Social Democracy with Ambedkar:
Market, Caste and Dalits in the Age of Globalisation

Dr. Ronki Ram
Chairman, Dept of Political Science, Panjab University , Chandigarh

Social democracy occupies centre stage in the philosophy of Bharat Rattan Baba Sahib Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. It constitutes the core and heart of his struggle against graded inequality in India . Social democracy expands the meaning of freedom – political liberation from the foreign rule – by incorporating in its fold also the less talked about freedom from internal colonialism – the centuries old Hindu system of caste based social exclusion. This is what distinguished Dr. Ambedkar from the rest of the mainstream Indian freedom fighters who were struggling mainly for the liberation of the country from the alien rule of the British Empire . The anti-imperial stance of the mainstream Indian freedom struggle failed to draw attention to the perennial issue of the denial of social justice and freedom of a large number of downtrodden – condemned as Untouchables – who were sandwiched between British colonialism, on the one hand, and the Hindu system of internal colonialism, on the other. The Untouchables were, thus, doubly oppressed. They had no hope for any relief whatsoever from the Hindu social order as it was based on the doctrine of inequality in every sphere of life. Since the Hindu social order is inherently based on caste as a primary unit of society, it does not respect the liberal principles of individual merit and justice. The rights that an individual enjoy are not given to him on the basis of his personal merit. On the contrary they are given to him because of the status of his particular caste in the Hindu caste hierarchy (Thorat 2002). And in the Hindu caste hierarchy where “a sense of ascending scale of respect and descending scale of discrimination” is the code of the conduct, it does not matter whether those who found themselves at the bottom of the hierarchy enjoy some human rights or not (Ramaswamy 2001). The social conditions of the untouchables remained almost the same even during the British rule. They failed to get any relief from the liberal minded British rulers also, who left caste untouched to avoid unrest within the Hindu society. “In some ways they [the British rulers] even reinforced it, finding Brahmins useful as an army of clerks and administrators who served the British Empire faithfully”, argued Mari Marcel Thekaekara (Thekaekara 2005).

The Political freedom of India would remain incomplete until and unless the deprivations and sufferings of the large numbers of ex-Untouchable people are removed thoroughly by annihilating the internal colonial system of caste based social exclusion. In other words, the political freedom from British colonialism would remain incomplete, unless it is followed by a complete freedom from the all-pervasive and well-entrenched structures of the internal colonialism. In the opinion of Dr. Ambedkar: “Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy” (Three Historical Addresses 1999:53). And the roots of social democracy are to be searched in the fabric of social relationship built around vigorous interactions among all the members of a society (Chand 2005). Since the Hindu society is intensely rooted in the pre modern system of caste based social hierarchies, social democracy seems to be a distant dream in India . Caste based social hierarchies are so well entrenched in India that they do not only divide the Hindu society in terms of caste cleavages, but also afflict even those who have converted to various other religions – Buddhism, Christianity, Sikhism and Islam – in the name of the utopia of castelessness. Untouchability splits people into distinct and seamless geographical settings. It blocks the channels of effective communication among different castes especially between the upper and the lower castes by erecting permanent barriers of social exclusion. It is a nefarious system/mechanism of ghettoising a large number people into the periphery of a mainstream social realm. Despite its practice being declared a criminal offence in the Constitution of independent India, first under the Protection of Civil Rights [Anti-Untouchability] Act of 1955 and later on under the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989, it continues to exist even today in the form of separate Scheduled Castes settlements in the country, especially in the rural sector where most people still live (Rajagopal 2007). The spatial segregation of the ex-untouchables has become a formidable hurdle in the realisation of social democracy in India . Untouchability, by its very nature, negates the very possibility of the rise of an egalitarian social order. It inculcates a sense of complete alienation among those who have been condemned to live separately as ‘outcastes’ away from the mainland habitations of the upper castes. These so-called outcastes who remained silent victims of the system of Untouchability for a pretty long time, continued to be deprived of education, basic human rights, equal social status, equal opportunities in the field of art and culture, and science and technology even after India gained independence. The denial of human rights to Dalit people in the country is a blot on the face of Indian democracy. Democracy and Untouchability cannot go together. They are mutually incompatible. Democracy is premised on principles of freedom, equality and fraternity. On the contrary, Untouchability thrives amidst inequality and denial of human rights to those who were pushed into the periphery of the mainstream social system. Since social equality and freedom are inseparable, political democracy without social democracy is farce. In the absence of social democracy, the socially excluded sections of the society would be finding it difficult to participate effectively in the process of the political democracy. Untouchability prohibits the lowest of the low from actively engaging in the operations of the public-social realm. It squeezed the ‘public’ or the ‘social’ into ‘public’ or the ‘social’ of the privileged few (the savarnas/dvijas [upper castes]). It means elevation of some (a few) and degradation of others (the multitudes). It also showers some with immense wealth as against many who in spite of working hard has to live a life of abject poverty (Yurlova 2004: 84). The social exclusion and economic deprivation of the downtrodden preclude the deepening of the democracy by abetting the anti people moves of the oppressive structures of power.

