who had signed the convention innocently. As we all know that most of the multinational Companies are from USA in a way the purpose of introducing globalization was to help grow business of these American Companies.

I had read about how Americans forcibly pushed themselves on Japan in the nineteenth century using armed forces and cannon attack to open up the trade with that nation and this could clearly explain to me the intentions of the successors of those Americans who bombed shores of Japan to open it to the international trade in that far period. Globalization was a very decent embodiment of that same violent method they used in those days on Japan. Ultimate aim was to promote their trade all over. In the process other developed countries were also going to benefit and so they were agreeable to this concept of globalization.

Yes, globalization in the trade was primarily designed to help developed countries to have easy access to the developing countries who are usually not much interested in encouraging the interference of developed countries into their affairs. However, there are other side effects to this globalization and they began to become evident as time passed. Those side effects were not helpful to the people of developed nations but were helpful to the multinational Companies from those countries mainly USA. The effect was mainly felt in the IT activity. Highly enterprising small Companies from developing countries could grab contracts from these multinational Companies and the local youth from those countries began to loose their jobs. Governments of developed countries were in a fix because they were encouraged by multinationals to support globalization on the one hand and on the other hand people from that country were trying to dissuade the governments to limit the scope of globalization so that the youth from the country may get their jobs back. Money was pouring in from the multinationals to the politicians from the government to keep on the globalization in ‘as it is condition’ so that they continue growing their profits by saving on the service charges they would otherwise have to pay to locals if globalization is removed. So I realized that globalization is primarily designed to help multinationals and not the nations. There was sense in what my old friend had guessed.

Many treaties signed between the Companies under the convention of globalization were studied and they all showed that they all are intended to help multinationals and not the respective nation.

My other study revealed to me one more interesting angle to globalization. Countries of different mindsets had their own approach to this convention. Two approaches were noticed in the study. I named them as slavish approach and commanding approach. Slavish approach was found with developing country like India. Other countries from Europe and America, Japan and even China were seen to practice commanding approach.

Countries practising commanding approach were seen to dictate terms while slavish countries followed the dictates. Slavish were seen to be always following or staying as second or third in the line as far as deciding the terms of business and commanding gave orders.

When I was talking with a young American businessman he told me that Americans want globalization where the earth is at their feet. While Indians were seen to accept a place at the bottom of the globalization trying to eke out some foreign exchange. I saw Indians never could dictate terms to the world market. They are always at the receiving end. For any and no excuse even the smallest of the nation could refuse our products. Indians are habituated to accept all sorts of humiliating treatments at the hands of other countries. Why this sorry state, I do not understand. Somebody told me that this is because Indians lack moral force to dictate terms to the world. Mainly because our government is made of criminals. Our present parliament is made of criminals; they are about thirty percent in all. I shall be discussing this sorry state of our parliament some other time. An absolutely corrupt government can not have the courage to talk with pride. Pakistan is dictating terms to us even after the attack made by invaders from that country. The whole world knows that India is of no significance. One can do anything with it and escape without any harm. The ubiquitous shameful thing I see is that we claim to be tomorrow’s super power. Actually we are becoming super laborer or coolies in IT industry. We are capable of doing nothing original in that field. At best what our IT experts do is using the software prepared by developed nations like America, France and Japan to earn some coolie charges. This is not the sign of a super power. Super power does not do that way. A super power creates its own software and hardware and that makes a super power. As far as IT technology is concerned all OS are US made. We can not develop our own OS since we are prohibited to use ASCII code for our languages by unicode convention. So by calling ourselves a super power we are making a laugh of ourselves in the eyes of the wise world. Worst part is that we are not aware of this sorry state.

Then what to do?

Nothing!!

Manmohan Singh was telling the other day that we must invest in research and contribute to the scientific development. Mere investing more money for research will not do; I was advised by my other enlightened friend from Germany. He told me that primarily Indian scientists are not efficient in their work. When he happened to visit Bhabha Atomic Research Centre some years ago he could see that the scientists there are lazy in their work. Killing time is the way these people work on any project. Nobody is truly interested in the end results. Indian scientists talk of promotions, perks and other fringe benefits more than the job of research they are working on. There are fights amongst these research scientists for credit of the work their junior has done subsiding that junior. One striking example he told me. That example clearly showed to me the mindset of Indian scientists working in this premier research center. I would like to share that with my friends here.

A project for developing electricity from sea waves was mooted and it was suggested that the project be taken up somewhere at Tamilnadu sea shore. Actually all data was readily available to do the work and so my friend recommended that the time frame can be about five years. Nevertheless, the chief scientist asked for 25 years to do that work. On asking to him why so much time is demanded and why Tamilnadu shores? He told my friend that the scientist hails from that state and he will retire after 20 years. His simple plan was to keep with this one project comfortably until his retirement and that is all! Project time shall continue even after his retirement and so he need not reply to the authorities about the fete of that project. What an intelligent plan! To my surprise I found that almost all scientists are of this mindset and so, by putting more money alone, our scientific work will not progress. How can such scientists help solve problems of this country? To this I was told by other scientists from the famous IIT that we do not have tradition in scientific research; we inherit tradition of talking philosophy and bogus spiritualism!

Friends, I am dismayed at this observation. We Indians will remain only slaves of the globe and not never masters, with this type of scientific community. We are destined to remain super slaves or coolies rather than super powers.

As usual, I request the readers to send in their comments and let me know how they feel about my rendering on this subject. Can we correct the mindset of these scientists? Can we help this situation?

You may contact me on my Email ID given below,

ashokkothare@yahoo.co.in

ashokkothare@gmail.com

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