Abstract:
In a global context, Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization (LPG policy) are no longer an option but a fact. Whether one likes it or not, it is bound to influence all spheres of life and activities. Developing countries like India may have to learn to manage the process far more skillfully and efficiently for the development of the country.
In the broad setting of reforms in many countries in the 1980s, India was an apparent anomaly. India was at the crossroads. She was facing a macroeconomic crisis that required immediate attention. The macroeconomic crisis provided the opportunity and the necessity to address meaningfully the inefficiencies in our policy framework that had altered our economic performance and to begin constructively the task of undertaking the necessary microeconomic or structural reforms that had long been overdue. The reform process began in India in 1991.
The reform process has affected the indigenous communities of India, particularly their culture, languages and style of life. The indigenous people are largely the deprived section of India. They continue to become poorer due to the impact of reform measures. The paper studies the process of adverse impacts of reform measures on the indigenous communities of India with some case studies.
For nearly two decades, a “silent revolution” has been sweeping through the world – in developed countries as well as in developing countries. It is the revolution of economic reforms, in other words, a change from an economic system of central planning to a market based economy. Economic reforms have become a universal phenomenon and are viewed as indispensable for rapid and balanced development. It involves both macroeconomic stabilization and structural (microeconomic) reforms.
Stabilization measures can be defined as “a package of policies designed to eliminate disequilibrium between aggregate demand and supply in the economy, which typically manifests itself in balance of payment deficits and rising prices”. Economic reforms seek to usher in Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization, what is commonly known as LPG policies.
Liberalization:
Liberalization denotes deregulation and de-licensing of industry, relaxation of industry entry barriers and removal of restrictions on capacity expansion. “Economic Reform is sometimes equated with liberalization, but it is better described as encouragement of free and fair competition in all economic spheres as a spur to efficiency and growth. The negative aspects of liberalization are decontrol, deregulation and reduction in governmental intervention and involvement. These “liberalization” initiatives are important, but they are only a part of the agenda for increasing free and fair competition. The main aim of liberalization is to dismantle the excessive regulatory framework, which acts as a shackle on freedom of enterprise.
Privatization:
Privatization in a narrow sense indicates transfer of ownership of a public sector undertaking to private sector, either wholly or partially. But in a broad sense, it implies the opening up of the private sector to areas, which were hitherto reserved for the public sector. Such deliberate encouragement of investment to the private sector in the economy, while emphasizing to a lesser degree the expansion or growth of the public sector will, over a period of time, increase the overall share of the private sector in the economy. The purpose is to limit the areas of the public sector and to extend the areas of private sector operation, including heavy industries and infrastructure. The basic purpose of privatization is to infuse the spirit of efficiency into public enterprises.
Globalization:
Globalisation is considered to be an important element in the reforms package. It involves the increasing interaction of national economic systems – more integrated financial markets, economies and trade, higher factor mobility, and spectacular change in information technology leading to the spread of knowledge throughout the world. Globalisation means different things to different people. In business world, it refers mainly to specific strategies in companies designed to overcome the constraints of national boundaries through the mechanism of globalized production and marketing networks. In the field of economics it is considered synonymous to economic inter-dependence between countries covering increased trade, technology, labour and international capital flows. In the political debate, globalisation refers to the integrative forces drawing national societies into a global community covering the spread of ideas, norms and values. Last but not the least, in the social field, the tidal wave of global culture is sweeping the indigenous cultures all over the world.
Globalisation is defined as free movements of goods, services, capital (FDI), people and information technology across national boundaries. It creates and, in turn, is driven by an integrated global economy, which influences both, economic as well as social relations within and across countries. The opening up of an economy increases competition internally as well as externally, leads to structural changes in the economy, alters consumer preferences, lifestyles and demands of citizens. The process of global economic integration gained momentum only in the 1970s with the development of capital markets. While mainstream economists suggest that globalisation process is a strong force for equalizing per capita income between nations, others say that the developing countries are exposed to threats of further aggravation and marginalization in the process.
The advocates of globalization, especially from the developed countries, limit the definition of globalisation to only three components, viz., unhindered trade flows, capital flows and technology flows. They insist that the developing countries accept their definition of globalisation and conduct the debate on globalisation within the boundaries set by them. But several economists and social thinkers in developing countries believe that this definition is incomplete. If the ultimate aim of the globalisation movement is to integrate the world into one global village, then the fourth component of unrestricted movement of labour cannot be left out. But whether the debate about globalisation is carried out at the World Trade Organization (WTO) or at any other international forum, there is a deliberate effort to black out 'labour flows' as an essential component of globalisation.