In the broader paradigm of democracy, inclusive social relationship (social democracy) constitutes the core of political democracy. Political democracy can survive and flourish only amidst egalitarian social relations – free from caste based social hierarchies. Dr. Ambedkar defines social democracy as “a way of life which recognizes liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life. These principles … are not to be treated as separate items in a trinity. They form a union of trinity in the sense that to divorce one from the other is to defeat the very purpose of democracy” (Three Historical Addresses 1999:53). Frozen in the centuries old stratified structure of the Hindu social order, the principles of equality and fraternity are yet to find a clear expression and a significant space in the political democracy of independent India. Social life in India is still governed by the principle of birth-based graded inequality that elevates some [upper castes] and degrades others [Dalits]. The lack of fraternity [feeling of common brotherhood], further deepened social contradictions in the social realm of the country. In fact, it is repulsion rather than fraternity that underlined the social structure of the Indian society. Repulsion is one of three main agencies (the other two are hierarchy and hereditary occupation) of caste that determine the exclusionary boundaries of Indian structures (Bougle 1971). The principle of repulsion, thus, geared caste towards mutual antagonism within the society that ultimately squeezed the required space for the deepening of social democracy. In the views of Dr. Ambedkar:

In fact, it makes isolation of one caste from another a virtue. There is isolation in the class system. But it does not make isolation virtue nor does it prohibit social intercourse. The class system, it is true produces groups, but they are not akin to caste groups. The groups in the class system are only non-social while the castes in the caste systems are in their relations definitely and positively anti-social [http://www.ambedkar.org/Babasaheb/Commandments_of_Baba_Saheb.htm]

Social exclusion and repulsion are, thus, the bedrock of Dalit atrocities in India . Atrocities against Dalits (social boycott, kidnapping, murder, abduction, bonded labour, intimidation, rape, honour killings and residential segregation) continue to exist even after sixty years of independence. More so despite constitutional safeguards, and various legislative measures. In the opinion of Christine Moliner, a French anthropologist who visited the 4 th World Social Forum (WSF) in Mumbai in January 2004, “The Indian state has in recent years often proved itself unable or unwilling to protect Dalit; indeed, state representatives – police especially – are frequently accused of active participation in anti-Dalit violence” (Moliner 2004: 2; see also: Mungekar 2006:2). The all-pervading reach of caste is so well entrenched that even the state machinery is not left untouched. How the state in India can save itself remain the implication of the caste factor when caste constitutes the very core of the society? Since caste thrives on mutual repulsion and completely rejects the principle of fraternity, it becomes anti-national and affects the machinery of the state by making public opinion impossible (Mungekar 2006:1). It introduces separation in the society, and generates jealousy and antipathy among its inmates divided on caste lines. In his famous address in the Constituent assembly on the completion of the Draft Constitution ( 25 November 1949 ), Baba Sahib sounded a grave warning:

On the 26 th January 1950 , we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognizing the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this Assembly has so labouriously built up [Three Historical Addresses 1999:53-54].

It seems that the Indian state have accorded some concern to his prophetic warning. Independent India opted for a mixed economy model of development and introduced the system of reservation for the downtrodden in government jobs, education institutions and legislature. Legal provisions for reducing the enormous gap between the rich/upper and the poor/lower castes have been incorporated in the law book of the land. The preamble of the constitution clearly spells out the objectives of securing “to all its citizens JUSTICE, social, economic and political” as well as “EQUALITY of status and of opportunity”. However it is the very spirit of this legal system that has fallen victim to the processes of globalisation in India . Baba Sahib’s vision of social equality and fraternity seems to have been eclipsed in the free market economy system of the post 1990 Globalising India. In the paradigm of free market economy, the primordial institution of caste does not feel alien at all. Market and caste go very well in the age of globalisation. If democracy and untouchability are incompatible; then caste and market are easily soluble common particles. Market thrives on capital. Since capital has traditionally been accumulated by the upper castes that have established themselves as the main business-houses in India , market feels very much comfortable with them. It welcomes them in its fold with enormous opportunities and hefty profits – the main incentive of the free market economy. It ignores the ex-untouchables who lack in capital. In the traditional Hindu social system, the ex-untouchables were kept at distance from the capital through the mechanism of purity-pollution principle. They were not allowed to acquire capital by denying land and property rights. They were not allowed to have land, possess precious metals and keep certain kind of animal (Ambedkar??). On the contrary, they were employed to help generate capital for the incumbents of the higher echelon on the scale of caste hierarchy. It is in this context that the dialectics of inverse relationship between democracy and untouchability and the complimentarity between market and caste assumes an utmost importance for the understanding of the impact of globalisation on the life of the Dalits in India . Market and caste reinforce each other. Whereas, democracy and untouchability weaken each other. Democracy finds stalled in the face of Untouchability. Since Untouchability favours the privileged few at the cost of the multitude of downtrodden, the social structures of difference/domination on which it stands do not allow true democracy to emerge. In the tug of war between democracy and untouchability, the forces of the free market economy side with the latter (untouchability). They strengthen the hands of caste by making it almost impossible for the ex-untouchables to participate in the game of finance capital. Market runs on capital through the vehicle of profit. Since capital mostly lies with the upper castes, it is only they who matter the most in the malls of the market. It is only they also to whom the market has been transforming into million and billionaires. There is hardly anyone from the ex-untouchables in India who have joined the elite club of the billionaires. Thus market favours only the upper castes. In other words, it accentuates the gulf between the poor and the rich. Since poor and lower castes are co-terminus, a market further marginalizes the lower castes buy preventing them from entering into its business operations. It is in this context that free market economy and liberal democracy become incompatible. The capital starved lower castes are not welcome in the field of free market economy. Thus free market economy by virtue of its anti poor and anti lower caste stance has ultimately become a hurdle in the way of liberal democracy in India .

I)This paper attempts to explore, how the process of globalisation has affected the lives of the marginalised, who had, hitherto, been looking towards the state for some support to stand on their own feet. Since the very logic of globalisation is based on the notion that welfare state is a hindrance in the way of the global free market economy, it ceased to support the marginalized. This has further deepened the marginalisation and exclusion of the downtrodden and has severely limited the possibilities of their possible emancipation under the aegis of the welfare state system. It is in this context that the process of globalisation and the principles of social democracy come into an open clash.

