Platinum Jubilee Conference on the theme Globalisation and Social Transformation: The Indian Experience

Embedded capitalism in India where the government guided major economic decision making and heavy spending on welfare programmes, gave way to neoliberal economic regime in the wake of liberalisation and globalisation. The neo-liberal Indian State now enables capital to exploit new, or sometimes even old, sources of wealth. This is often achieved through accumulation by dispossession as in tribal areas by denying rights to common property and forcefully acquiring land from farmers for the private sector. Increased efficiency of markets in utilising resources for 'development projects' is presenting many challenges and dilemmas for the economic model of globalisation. Globalisation claims to espouse the philospohy of inclusive growth which connotes growth and development for all sections of society , but in reality, it does nothing to correct the unequal endowment or the initial inequality existing in society. Given that the initial hyper-inequality in ownership of means of production and wealth, the inter-personal inequalities, and similarly regional inequalities continue to exist and some are even expected to rise in the regime of this philosophy of ‘inclusive growth’, this conference will focus on the following broad sub-themes under this topic:

• Economic growth and structural transformation
• Multi-dimensional poverty and human development
• Agrarian crisis and food security
• Spatial development and regional inequalities
• Flexibilisation and livelihood security
• Financial liberalisation and economic inclusion
• Markets and its discontent
• Knowledge and learning inequities

During the last two decades and in the backdrop of globalization, the noteworthy change the world over is the growing “informalization” of the formal workforce, raising several challenges to democracy as well as space for appropriate social innovations.

While globalisation is recognised as generating significant payoffs such as cost-effective technologies, more interactive communication systems, and use of social media for networking, it has also led to phenomena such as loss of livelihoods, glaring socio-economic inequalities, and financial crises. Within organizations, globalisation has led to increased diversity, movement from a normative to instrumental culture, competition in internal labour markets, skill obsolescence, disturbed work-life balance, and employability issues.

Simultaneously, there are also numerous attempts at entrepreneurship and social innovation, which harness social networks and technology to bring about social transformation. In such a scenario the role of state, market, and the corporate sector in society is being questioned. Companies are putting in place several mechanisms for fulfilling their social responsibility. But the question that one must raise: Is, this enough?

The sub themes within this main theme are:

• Organization (process & technology, organizational forms- strategy & structure, leadership & organizational development, developing human capital, motivation, engagement, and job satisfaction, non-for-profit organization, corporate social responsibility)
• Work (decent work, labor market flexibility, social security, unorganized work, occupational health, vocational education, skill development)
• Innovation (social innovation, entrepreneurship, technology for change, structure for innovation, groups and community processes, social networks)

The post-colonial Indian nation–state was based on a developmental discourse, which tried to unify distinctive identities. The last two decades have seen a substantive ‘hollowing out’ in significant respects. Some of its regulatory capacities have been reduced (through privatisation, deregulation, decentralisation, etc.), or transferred—or are sought to be transferred—to institutions operating primarily with citizens at local levels. Simultaneously, the state has acquired a stronger role through the presence of more repressive laws, institutions and the application of state machinery in the name of security.

In the wake of globalisation, there has been a significant reconfiguration of scales accompanied by the emergence of new forms and forums of governance. There have been considerable attempts to expand representation at the democratic level. Identity movements and other struggles are getting reconstructed in the context of these transformations, and citizenship has, thus, emerged as a terrain of fierce contestation.

There is a need to examine and reflect upon these shifts, and the transformations they produce in the role of the state and in the process of governance. How do these shifts unfold? What are their spatial impacts and impacts on the populace? What are the concerns of representation and citizenship? What is the relationship between institutions of the state with each other and with other social institutions and what are the implications of these relationships on governance? These are some questions that constitute the focal points of this sub-theme.

• India’s Experience with Representative Democracy, Concerns of Nation and Representation
• Global, National and Local: Shifting Scales in the Indian Context
• Governance Reforms and Public Services
• Citizenship and the Rights Discourse in India

The concept of community and identity has been extensively debated and deliberated upon in social science discourse. The notion of community involves interconnected propositions, while the members of a grouping have something in common with each other; interestingly what holds in common differentiates them in major way from the members of other groupings. Similarities and differences as well as inclusion and exclusion are the defining characteristics of community. Grounded solidly in the local, community has been the living critique of the enlightenment project of universal abstract reasoning. And in being so, it is also the ‘other’ of the state as it provided the basis for collective mobilization of the experience of marginalization against the excesses of the state. In several situations, communities also get mobilized to ascertain their control over state and its agencies.

Community identities based on religion, caste, ethnicity, region, etc. have intensified, which now cut across national borders, and in the process have also escalated situations of violence and conflict globally and locally. This has compromised the spaces for peaceful co-existence and dialogue in the context of democracy and development. Role of identity based groupings and processes of ‘othering’ and associated tension and conflict need to be examined and understood critically.

While the pluralization of borders and de-territorialization of power has made community more vulnerable, it has also de-territorialized the local, which is evident in the emergence of the network society. Community can no longer be understood without relating it to the global scenario. The identification of transnational presence in the national and the different manifestations of the community that we observe around us have become pertinent. This sub-theme will focus on different manifestations of the community in the context of the de-territorialisation of the local, specifically in India, and seek a deeper understanding of the dialectical interaction and intersections of the state and communities.