Fears of Globalization:
Globalization has raised fears all over the world that the market could rend the social fabric of societies. Anti-globalizationists proclaim, "The world is not for sale." Globalization, these days, is not being warmly welcomed particularly in the developing countries. Quotations from centuries past would show that fears about globalization have long been prevalent. Back in the time of the Roman Empire, Pliny the Elder was already complaining about "India, China and Arabia robbing our Empire one hundred million sesterces every year.
The driving forces in the process of globalisation are incentives and integration. The most visible outcomes in the process are the development of transnational corporations and international banks having principal control over growing world trade in goods and services rather than governments (the world's 37,000 parent transnational corporations and their 200,000 affiliates control 75% of the world trade).
Globalization in India:
In the broad setting of reforms in many countries in the 1980s, India was an apparent anomaly. India was at the crossroads. She was facing a macroeconomic crisis that required immediate attention. The crisis had been simmering since the mid 1980s in spite of occasional minor reform measures, attempted by the governments led by Prime Ministers, V.P. Singh and Chandrasekar respectively. The macroeconomic crisis provided the opportunity and the necessity to address meaningfully the inefficiencies in our policy framework that had altered our economic performance and to begin constructively the task of undertaking the necessary microeconomic or structural reforms that had long been overdue.
The reform process began in India in 1991. The, then new Government of P.V. Narashima Rao moved swiftly and announced a programme of macroeconomic stabilization and structural adjustments, which initiated a series of reform measures in India. The proposed policy frame was radically different in approach and content from the one India had pursued since independence. Reforms initiated by Rao and his Finance Minister, Manmohan Singh are called the Second Wave of reforms. The major areas of reform include: 1. Fiscal policy reform; 2. Monetary policy reform; 3. Pricing policy reform; 4. External policy reform; 5. Industrial policy reform; 6. Foreign investment policy reform; 7. Trade policy reform; and 8. Public sector policy reform.
India, characterized by pervasive poverty (300 million below the poverty line) has been implementing several poverty alleviation programmes over the passed decades. These programmes have been in the form of "Garibi Hatao" (eradicate poverty), self-employment creation (SEC), Food for Work (FFW), asset building programmes and wage employment creation (WEC) programmes. These programmes were mainly targeted towards the poor or very poor families on the basis of income threshold. However, a feature of most programmes is that they are financed by the state and, as such, periodic funding inadequacies often lead to either abandonment or reduced effectiveness of the schemes. However, with the onset of globalisation the resource allocations to these programmes in real terms are badly hit.
There is now substantial evidence that India's success at reducing the incidence of poverty during the 1970s and 1980s was halted, if not reversed, during the globalisation era of 1990s. Estimates made at the World Bank show that the incidence of poverty, which between 1972-73 and 1989-90 fell from 55.5 per cent to 34.3 per cent in rural India and from 54.3 to 34.1 per cent nationally, has in subsequent National Sample Survey (NSS) rounds, up to 1997 (when the incidence was 34.2 per cent national and 35.8 per cent rural) never gone below the 1989-90 level and has in fact risen to much higher levels in individual years. Other estimates (e.g., Gupta 1999) suggest an even greater increase in rural poverty during 1990s. All the estimates indicate that the gap between rural and urban areas, which had decreased during the 1980s and the 1970s, increased considerably during the 1990s.
In addition to the decline in the purchasing power of the incomes of the rural poor, the rate of growth of per capita rural income in real terms has sharply decelerated. This fall in rural income is, however, not just because the share of agricultural income in national income has fallen. The share in non-agricultural incomes in total rural incomes, which rose sharply between 1977-78 and 1990-91, has stagnated since then. The reason behind all this is the inefficiency and corrupts practices inherent in the governance system of the Indian Government, which does not enhance productivity, competitiveness and development.
Given that India accounts for about a third of the world's absolute poor, the nature of her integration with the international economy has critical implications for liberalization and globalisation reducing world poverty. India can be described as a relatively large, closed or protected economy, in the throes of industrialization, with trade and foreign investment plating a limited role, low per capita income, and a significant agrarian sector, marked by sharp inequality.
The issue of poverty and inequality is far more important for India both because of the alarming and overwhelming proportion of the population living below the poverty line (however measured) and also because inequality halting growth usually leads to the self-perpetuation of a low-level equilibrium. Globalisation takes society from a national to an international perspective, which is typified as being consumer driven. 21st century consumers have informed value politics and a global culture. Their choices reflect the lifestyle consumerism and materialistic trend in society, where self-esteem is centred on one's consumption. "You are what you wear and eat". Globalisation is not really global. As Streeten points out, it increases the gap between different strata of people and countries. Globalisation is good for rich countries like USA, Japan and Europe. It is bad for developing countries like India. Globalisation is good for rich people with assets and skills. But it is bad for the poor people like Tribals and Dalits.
