Globalization: An Opportunity to Fight Inequality in India

India just might be the economic and technological epicenter of Southeast Asia. As this video clip, I Am India, shows: Indian society has become increasingly western. Before I began this blog, my understanding of India was extremely incongruous. I was acquainted with India’s rich history, legends, and landmarks: Marco Polo, the Taj Mahal, the Silk Road, tigers, Hindu temples, karma, and saris. I was also familiar with Indian pop culture like Bollywood and the nation’s technological achievements. Yet neither of these images meshed well with my understanding of the poverty and inequalities that plague Indian society. Frankly, a society that classifies a subsector of its population as ‘untouchable’ did not bear any resemblance to the immerging superpower that I also saw in India. After a semester of research and blogging on India, I still predominately see the contradiction that is India. While I have not been able to reconcile these two sides of India, much like a coin; I see how they can both be present in the nation. However, I do not believe that this dichotomy can sustain India’s bolstering economy for very long. India lacks the foundational backbone that it needs to truly emerge as a top competitor on the global scale. Since India wants this status, reforms may become more concrete in the upcoming years and the equalities and rights spelled out in its Constitution may become reality for thousands who currently live in poverty and segregation. In the mean time, the phenomena of globalization affords an excellent way for people outside of India to indirectly boost this process along and alleviate those suffering under India’s institutionalized discrimination.

One such example of institutionalized discrimination is India’s Caste System. As previously stated in my blog, the Indian Constitution outlaws all discrimination based upon caste. However, while de jure discrimination is outlawed, de facto caste discrimination is a daily occurrence in India. The lowest caste, the Dalits or Untouchables are cruelly discriminated in various degrees throughout India. In the BBC documentary: The Broken People, reporter Ramita Navai exposes a wide array of injustices committed against Dalits throughout India. In many areas, Dalits are excluded from public places, transportation, and even temples. They may only live in certain areas of cities and often are not allowed access to the city’s water supply. Since they are seen as inferior, the most menial and disgraceful jobs are reserved to them. In one city, a Dalit worker, manually cleaning a blockage in the sewerm, fell in and died because he was allegedly overcome by the fumes. Employing manual scavengers, or those who clean waste by hand, is illegal in India. The authorities who Navai interviewed claimed the man was not a manual scavenger. However, as the documentary shows, thousands of Dalits are forced to into the repulsive and humiliating trade that is manual scavenging because they have no other means of survival.

In addition to all of these social ills endured by the Dalits, these people also suffer from crime. Neither the police nor the justice system are proactive in finding perpetrators of crimes against Dalits. Many Dalits will not venture far from the safety of their homes for the fear of violence and some have even fled their homes to find a safer region in which to live. In essence, because the Indian government and authorities are not willing to actually enforce the law, in relation to Dalits, the injustices of the Caste System are not only allowed to persist but are endorsed by their inaction. This institutionalization of the evils of the Caste System is a trademark of corruption; not the democratic, superpower that India aspires to be on the international scale.

Since the Caste System is the source of such injustice, it begs the question of why the government unofficially permits such discrimination to occur. The answer is that the system is socially useful. There is so much poverty in India; forty-two percent of the population falls below the global poverty line – over one third of which are Dalits. Such a high percentage is both alarming and discouraging; especially for a country who seeks international renown. It is much easier to consider the poor as inferior – hence untouchable – and therefore worthy only of the lowest habitations and work. No one would willingly choose the job of manual scavenging along with its low wages, so it is helpful to have a suppressed portion of the population who has no other alternative to earn a livelihood. Furthermore, the ideology of the Caste System removes all guilt from those who do have a better lot in life than the Dalits. If by birth they are lowlier than the rest of the population, there is no ethical problem with segregating and suppressing them. In essence, the Caste System dehumanizes them so that their deplorable living conditions and any crimes committed against can be overlooked.

With its Hindu roots, the Caste System is just one example of an institutionalized religious practice or lifestyle that has negative consequences to the nation and equality of the people. Another example is India’s interesting spin off of federalism that allows for personal or religious law. This constitutional provision states that every religion may exercise its own order of law in the realm of property and family law. This institutionalization of religion basically annuls any claim of India to a secular system of government because its legal system is committed to backing these diverse religious decrees.

Not only is this arrangement a problem for the justice system and democracy itself, but it also contributes to religious discrimination. Once born into a particular religion, an individual is legally bound to it if he/she hopes to one day gain any inheritance or own property. Regardless of personal faith, an individual must succumb to the religious nature of property and family law in order to own, inherit property, litigate, marry, obtain a divorce, etc. So it is not just a difference in faith that separates people; but these differences are institutionalized and thereby individuals are legally bound to the faith they were born into: it becomes inseparable from their identity in every aspect of life without the individual’s consent.