Sub-themes are :

• Concept of Community: Reflections on the Changing Landscape (Theoretical deliberation of concept of community in a globalised world, network communities etc.)
• State, Community and marginalization: Experiences from the Field (Development Projects and marginalization; How global is experienced in the context of local contexts?)
• Community and Identity: Consolidation and Contestations (Issues of inter community relations defined by the global and local processes of identity politics and marginalization)

The present mode of production has considerably increased the struggle among communities and classes over control of natural resources, which are seen as 'commodities' for human manipulation rather than as finite resources to be used sustainably. The current pattern of wealth generation and distribution and environmental impacts of development, also potentially contribute to the threat of disaster risk. It is clear that development processes are not only engendering vulnerabilities, but are also altering and magnifying patterns of hazard. Several communities-with their traditional knowledge and use of indigenous resources and environmental practices-are organising themselves to counter the forces of mainstream 'development'. Movements by local and indigenous communities against the present mode of development-which is alienating communities from their land, forest, water, minerals, etc—are intensifying. The role of the state in compounding this dispossession has also been questioned.

This sub-theme seeks to explore the multi-dimensional nature of environmental degradation, and struggles over natural resources.

• Environment, Conservation and Resistance: Perspectives and Debates
• Developmental Process and Emerging Struggles over Resources
• Environment and Sustainable Livelihood: Challenges and Best Practices
• Environment, Institutions and Policies
• Disaster Risk and the Environment: Emerging Perspectives

India continues to be burdened by enormous health-related inequalities and vulnerabilities based on income, gender, caste, education, geography, etc., which keeps millions in the country in unacceptably poor physical and mental health condition. Inadequacies in terms of human resources and basic infrastructure in the health system, and poor financing of the public health sector, as well as increasing health care privatisation, compound this problem to a large extent. A high proportion of the population (to the tune of almost 39 million) is pushed into poverty and debt annually on account of out-of-pocket expenditure on health care. Besides the economic burden of ill-health, the cost to individuals in mental health terms, too, is disturbingly enormous. Depressive disorders, for instance, rank fourth among the top 10 causes of disease burden in the country (after cardiovascular diseases, infectious and peri-natal disorders). Wider socio-economic and cultural processes further accentuate health-related risks and vulnerabilities, especially of the weaker and marginalised sections of society.

These sub-themes reviews and reflects on the persistence of health inequalities and the social, political, cultural processes that amplify them:

• Poverty, Population Movement and Health
• Social Gradients, Social Exclusion, Health and Well-being
• Food Security, Nutrition, the Environment and Survival
• Universalisation of Health Services: Civil Society and Health Systems’ Response

Social institutions are related to five basic areas of life-family, government, economy, education and religion. In the Indian context, these institutions can be broadly grouped as

1. Traditional systems like caste, marriage or the social configuration of a village, including the institution of family;
2. State-created institutions such as banks, credit cooperatives, and governance mechanisms, including law, regulatory institutions and judiciary;
3. Emerging people-centered institutions like self-help groups, non-governmental and other organised people’s/user-group associations.

Sociologists articulate the essence of social institutions for determining kinship and socio-cultural relations, providing for the legitimate use of power, and in regulating the distribution of goods and services. The process of globalisation and the fast sweeping changes in socio-political conditions in contemporary Indian society are not only transforming the role of the social institutions, but the institutions are also acting on and transforming roles and identities in society. This can be seen in terms of unequal distribution of wealth, status, and power, and how roles and behaviors get defined.

In this context, this sub-themes will look at how the role of social institutions is changing and the impact it has on individuals and society.

• Family Relationship and Changing Lifestyles
• The 'Retreating State', the 'Regulating State' and Social Welfare
• NGO, People-centered Institutions and Social Change
• Educational Institutions in a Globalised Society
• Identities, Social Institutions and Networks

There has been a significant change in the spaces of popular culture and the national imaginary in the past two decades owing among other things to globalising forces. This puts into focus the changing patterns of ownership, control, distribution and consumption, new negotiations of identity, the new sites of power and resistance that have emerged. The diversity of experiences through the intensification of global - local interaction in all aspects of culture reflects the change. This is amplified through the use of information and communication technologies. From the construction of terrorism to media assisted assertions of identity, from moral panics to citizen journalism, from the re-scripting of desire and consumption to the growth of surveillance, from cyber-activism to community radio and more, this sub-theme will try to understand the changing spaces of cultural production and consumption within a globalising India making it a challenging case for rethinking both theory and praxis.

This sub themes will review and reflect on the following issues:

• Surveillance, Censorship and Resistance
• Re-imagining Sexuality and the Spaces of Consumption
• New Technological Spaces and practices
• Mapping Transformation in the Cinemas of India
• News Media and the Construction of Conflict
• Regimes of Regulation: Media Laws, Policy and Practice
• Local Negotiations of the Global: Regional Language Media