Tribals in India
The tribal population of India (67.6 million) around 7 percent of the total population is larger than that of any other country in the world. The rural and urban male population is 3,17,55,930 and 26,07,341 respectively. The rural female population is 3,09,95,096 while the urban female population is 24,00,013. The tribal population of India is more than the total population of France and Britain and four times that of Australia. If all the tribals of India had lived in one state, it would have been the fifth most populous state after Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Maharashtra. Madhya Pradesh is not only the largest state in India but also has the largest tribal population of the country.
The word 'tribe' is generally used for a "socially cohesive unit, associated with a territory, the members of which regard them as politically autonomous" (Mitchell, 1979: 232). Often a tribe possesses a distinct dialect and distinct cultural traits. The forest occupies a central position in tribal culture and economy. The tribal way of life is very much dictated by the forest right from birth to death. It is ironical that the poorest people of India are living in the areas of richest natural resources. Historically, tribals have been pushed to corners owing to economic interests of various dominant groups. In contemporary India, the need for land for development is still forcing them, albeit this time to integrate with mainstream.
In spite of the protection given to the tribal population by the Constitution of India (1950), tribals still remain the most backward ethnic group in India. They rate very low on the three most important indicators of development: health, education and income. The tribals are most backward not only compared with the general population, but also compared to the Scheduled Caste (Dalits), the other backward social group with constitutional protection. While examining the effects of planned developmental intervention on the tribals from 1961 to 1981, it was observed that twenty years of intervention has not made any significant impact in improving the conditions of the tribals.
The basic features of our Constitution indicate direction of change or modernization, if one wants to say so, of our society. Ours is supposed to be a casteless, secular, democratic and socialist polity and society. We have shaped our policies and programmes to realize this type of change. Our Constitution considers every citizen as equal. Legal and administrative framework, institutional network and policies of development in general are also considered suitable for tribals. The tribals are a part of the Indian society and general problems of consciously changing or modernizing Indian society are also applicable to them. But the tribals form a special case in this wider framework and the problem is the nature and type of this special category.
Tribal development policies and programmes in India assumed that all the tribals will develop and will integrate themselves with the so-called mainstream. This has happened only in a symbolic way. As a result of the planned tribal development, stratification on secular lines has taken place among tribals and only a small section has been able to take advantage of the development programmes. The reason being that the development programmes were not implemented due to inefficient and corrupt bureaucracy.[i][21]
Impact of Globalization on Tribals:
Displacement of Tribals: It is estimated that owing to construction of over 1500 major irrigation development projects since independence, over 16 million people were displaced from their villages, of which about 40 per cent belong to tribal population. The government and the planners are aware of (a) the eroding resource base and socio-cultural heritage of tribal population through a combination of development interventions, commercial interest, and lack of effective legal protection to tribal and (b) the disruption of life and environment of tribal population owing to unimaginative, insensitive package of relief (Planning Commission, 1990). Still the development process continued unmindful of displacement.
A common feature shared by most of the tribal people is their remoteness and marginal quality of territorial resources. In the past, exploitation of such poor regions was found both difficult and uneconomic. But, the recent rapid technological advancement and unrivalled economic and political strength of world capitalism, and the rising power of neo-colonialism through the G-8 directly and the IMF, WB, IBRD, etc., as agencies, have created favourable conditions for the evasion and extraction of natural resources from the ecologically fragile territories of tribal people. Thus, forced evictions of tribals to make way for mammoth capital-intensive development projects have become a distressing routine and ever-increasing phenomenon.
There is a heavy concentration of industrial and mining activities in the central belt. All the massive steel plants, BALCO, NALCO, heavy engineering concerns etc. are based here. Most river basin development schemes and hydropower projects, a chain of forest-based and ancillary industries and an increasing number of highly polluting industries are located in this region. Despite intense industrial activity in the central Indian tribal belt, the tribal employment in modern enterprises is negligible. Apart from the provisions of Apprenticeship Act, there is no stipulation for private or joint sector enterprises to recruit certain percentage of dispossessed tribal workforce. The tribals are forced to live in juxtaposition with alien capitalist relations and cultures, with traumatic results. They are forced onto the ever-expanding low paid, insecure, transient and destitute labour market. About 40 per cent of the tribals of central India supplement their income by participating in this distorted and over exploitative capitalist sector. Many more are slowly crushed into oblivion in their homeland or in urban slums. This is nothing short of ethnocide. Their economic and cultural survival is at stake.
