Globalization and Its Positive and Negative Sides for India

This essay will focus on globalization and its impact on India. Globalization is the new reality. It’s not a rigid force but it’s an evolving set of consequences. Some of them are good, some are bad and some are unintended. In simple terms globalization means the process through which societies and economies are integrated through cross border flows of ideas, communication, technology, capital, people, finance, goods, services and information. Globalization is generally referred to as a modern concept but it is hardly new for India. India played a distinct role in the world economy during the beginning of the Christian era. A form of globalization in India was ion existence during the Indus Valley Civilisation. The trade links between Sumer and Indus Valley Civilisation is one of the examples which show the existence of globalization in the third millennium BC. India was the world’s largest economy during the historic period, as it accounted for around 32. 9% share in global GDP, but the arrival of the Britishers had isolated India from the world markets. India was intentionally isolated from the world economy which ruined the basic economic structure of India. After independence India was left with a disturbed economy and scarce financial resources, that is when globlization was reintroduced in India in 1991 through the New Economic Policy. Globalization was one of the branches of the New Economic Policy. Liberalisation and Privatisation were also the part of New Economic Policy. This introduction made a huge impact on the social, cultural, political, communal and monetary life of India. 

Cross country integration has several aspects such as social, political and/or economic but the most common out of all is the financial aspect. Economic aspect refers to as the development and integration of a country’s economic with other country’s economy, which will automatically lead to the integration of the social and cultural aspects of the respective countries. The socio-cultural impact of globalization is both in a negative and positive way. As we know that Indian cuisine is considered as one of the popular cuisines across the globe. Historically Indian spices were one the most sought after trade items. But after the independence and the application of the economic policy western foods such as Chinese, pizza, burgers, etc. have become quite popular in our country and the youth is very much fascinated towards these kind of foods. Indian cuisine has become world famous but youth of our country is shifting from their roots. If we take a look at the clothing trends, we see a drastic change in the fashion industry. As we know the traditional Indian clothes for women are sarees, kurtis, cholis and ghaghra and for men it is kurta, pajama and dhoti but after globalization western clothes such as jeans, tshirts, skirts, etc. are more preferred by the people of our country. Indian performing arts include multiple varieties of religious, folk, cultural and classical forms and it is popular worldwide but hiphop and western dance form are liked by the people of our country. The increasing migration rate and financial independence has led to the breaking of joint families into nuclear families. Concepts of national identity, family planning, job and tradition are changing rapidly. The rise in the trend of nuclear families has reduced the social security for the senior citizens. As we know that in today’s time getting information about something is very easy and this has led to specialisation and promotion of higher education in the country. On the flip side, the disadvantage of private education, coaching classes and paid study material is that it has created a gap between the haves and have-nots. It has become very difficult for an individual to obtain higher education. A research says that by 2050 more than 50% of India’s population will live in cities because the boom of the service sector and city centric job creation has led to increasing rural to urban migration. 

The biggest problem in our country is unemployment and to some extent globalization has helped our country to cope with this problem. Foreign Direct Investment has le dot economic growth and job creation. However, the jobs are concentrated more in the service sector and this has led to a rapid growth of service sector. Globalization has led to a boom period in consumer market. Today a consumer has large number of products unlike the times when there were only a few manufacturers. The rise in service sector has led to a downfall in the agricultural sector. Greater integration of global commodities markets had led to constant fluctuation of prices. This has increased the vulnerability of Indian farmers. Farmers are increasingly becoming dependent on seeds and fertilizers sold by Multi-National Corporations. Globalization has not made any positive impact on agricultural sector, rather it has few detrimental effects as government is always willing to import food grains, sugar etc. Greater integration with outer world and different people has also led to the increasing susceptibility to diseases. The diseases have taken a global turn which has led to greater investment in healthcare system. 

Globalization has made a strong psychological impact on Indian society. The first one is the development of bicultural identity/hybrid identity which means a part of one’s identity is rooted to his/her local culture and another part is rooted to the awareness of one’s relation to the outer world. The development of global identities is not just merely to immigrants. The people today especially the youngsters develop an identity that gives them a sense of belonging to a global culture, which generally includes awareness of events, practices, styles and information that are a part of the global culture. We cannot say that the impact of globalization is entirely positive or negative. It has been both and still it is continuing, each of the consequences mentioned above can be seen in both the ways. However it becomes a matter of concern when a negative impact is observed on out Indian culture and heritage. The western influence on the youth has become alarmingly high. Every individual in India seems to believe that anything happened in India or is going to happen in our country is recognised appropriate until and unless recognised by the West.