Globalisation is based on the principle of complete freedom of the market. Within the paradigm of globalisation, state is just reduced into a sort of security mechanism to protect its citizens from internal disruption and external onslaught. It is not supposed to care for the social and economic interests of its citizens. It is argued that the social and material interests of the citizens would be better served if they were lift free to flourish in the market ‘prompted by the profit motive to supply essential services’. The Neoliberal argument goes further by highlighting the point that the interests of the individuals are best served by maximum market freedom and minimum intervention by the state. Thus globalisation robs the state of its welfare functions. On the contrary, the principle of social democracy called upon state to play a positive role for the protection as well as promotion of the interests of the downtrodden. It expects that state need not to confine itself only to military security; it is also expected to function as a harbinger for social and economic justice and transformation. It is in this context that the extended contractarian tradition of the welfare state comes into head-on-collision with the process of globalisation.

Globalisation is often paraded as a custodian of enormous opportunities. But what such ‘opportunities’ are and whom they benefit is a question that directly concerns the Dalits. In an existential asymmetrical world, the world where, in fact, we actually live, such opportunities open many doors for the haves. Whereas the interests of the have-nots are often neglected, a large majority of who happens to be low castes, socially excluded, tribal, women, and other vulnerable sections of the society. The much-hyped Special Economic Zones [SEZs] and the consequent process of forced displacement have further affected these marginalisated sections of the society (Kumar 2007, see also, Sarma 2007). This has led to the perpetuation and deepening of the social and economic inequalities, which in turn further isolate the principle of fraternity. Talhan, Meham, Dulina, Gohana, Saalwan, Chakwada and Khairlanji are some of the recent prominent instances of the mauling of the principle of fraternity in different parts of India . Dalit atrocities bluntly negate what Dr. Ambedkar called “associated life between the people” of a given society. It cuts the roots of social democracy by targeting the downtrodden and precluding them to enter into the mainstream.

The term ‘Dalit’ is used in this paper, as a social category that incorporates the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes, and the Backward Castes – constitutional categories referring to socially and/as well as economically excluded sections of the society. However, in the current political discourse, the term Dalit is mainly confined to the Scheduled Castes. More precisely, it covers only those Scheduled Castes who are classified as Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists but excludes Muslim and Christian Dalits. Scheduled Tribes, Backward Castes and the other poor of the upper castes fall in the category of economically deprived sections of the society. Scheduled Castes belong to the Dalit category that incorporates socially deprived sections of the society who are not only socially excluded merely on the basis of birth but are also segregated geographically. Historically, Dalits have been deprived of social, economic and political rights including the right to education and employment. They were subjected to forced and customary undignified labour, precisely because of their low birth. Dalit is the “politically correct” nomenclature for the ex-untouchables who traditionally have been placed at the lowest rung of the Hindu caste hierarchy and were contemptuously called by different names like Shudras, Atishudras, Achhuts, Antyajas, Chandalas, Pariahs, Dheds, Panchamas, Avarnas, Namashudras, Adi-Dravida, Ad Dharmis, Mazhabis, Harijans, Depressed Classes and Scheduled Castes. They were forced to live on the outskirts of the villages towards which the wind blew and sewage flowed. Their houses were dirty, dingy, dark, and unhygienic where poverty and squalor loomed large.

II) How globalisation process impacts the above-mentioned categories of peoples and what sort of space they occupy within the domain of market is what this section deals with. Before India enters into the realm of neoliberal economy in the beginning of 1990, Dalits happened to be the beneficiaries of the state’s affirmative action that had brought some improvements in their lives by making special provisions to provide them education, employment, respectable wages, access to land, water, health, housing and other resources. However, this welfarist stance of the Indian state gave way to a new system of free market economy and the minimum intervention by the state. One of the main concerns of this new paradigm is to facilitate the process of the roll back of the welfare state and to allow the market forces to operation in an unrestrained manner in the domain of international trade. This pro-market stance of the process of economic globalisation has led to the widening of the gap between the privileged few and the large mass of the marginalized section of the society. The further Marginalisation of the already marginalized people widens the stretch of inequity in the society (Kumar 2007). Dalit labourers, daily wage workers and workers in the informal sector among them suffer the most. In other words, globalisation process severely affects some categories of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes who are deprived of jobs, and face great difficulties in accessing housing, drinking water, food, healthcare, education, and employment. Thus the way globalisation affects the life of a Scheduled Caste worker differs significantly from that of the non-Scheduled Caste one. In a caste-based graded social hierarchy where lower social status and economic backwardness seems to be coterminous, social rank plays an important role in determining one's economic status.

Globalisation process has further aggravated this vicious interrelationship between social and economic backwardness. The logic of economic globalisation favours the rich, who can invest and multiply capital. The favoured rich are mostly found among the so-called traditional ‘upper castes’ that have monopolised land and other economic resources in the country. It has made them prominent in the newly carved out vast private space of the open market. In other words, it has led to an alliance between the forces of the market and the upper castes – much to the disadvantage of the marginalised and the lower castes. In other words in the open market system of the neo-liberal economy capital and caste have joined hands against labour and the principle of state social welfare.

