Mainstream Weekly__0__
Abstract
Global deregulation of economy, commerce and trade is bringing the hitherto uncharted natural resources of community commons within the realm of legal regimes so that these can be monetised and traded within the market frame. Recognition of community rights over the community commons and their resources, even while introducing democratised governance regimes, have also opened up the space for investment and ease of doing business. This has unleashed direct no-holds barred conflict-ridden and community co-option in this market grab on the one hand, and autonomous community democratic governance on the other even as the shadow of militant upsurges lurks in the background.
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The global restructuring of finance, production, marketing and related institutions for strengthening free-market capitalism through deregulation has progressed rapidly. Laying claims to hitherto uncharted resources, tenurial rights over land and natural resources are to be ensured for assimilation into the global market after defining and monetising resources and resource use in market terms, whether for extraction or conservation. These are a prime agenda for growth. The rapid expansion of information exchange and communication through an expanding global web that improves efficiency of the market and commerce to harvest profits is restructuring the market, evolving large global monopolies and empires, and consolidating enterprises and corporations. In all these, the governments have become the instruments of the market and capital.
The market expansion is proportional to the expanding consumer class, especially the affluent, even as the income differential within the society is rising rapidly spawning disaffection and anger. The rights discourse has been fine-tuned to market, in economic terms rather than justice, equity and equality. Electoral democracy has further retreated from its stated ideal of enhancing and expanding democracy.
The progressively decolonising and democratising governance in India unleashed hitherto latent forces. These fast tracked steadily into multiple conflicts [1] between the masses and the nexus of the State and capital over land and its resources with numerous loss of lives. These powerful forces could inevitably collide, wreck and fracture the social fabric when the remarkably successful deviously manufactured political diversions away from these real tensions begins to lose its sheen and start to wane sooner or later.
The political and economic contours of governance
The colonial administration that the country inherited expanded and got strengthened synchronising well with the emergent social and economic forces. There emerged a quid-pro-quo negotiating space between the administration and the democratically elected, outside the formal space of laws and institutions. The elected actually had negligible role in governance as they were largely confined to law-making besides raising their voice on issues in the parliament and legislative assemblies, and outside as well.
For the ease of doing business
The 1991 New Economic Policy [2] fine tuned to globalisation of economy unleashed powerful economic forces. These include financial liberalization and capital mobility by removing restrictions on cross-border financial flows with global capital moving rapidly in search of higher returns through massive foreign direct investments and portfolio investments. Transnational Corporations expanded, some of them of Indian origin [3], became dominant actors in the global economy, driving international production and trade through global value chains in search of countries with lower labour and manufacturing costs, better market access and increasing competitiveness, and relatively weak regulatory mechanisms. Along with this was the general shift towards free trade characterized by reduced tariffs, quotas, and non-tariff barriers to integrate national economies into a single global marketplace. Advances in information and communication technology, along with lower transportation costs, enabled real-time coordination amongst dispersed production units and slice up value chains across geographies facilitating outsourcing. The standardization of goods, products and services worldwide is central to this model of economy.
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