India happens to be the second most dammed country in the world. It has invested over Rs. 300 billion on dams and hydropower projects by 2000. The World Bank has directly funded as many as 87 large-scale dam projects in India as against only 58 for the whole of the African continent and 59 for Latin America. Between 1981 and 1990, the World Bank provided $7 billion for such projects in India, i.e., one-fifth of its total funding for 85 countries world over. Almost all major dam projects in India are intrinsically linked to world capitalism and its obsequious national stooges. Nearly 60 per cent of these large dams are located in central and western India where about 80 per cent of the tribals live.
There is no reliable and complete information on the number of tribals displaced in the country since independence. The estimates range between 5 and 7 million - mostly by the dams, followed by mines and industries - or approximately one in every ten tribals has been displaced by different developments projects. It is not only the magnitude of involuntary tribal displacement that should attract the special concern but also the sacrifice of collective identity, historical and cultural heritage, and of course the survival support. Poverty, malnutrition, mortality, morbidity, illiteracy, unemployment, debt bondage, and serfdom among the tribals are markedly higher.
Privatization of PSUs:
One of the ways of globalisation in India is disinvestment or privatization. Many Public Sector Enterprises are being sold off to private sectors with the objective of raising revenues to meet the fiscal deficits and to improve efficiency. Profit making enterprises like BALCO, which are in the tribal belt, have been privatized. PSEs in the tribal belt were beneficial to tribal people giving them employment and livelihood. Privatization of these enterprises has adversely affected the tribal people and disturbed the regional balance in terms of industrialization.
Tribal population largely dominates the newly formed state of Chattisgarh. The land on which Balco stands is the tribal land that was bought or leased to the company, which was a public sector undertaking and for public purposes. The land was acquired at low prices as low as Rs.20 per acre. The argument is that the moment Balco is disinvested the ownership becomes private. Transfer of tribal land would be illegal as per the Land Act of Madhya Pradesh. The argument is further strengthened with the existence of precedence in the form of Supreme Court judgment in the Samatha Vs State of Andhra Pradesh case in 1996 that barred private business to be set up in tribal areas.
However, in case of BALCO, while certain areas fall under the scheduled areas list, neither MP nor Chhattisgarh have made any local amendments to the MMDRA prohibiting the grant of mining leases in scheduled areas to non-tribals. Also, in the present transaction, according to Central Government, the Aluminium Company is not transferring it’s rights or mining leases to a third party. After divestment, the company, as an entity remains the same. It is not more 'non-tribal' than before.
Development carnage under the New Economic Policy and its submission to the powers of globalisation have led to a process of conscious and systematic annihilation of the first people - the Adivasis- of this country.... This process of globalisation has invaded India too since the introduction of the New Economic Policy of the Nineties, which is a complete reversal of the welfare and socialistic essence of the Constitution.
Conclusion: Globalization with a Human Face:
Markets are not very friendly to the poor, to the weak or to the vulnerable, either nationally or internationally. Nor are markets free. They are often the handmaidens of powerful interest groups, and they are greatly influenced by the prevailing distribution of income. In a capitalist economy, all are not in a position to compete in the market. Some like Tribals and Dalits who do not have enough education, health and nutrition to compete will fall outside the market place. That is why much better distribution of income and assets, of credit, of power structures and certainly of knowledge and skills are vital to making markets work more efficiently. Markets cannot become more neutral or competitive unless the playing field is even and playable.
If globalisation were superimposed on a poorly educated and poorly-trained tribal people, particularly in states like Bihar and Jharkhand with poor systems of governance and infrastructure, it would not lead to growth nor reduce poverty. Globalisation may no longer be an option, but a fact. However, it must be implemented with a human face.
The efforts to become competitive often hurt the social sectors first. It is most often these sectors that face budgetary reductions when liberalisation policies are implemented. Conservative monetary and fiscal policies are often undertaken and these too, independent of reductions in the size and scope of social sectors, can indirectly reduce allocations to social services and basic provisions. Such cuts in social spending are likely to hit the tribals the hardest who already have limited access to education and health facilities.
It has been accepted as an undisputed fact that rural and tribal particularly women, have a very intimate and symbiotic relationship with the ecology around them as they are untenably linked to the natural resources. In India, people adversely affected by development have been mainly dalits and tribals and among them women, who suffer even severe forms of discrimination. Repeated displacement, migration and drastic changes in livelihood patterns have socially and culturally denuded the status of the indigenous people, increasing violence and abuse against them.
The tribals are part of the Indian society, at the same time they are different. Special policy and programmes are required to address and redress these differences especially in the context of globalisation. When we plan for tribal development, we have to regard these differences, take a special note of their situations and capabilities and provide them facilities to develop on the line they want to take. Outsiders cannot develop tribals; they can become only facilitators if they want to do so. If they have to unfold from within, they must have participation in any development decision. Their felt needs should be transformed in development programmes. The tribals can participate in their development programmes only if they are considered to be equals, and if unique identities are respected. 
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