III) Globalisation has been projected as a 20 th century wonder, which contains immense potentialities for the elimination of poverty, hunger and disease. The European Commission in its Annual Economic Report for 1997 defined globalisation “as the process by which markets and production in different countries are becoming increasingly interdependent due to the dynamics of trade in goods and services and flows of capital and technology. It is not a new phenomenon but the continuation of developments that have been in train for some considerable time” (European Commission 1997: 45). In this context, it is primarily associated with ‘a process of intensifying worldwide economic integration’. However, this political-economy-centric view of globalisation when juxtaposed with the one grounded within the wider social science literature presents a more complex picture. It is also projected as an era of universalisation and intensification of transnational flows of images, people, commodities and capital. Though the process of globalisation is often referred to interchangeably with the notions of liberalisation, internationalisation, universalisation, modernisation, westernisation, Americanisation, de-territorialisation, or supra-territorialisation, none of these terms, argues Scholte, captures its distinctive features (Scholte 2000; see also McGrew 2005: 209; Scott 1997:5; Abdelal and Segal 2007).

Looked at through the prisms of political economy, cultural theory, political analysis, international relations, and urban sociology, globalisation resonates differently in the different contexts. Globalisation needs to be understood as a multi-dimensional, rather than singular process, and free from the disciplinary boundaries of a particular field. Equally important is to rescue it from the prevailing myths and rhetoric about its inevitability and irresistibility (Abdelal and Segal 2007: 103-114). Globalisation is not a new phenomenon, as it is claimed widely. In effect, it is the replication of the political and economic imperialism of the 19 th century (Singh 2006:681-751). Moreover, in the 19 th century the world was more integrated than is the case today. Equally important is to critically analyse the objectives of the process of globalisation. The process of globalisation is not something that has come into operation on its own as a beneficial God gifted natural source. As perceptively argued by Anthony Giddens “Globalisation is not a force of nature. It is made by human beings and their endeavours” (Giddens 2007). It is, perhaps, a well planned and well regulated project aimed at building a uniformed global market for the benefit of a limited number of individuals/corporations. Its sole aim is to accumulate capital, which by its very logic creates dens of poverty, disease and squalor in the periphery, and wealth in the core of the globalising world. In order to comprehend such diabolic posture of the phenomenon of globalisation, it needs to be distinguished as an ideology and as a paradigm.

As an ideology, globalisation creates a sense of false consciousness in the periphery. It makes its appearance as beneficial through various popularly projected images (Klein 2000). At the same time, it also builds up the logic to subdue any opposition to its upward surgence. It emphasises that poverty and low economic growth were the results of keeping oneself out of the reach of globalisation. As a paradigm, globalisation provides an epistemological outlook for the understanding of the world. This epistemological outlook has assigned the prefix N ewto the already existing asymmetrical world. The fact, however, is that it is not the existential world that has really become new or newly ordered under the spill of globalisation. What the paradigm of globalisation was able to do under the prefix New is that it has succeeded in projecting the same old world as new in a particular way that favours capital over labour. This paradigm of presenting the old world in the form of something new emanates from a perspective, held by the privileged few, to scan the uneven structures of the existing world in such a manner as to project them as ‘new’, ‘ordered’, ‘global’, interdependent’, and ‘homogeneous. Such a paradigmatic approach in looking at the so-called changing trajectories of the world has more to do with the ‘concrete processes’ of economy and politics rather than with its projected abstract realities. However, in the domain of political economy, it is not always essential to stick to apparent realities. On the contrary, the projected realities have usually been taken as given, realities that favour capital and the metropolis and deprive labour and the periphery. Such realities in fact are not generally acceptable realities at all. It is so because they emboss the fabricated and artificial homogeneous world on the real and the existing asymmetrical world.

This is another way of subjugating the marginalized, the ‘other’. The marginalised are subjugated through the mirage of the promised /imagined new world. The imagined world has been made more real than the actual real world is. The real world is not the one where we live, but the one we have been told about. The panacea to all our maladies, we are told, lies in getting assimilated quickly into this New world –the globalising one. It is also said that poverty, failure of the state, and ethnic insurgencies in the developing countries and elsewhere are not the outcome of the specific factors grounded in their colonial structures or in their own current specific domestic/external situations, but because of their refusal to open themselves to the currents of the global market.

Contrary to the repetitive claims, the post-Cold War world is very much the same intransient world of power games and shrewd diplomacy. The so-called New world is the old place where one has to move cautiously in the given hard-core choices, and in an environment of no permanent friends and foes. How does one then understand the United States’ support to the non-democratic Sheikhdom in the Middle East and to the authoritarian states of South East Asia, whereas United States, itself, stands for democracy not only within but internationally also. Democracy as a value is not as important as its use for the promotion of national interests. Any democratic process that helps raise genuine political aspirations, finds no support from the West if such a process is likely to adversely affect the status of the West. Thus, in order to qualify for a democratic status one needs to fulfill the expectations of the West. It does not matter much even if you are a despot or a dictator provided you do not create any difficulties for the West. Given a choice between democracy and promotion of national interest, the latter gets a priority over the former. That is what the law of power politics advocates. It needs to be taken with a pinch of salt that free trade is the most important natural torchbearer of the 21 st century. The moot point is who does the process of globalisation favour? How does globalisation operate in an unequal and anarchic world? What safeguards, if any, are available to the ex-colonial societies and the marginalised to defend themselves against the system of domination, embedded in the logic of a world structured on the principles of power politics? In fact, the process of globalisation empowers the advanced capitalist states and their citizens to dominate the rest of humanity more aggressively. It affirms the right of the capital to move around the globe but restricts the freedom of labour. It is in this context that we need to take up the issue of the process of globalisation in the context of the marginalised in the periphery. Rampant violence, narcotic terrorism, mounting debts, political apathy and indolence, subordination to market, controlled print and electronic media, ecological devastation, rolling back the State, nepotism, corruption, the ever increasing rise in the internal civil strife leading to mass killings, and exodus are a few issues of crucial concern relating to the marginalised in the periphery.