Education is another huge issue in India. In 2007, only sixty-six percent of the Indian population was literate. While education is available, much of the reason for such low literacy rates is discrimination. As The Broken People shows, Dalit children are cruelly discriminated against at school: often they’re denied assistance from their teachers, bullied, served poorer food, and segregated. Because of these hardships surrounding school, by the age of eleven, seventy percent of Dalit children have dropped out of school. The injustices encompassed in the education system further the vicious cycle of Dalit poverty because the children remain uneducated and then have no choice but to assume the most menial of jobs. The statistics show this to be true, as nearly ninety percent of Indians who have successful careers within the booming multinational economy are of higher castes.

Not only is there a disparity in the education system in regards to Dalits, but women suffer from educational discrimination as well. In 2009, literacy rates for Indian women were less than fifty-five percent while men’s literacy rates were much higher by a margin of over twenty-two percent. This translates directly into economics, as seventy-three percent of India’s poor are women and children. Traditionally, Indian women were viewed as inferior to men and, with such a discrepancy in gender literacy rates, no drastic change has occurred.

Plagued by discrimination, segregation, and poor education and quality of life: life itself in India is rather dismal for a large sector of society. While, on the international scene, India enjoys an escalating economy and basks in its newfound corporate achievement: if this prosperity does not translate to the very base of the country how much success can really be credited to India? With institutionalized injustice plaguing the lives of so many, the prosperity of the few seems to lack any translation to the destitute. Perhaps it would be unfair to deem India’s government corrupt, but I think I could safely say that the nation’s very institutions of law and society lend themselves to corruption and the mistreatment of a large portion of its citizenry. Since the government has made little to no effort to instigate institutional change, and with the understanding that such change would be both challenging and gradual, what can the rest of the world do both to propel India toward widespread equality and directly assist those who currently suffer?

The first and easiest step is to simply increase awareness. Many of those who think of India, much as I once did, have an understanding of Indian poverty and its arising economic power. It is true that these two qualities are not synonymous, which is why the situation in India is so disconcerting. However, the recent international success of India may mislead people into believing that the country’s domestic problems are improving at an equal rate. If people in the West come to an understanding that nearly half of India’s population is below the poverty line and suffers daily persecution and discrimination; maybe it will incite people to act.

Awareness can be raised in many fashions – one such way is right before you: a blog. Among the effects of globalization is the far reaching growth of the World Wide Web. Blogs are an excellent tool to engage readers from all over the world at a much larger scale than ever before possible. Non-profits and NGOs also play a key role in both raising awareness and opening avenues for people to put their concern into action. Taj Online is a website listing credible charities and NGOs that operate in India to assist the poor. These organizations provide information concerning the needs of their beneficiaries both to increase overall awareness and incite action via donations.

While charities are currently necessary in India to alleviate the sufferings of the poor, they cannot provide the wide spread and long term answers to institutionalized discrimination and persecution. Such a solution must entail a complete reworking of India’s institutional setup; making it no longer socially and economically useful to discriminate against others based upon gender, caste, or religion. The downside of such solutions is the difficulty involved, the gradualness of such change, and that such endeavors really lack compelling research and promotion.

One example that I found in my research involved India’s cotton industry. Cotton growers in India are largely illiterate; which has translated into a problem with pesticide use. Retailers are selling farmers pesticides that cotton worms are immune to, as well as chemicals that have been outlawed because of their toxicity. Because they cannot read the pesticide labels, cotton farmers are unaware that inhaling these chemicals is extremely lethal and they proceed to spray their fields without any protection. This has caused many premature deaths due to poisoning and cancer. Also, because they are often buying chemicals that no longer work, farmers are susceptible to losing their entire crop and falling into debt. In an attempt to save their crops, farmers tend to overspray their fields, which pollutes the cotton with pesticides that remains in the fabric that we buy at the local clothing store.

So what is the solution? Definitely education is key: if the farmers understand the dangers of pesticides: which ones work and how to properly spray their fields, mortality rates will fall and there will not be dangerous pesticides in our clothing. Aside from sending experts to India to educate the farmers, how can the everyday person help this situation? Boycotting cotton clothing made in India is not the solution: this would only drive the farmers further into poverty. Rather, consumers should support Indian farmers who grow organic cotton without the use of harmful pesticides. In this way, it will become more profitable for cotton farmers to switch to organic methods of farming which will not poison them or expose us, the consumers, to toxic chemicals.

The globalization of our world has afforded a remarkable and unprecedented opportunity for everyday people to make a positive impact on a global scale. The first step is to increase awareness, for; how can people respond to a problem if they are ignorant of its existence. Once aware, the globalization of the world economy and market has given great power to the individual consumer. Every consumer can espouse his/her ethics and values by what he/she chooses to support with each purchase. For instance, choosing to buy a shirt made with organic cotton may make a huge change in the life of an Indian cotton grower. Globalization has also corresponded to an increase in the number of international NGOs which have the ability to assist the suffering through education and providing basic necessities. Globalization has truly aided Indian corporations and its large scale economy and, with the help of informed and motivated people around the world, globalization could also be the means by which India’s national economic success might be translated to all corners of society through institutional change.