IV) The system of globalisation is not accountable to the people whom it affects. Since the state, which draws sustenance and legitimacy from the citizens in the geographically determined boundaries, begins fading in the face of the surging forces of globalisation, it often finds excuses to exempt itself from its legal responsibility towards the betterment of its populace, especially the marginalised. Public policy, based on the state supported social protection, gave way to deregulation, privatisation, cuts in state’s social welfare schemes (e.g. Public Distribution System [PDS] in India ), restrictions on labour unions, flexible labour markets, strict laws and quotas restricting immigration to the countries of the North. Such anti-people policies are not only encountered by the people of the developing world, the political establishments in the countries of the developed world equally adhere to them.

Such anti-labour policies do not only characterise the governments in Europe and the United States , but also the governments and left-of-centre parties in Japan , and Australia have been talking the same language. Furthermore, through the international financial mechanism of the Multilateral Economic Organisations (MEOs) like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), these anti-labour policies are extended to the domestic realms of the developing countries (Ibid). The most startling case of non-accountability on the part of the forces of globalisation is the callousness on the part of the Union Carbide with regard to the victims of the Bhopal Gas tragedy.

The question of justice, of late, has come up as the most important contentious issue of globalisation. Some of the leading exponents of the process of globalising have now started echoing the concern that “… in its failure to deliver a more just global economic order, globalisation may hold within it the seeds of its own demise”. If the contemporary process of globalisation sincerely aims at strengthening the need for strong governance, then contrary to the pro-capital policies of its neo-liberal lobbying centres of London and Washington, it has to remove all “barriers to the movement of people in search of work” and to make stringent efforts towards the formation of “a single market for both capital and labour”.

To manage the crisis of globalisation, efforts are now being made, since the second half of 1997, to politically legitimise, democratise and socialise the process of globalisation. Is it feasible, at least theoretically, to socialise the process of globalisation? To socialise globalisation seems to be tantamount to saying to socialise the capital. However, capital by its very nature intrinsically defies any such attempts. It is basically based on the process of capital generation through the appropriation of surplus values generated by the labourers. And, the grammar of capitalism tells us that a surplus value is the value of labour that is denied to a labourer. Thus, the capital and the utopia of its equal distribution are basically antithetical to each other. According to the Human Development Report 1997 published by United Nations Development Programme,

The greatest benefits of globalisation have been garnered by a fortunate few. A rising tide of wealth is supposed to lift all boats, but some are more seaworthy than others. The yachts and ocean liners are rising in response to new opportunities, but many rafts and rowboats are taking on water- and some are sinking. The ratio of global trade to Gross Domestic Product has been rising over the past decade, but it has been falling for 44 developing countries, with more than a billion people. The least developed countries, with 10 per cent of the world's people, have only 0.3 per cent of world trade – half their share of two decades ago.

The metaphor of the rising tide lifting all boats fails to take off when applied in the context of the effect of the globalisation on the developing countries. In the developing world the tides of the neo-liberal economy had ended up knocking over some of the smaller boats. “It has increased the divide between the rich and the poor countries and further widened the gap between the rich and the poor in the Third World countries. The number of poor in Africa has doubled”, said Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz in a lecture on Making Globalisation Work in Chennai recently (The Hindu, January 5, 2007). According to the 1999 version of the Human Development Report, the income gap ratio between the 20 per cent of the world's population in the richest countries and the 20 per cent in the poorest grew from 30:1 in 1960 to 60:1 in 1990 and 74:1 in 1995. The poorest 20 per cent of the world's population accounts for only one per cent of the total global Gross Domestic Product and 40 per cent of the world's population lives in absolute poverty. The number of people with income of less than $ 1 a day increased by almost 100 million to 1.3 billion between 1987 and 1993. In the past 18 years, the per capita income has declined in more than 100 countries. In a large number of countries, life expectancy is still 40 years. The external debt burden of the developing countries totals $2.2 trillion, according to 1999 estimates. Of this, two-thirds is public debt. The net material worth of the world's 200 richest persons increased from $ 440 billion to more than one trillion in just four years: 1994-1998. The above statistics shows that the global spread of capital failed to reduce the contradictions between the poor and the rich nations.

The exploitative and inequitable stance of globalisation became factually clear in the last few years. The Washington Consensus (WC) based neo-liberal project of globalisation came under severe attack on its durability in the wake of the financial crisis that hit Asia in the second half of 1997 and soon spread to Latin America and Russia in early 1998. Another factor that accounted amongst the significant sources of backlash against the unbridled nature of globalisation project was the failure of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to establish the multilateral argument on investment. ‘The battle of Seattle ’ was yet another factor that jostled globalisation from its very roots. Along with these events of crisis revelation of globalisation, another factor which affected the ever surging march of globalisation is “the development of a perception that global liberalisation brings with it increased inequality”. The above cited events and perceptions led to the lowering of the image of globalisation from its status of inevitability to its self-demise. This also led to the end of the orthodox Washington Consensus backed model of globalisation, based on economic liberalisation that dominated the period between 1980 and 1990, and resulted in the emergence of a ‘Post Washington Consensus’.

The Post Washington Consensus is a response to the challenges to the process of globalisation. It aims at rectifying the pitfalls of economic liberalisation by introducing the system of global governance. The project of globalisation of 1980s and the early 1990s did not have any place for ethics. It was based on purely the free market principle of profit and maximising self-interest. “The idea is that capitalism, left to itself, can recover from any crisis and any public intervention can only make things worse. Thus any public actions are nothing but distortions of the system which must be minimised”. The Post Washington Consensus model has been trying to bring ethical dimensions into the theory of globalisation. The attempt on the part of Post Washington Consensus to bring ethical content into the theory of globalisation was not merely a tactical move to forestall the simmering revolt against economic liberalisation. The Post Washington Consensus, thus, distinguished itself from the Washington Consensus by the concepts of civil society, social capital, capacity building, governance and transparency, a new international economic architecture, institution building and safety-nets as against the Washington Consensus mantras of liberalisation, deregularisation and privatisation.

The immediate question is whether the Post Washington Consensus would make some efforts for setting an agenda to help the marginalised. Is it possible that the mere chanting of the names of civil society, social capital, and governance etc. can facilitate the change for the betterment of the neglected lot of the society? The Post Washington Consensus fails to chart out the parameters through which the marginals can be brought into the purview of the civil society, which, as in the case of India , has still not become inclusive in its character and scope. How can capital translate the higher statuses into instruments of improvement for the downtrodden when their own kith and kin feel shy and fearful to openly divulge their caste identity in the highly inequitable hierarchical structures of the Indian society? Nothing concrete can be expected for removing the tears from the hapless faces until and unless something can be done in the form of structural transformation for dismantling the market based system of domination on one hand, and the varna (literally colour; it refers to traditional four-fold occupational division within the Hindu social order) based system of social hierarchy on the other. In fact, for India the crisis is not only confined to the forces emanating from the sphere of the market. It is equally severe, perhaps more, as far as its caste based social order is concerned. The market and the caste when combined make a deadly concoction for the crisis managers to tackle effectively.

In the absence of an egalitarian alternative to the structures of domination, the human face of globalisation based on global governance makes no difference for the marginalised who continue to be afflicted in the gas chambers of gender, caste and class. The market has failed to liberate them. Moreover, it has further pinned them down. They are not welcomed in the sphere of market as equal partners of profit. In other words, the market too practices untouchability, albeit in a different form. They feel alienated in their own world of creation. How strong can the global market be, in the long run? It will not survive until and unless the question of the marginals is addressed amicably. In fact, the question of equitable distribution of resources is closely related with the issue of the immediate and amicable redressal of the cause of the marginals and the socially excluded. They need not be provided with only cheap articles of provision of minimal use as have been popularly done in some Indian states. What seems to be essential is to empower them, to enhance their buying capacity in the real sense of the term, to dismantle the structures of economic and social dominations, and to remove the stresses of globalisation. “If we are not concerned of the stresses of globalisation, ideological counter-currents will emerge. Globalisation is not a bed of roses. There is a need to be watchful, always,” warned Singapore Foreign Affairs Minister George Tong-Boon Yeo at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Partnership Summit in Bangalore (The Hindu, March 19, 2007 ). In other words, a balance needs to be created between the forces of market and the principles of social justice. It is in this context that Baba Sahib Dr. B. R. Ambedkar’s warning, as referred to in the beginning of the paper, assumed significant importance. The globalisation process has been compelling India to bind up as early as possible its social and economic justice project aims at empowering the Dalits. In other words, before social democracy could take firm roots in India , the state started rolling back from its commitment to facilitate the process of emancipation and empowerment of the downtrodden classes.

V) Globalisation, thus, poses a serious challenge to the formation of social democracy in India . It deepens the perennial evil of social exclusion through its much advertised project of new economic reforms, which in effect is less about ‘reforms, and more about ‘exclusion’. It has led the closer of various industrial units in the public sector that “played havoc with the employment scenario of the populace as a whole and of the Dalits in particular” (Puniyani 2002) This, in turn, has increased unemployment and poverty on the one hand, and widens the hiatus between the rich/upper castes and the poor/lower castes on the other. In the first decade of the new economic reforms in India , the ratio of both unemployment and poverty increased from 28 per cent in 1989 to 48 per cent in 1992. Since Dalits constitute the bulk of the poor and unemployed, they have suffered the most. Their chances of acquiring jobs in the high-tech industry at home as well as in the multinational corporations have been getting curtailed since the beginning of the process of globalisation in India . The system of primary and elementary education in the rural and urban settings has been subverted almost totally. Since, majority of the rich upper caste send their wards to the private/convent/public schools, government schools have been reduced into dysfunctional centres of learning for the poor Dalits. It is simply out of the reach of the matriculates of such neglected government schools, where hardly any infrastructure and teachers are available, to be able to compete for admission in the country’s prestigious Information Technology (IT) or management schools. Moreover, since the background of a majority of Dalit undergraduates is in Arts and Humanities, it becomes difficult for them to meet the job requirements of the multinational corporations. Even if some of the Dalits aspire to compete in the technology driven new job market, it would be, perhaps, out of their reach to acquire the requisite qualifications at exorbitant rates from the various engineering and management institutes. It is precisely due to these reasons that Dalits are rarely to be found in the prestigious management schools all over the country. Of course, to prove this point factually one has to conduct a detailed survey of the caste wise ratio of the intake in such institutions.

Moreover, another way through which the process of globalisation has been affecting the lives of the Dalits rather more severely is the transformation of their traditional hereditary occupations into lucrative profit seeking competitive avenues where they find themselves incapable of competing with the so called upper castes who until very recently used to consider such professions as polluting. In other words, when the occupations of sewage disposal, scavenging and raw hides were performed in the Jajmani (hereditary system of asymmetrical reciprocity and patronage between landlords and occupational experts) set up, bereft of profit incentive, Dalits were condemned and forced to take them up. But when these same occupations became profit-generating businesses, Dalits find themselves at odd in their own tested fields. It is in this context that the process of globalisation perpetuates the system of caste and inequality albeit in a new form. Instead of liberating them, it further pins them down. Earlier they were excluded and were condemned as shudras because of their closeness to the sewages, now it exclude them by way of defeating them in the profit oriented open market system of the neo-liberal economy. In fact, this market is open only for those who have the capital to play the profit game on the chessboard of its unrestrained competition. In this new profit driven game of the process of globalisation, Dalits – normally starved of capital – stand disqualified.

Yet another way through which the process of globalisation severely affects the lives of the Dalits is the accentuation of the phenomenon of their exclusion from land. Significant parts of the vast majority of them who live in villages are landless labourers. Only a small number of them are cultivators with marginal holdings. The large-scale landlessness on the part of the Dalits led to their dependence on the upper caste land owning communities, which in turn deepened the caste based inequalities with the additional burden of asymmetrical class structures. The neo-liberal economic policies adopted under the regimes of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation widen the already existing caste and class divisions between the Dalits and the dominant castes, and further minimises the chances of the emergence of the feelings of brotherhood among the peoples of different communities.

The forces of neo-liberal economy affect the Dalits in a number of ways. It makes a lot of difference to be a poor, living in a developing world and also belonging to a low caste. For instance, in Punjab, a poor Scheduled Caste landless agricultural labourer is distinguished from a poor but dominant caste landless agricultural labourer (landless peasant labourer) by the fact that he, along with his being economically deprived of, also suffers from social exclusion. In the case of a Scheduled Caste landless agricultural worker, his being deprived of land is to a large extent related with his social rank. This, in turn, also gets reflected in his economic status. In a broader context, the landlessness of the Scheduled Caste community has serious implications on its economic life. It has generally been observed that during a clash over wages between an agriculturist on the one hand, and landless but dominant caste agricultural labourers and landless Scheduled Caste agricultural labourers on the other, the agriculturalist imposes social boycott on the landless Scheduled Caste agricultural labourers in order to deny them an access to his green fields for fodder as well as to answer the call of nature in a rural setting. This does not apply on an equal scale to the landless dominant caste agricultural labourers, who lag behind their peer group economically, but enjoy a similar status socially. It is generally observed, that the agricultural labourers belonging to higher castes treated their fellow labourers of Scheduled Castes as social untouchables.

Atrocities against Dalits have also increased many folds. “Murders, grievous hurt, rape and other crimes all show close to a three-fold rise during the last decade and half” (Puniyani 2002). While speaking in a seminar on Reservation In Privatisation organised by the Ambedkar Trust (Jalandhar) Late Suraj Bhan, the then Chairman of the National Sc and ST Commission, commented that more than 45,000 cases of atrocities against Dalits and downtrodden have been registered in India during the past one year alone. However, if the numbers of those cases, which were either suppressed or went unnoticed, are included, the total figure could easily go up to one hundred thousand (The Tribune September 5, 2005). During 2003-05 the number of such atrocities against Dalits was 69,216 (Mungekar 2006). Atrocities against the Dalits occurred despite the existence of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, enacted in 1989 especially to act as a deterrent against physical, caste-based violence. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in its report on the Prevention of Atrocities on Scheduled Castes released in 2002 pointed out that there was “virtually no monitoring of the implementation of the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act at any level” (Narrain 2006). This clearly shows how vulnerable Dalits are in the face of globalisation.

Thus globalisation has sharpened the already existing contradictions between political equality on the one hand and social and economic inequality on the other. Dalits are now no longer confined to the rural settings and engrossed in a patron-client social set up only. Some of them were able to overcome the social and economic barriers thrown in their ways by the Brahmanical Social Order (BSO). They were also the ones who came forward to articulate the interests of their brethren and to some extant succeeded in providing them with an alternative leadership. Dalits who have once tasted the fruit of political equality can no longer be denied for long of social and economic justice. They constitute a large majority of the total population of India . How can India surge upward if it fails to care for the interest of its 16.23 per cent Scheduled Castes population (Census of India 2001), which can promptly swell further if clubbed with the population of different categories of Backward Castes and Scheduled Tribes? No doubt, that the Indian constitution contains many provisions, thanks to Baba Sahib Ambedkar’s efforts, but how much is really done for their upliftment is not an unknown fact. To quote Baba Sahib “that political power in this country has too long been the monopoly of a few and the many are not only beasts of burden, but also beasts of prey. This monopoly has not merely deprived them of their chance of betterment, it has sapped them of what may be called the significance of life”. Even after 60 years since Baba Sahib echoed that majority of the Scheduled Castes are still landless. No systematic efforts were being made for the implementation of the land reforms. Even the provisions of minimum wages were never adhered to. Moreover, in the name of so-called development these downtrodden people were further deprived of whatever little they have. In the Special Economic Zones (SEZs), the latest in the showrooms of no-liberal economic market, there exist no space for them. These fabulous zones are yet to be tamed to welcome the presence of an Aam Admi.

But the reality is that the Aam Admi is tired of being governed, and is impatient to govern himself. Whatever little space was available to him where he felt the existence of some hope for his upliftment seems to be being snatched away by the process of globalisation. His patience and ‘urge for self-realization’ can no longer be tested more. Articulating the urge of the downtrodden for self-realization in his famous address on the completion of the Draft Constitution in 1949 Baba Sahib Ambedkar reflected: “It would lead to a division of the house. That would indeed be a day of disaster…Therefore, the sooner room is made for the realization of their aspiration, the better for the few, the better for the country, the better for the maintenance of its independence and better for the continuance of its democratic structure. This can be done by the establishment of equality and fraternity in all spheres of life”. Similar views were expressed after 50 years by K. R. Narayanan, the President of India, in his address to the nation on January 25, 2000: “Beware of the fury of the patient and long suffering people” (cited in Puri 2006: 7). The benefits of globalisation are yet to reach these ‘patient and long suffering people’ who never shirk from hard work and toiling labour. But the free market driven forces advocate the concerns of the rich and resourceful only. This widens the gap between the rich and the poor. The widening gap coupled with the rolling back of the state lead to further resentment and alienation among the downtrodden that in turn put pressure on the practice of democracy in the country (Singh 2006). Baba Sahib Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was very well aware, much in advance, about the serious implications of the lopsided development for the growth of democracy in a caste ridden country like India . He therefore underlined the utmost relevance of social democracy for deepening of the roots of democratic institutions in India . For that matter the safer route goes via complete annihilation of caste and in that the role of the state is of great importance. If globalisation means pushing the state out, then the future of the project of deepening of democracy seems to be bleak. It is in this context that the role of the state becomes very crucial more so for the empowerment of Dalits and the forces of peace and democracy. Peace and democracy is not only an issue of domestic concern of India alone. It is intrinsically tied with the larger issue of peace and stability in the entire South Asian region. It is through the agency of social Justice at the domestic level that peace and stability in the vast and multicultural region of south Asia could be achieved rather more successfully. I am confident that Dr. Ambedkar Day Annual International Seminar 0n: “Social Justice in South Asian Nation-States leads to Regional Satability” organised by Sir Ganga Ram Heritage Foundation (SGRHF) of Lahore under the leadership of its dynamic Director (Dr.) Mujahid Mansoori of The Punjab University Lahore.

References

A Report from Mumbai: Resistance 2004 and the World Social Forum. 2004: Revolutionary Worker # 1232, March, http://rwor.org/a/1232/awtw ns-mumbai.htm

Abdelal, Raw and Segal Adam. 2007: “Has Globalization Passed its Peak?” Foreign Affairs, 86(1), 103-114

Asia Gears Up Against: Globalisation, http://www.cpiml.org/libration/year_2003/ february/report3.htm

Chand, Shyam. 2005: “Democracy as Ambedkar Wanted it”, The Tribune, December 6.

Bougle, Celestin, trans, D.F. Pocock. 1971. Essays on the Caste System. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press.

Giddens, Anthony. 2007. Globalisation: Theme tune of our times”, The Tribune, October 28.

European Commission. 1997: “Annual Economic Report for 1997”, European Economy, 63, Brussels : EC.

Klein. Naomi. 2000. No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. Knopf Canada : Picador.

Kumar. Arun. 2007. “Threat from SEZs: Inequality will Worsen”, The Tribune, May 16.

McGrew, Anthony. 2005: “The Logics of Globalization”, in John Ravenhill (Ed), Global Political Economy, Oxford : OUP

Moliner, Christine. 2004. “Between Invisibility and Dignity: India ’s Dalit and Globalisation”, www.openDemocracy.net

Mungekar, Balchandra. 2006: “Caste War”, www.dalitnetwork.org

Narrain, Siddharth. 2006: “Justice for Dalits still a Dream”, The Hindu, May 11.

Puniyani, Ram. 2002: “Striving for Social Justice”, The Hindu, September 28.

Puri, Harish K. 2006: “The Lower Caste and the Globalisation-imperative: Rethinking the National Project”, Journal of Political Science (Jalandhar), 2(2), 5-16.

Rajagopal, Balakrishnan. 2007. “The Caste System – India ’s Apartheid?” August 18, The Hindu,

www.thehindu.com/2007/08/18/stories/200708156301200.htm

Ramaswamy, Justice Dr. K. 2001. “Casteism, Intolerance and Instruments of Law”, PUCL Bulletin, December,

http://www.pucl.org/reports/TamilNadu/2001/Casteism.htm

Sarma, E A S. 2007: “Help the Rich, Hurt the Poor: Case of Special Economic Zones”, Economic and Political Weekly, XLII (21), May 26-June 1, 1900.2.

Scholte, J. A. 2000: Globalization: A Critical Introduction, Basingstoke : Palgrave.

Scott, Alan. 1997: “Introduction – Globalization: Social Process or Political Rhetoric?” in Alan Scott (ED), The Limits of Globalization: Cases and Arguments, London an d New York : Rutledge.

Singh, Manmohan. 2006. “Towards an inclusive globalisation” (Excerpted from the Prime Minister’s speech at the University of Cambridge on October 11 on the occasion of his being awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Law), The Hindu, October 13.

Singh, Randhir. 2006. Crisis of Socialism: Notes in Defence of a Commitment. Delhi : Ajanta .

Three Historical Addresses of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar in the Constituent Assembly: In Search of Remedies for Current Instability of Polity. 1999. New Delhi : Dr. Ambedkar Foundation Research Cell.

Thekaekara, Mari Marcel. 2005. “Combatting caste reports from India on the stink of untouchability and how those most affected are trying to remove it”, New Internationalist, July,

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JQP/is_380/ai_n15763155

Thorat, Sukhadev. 2002. “Hindu Social Order and the Human Rights of Dalits”, Combat Law, Vol. 1, Issue 4, October-November,

http://www.combatlaw.org/information.php?article_id=109&issue_id=4

Posted on www.ambedkartimes.com (July 02, 2008)