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GLOBALIZATION AND DETERIORATING POLITICAL CULTURE:

INDIA AT THE CROSSROADS

প্রাবন্ধিক : সুদেষ্ণা মিত্র

Political culture is the most popular discourse of all times. It is one of the most debated

aspects of our political lives. Political culture basically describes how culture impacts politics.

Every political system is embedded in a particular political culture. Its origin as a concept

goes back to Alexis de Tocqueville, but its current use in political science generally follows

that of Gabriel Almond. Following Almond’s definition, we can describe political culture as

being composed of attitudes and orientations which people in a given society develop

towards objects within their political system. Political culture is not entirely action-oriented.

It also implies only ideas and beliefs about political actions and not the actions as such.” It

refers not to what is happening in the world of politics, but what people believe about those

happenings. And these beliefs can be of several kinds: they can be empirical beliefs about

what the state of actual political life is: they can be beliefs as to goals or values that ought to

be pursued in political life: and these beliefs may have an “expressive or emotional

dimensions.”

In order to point out the difference between political culture and other psychological

categories, Lucian Pye opines that political culture is the product of both the collective

history of the political system and the life histories of the individuals who currently make up

the political system. Gabriel Almond and Sydney Verba did an extensive study of political

culture covering a few countries of Europe and America and concluded with a classification

of political culture. But the major foci of this paper are Indian political culture and its

relation with the process of globalization and the resultant changes, if any, due to

globalization.

Now a few words need to be mentioned here about globalization or its process.

GLOBALIZATION-The World Public Sector Report, 2002: Globalization and the State defines

Globalization as’ increased and intensified flows between countries. These flows are of

goods, services, capital, ideas, information and people which produce national cross border

integration of a number of economic, social and cultural activities.

1. In fact being multi-disciplinary phenomenon globalization offers varied meanings. Globalization stands for a host of numerous economic, technological, political, and ecological processes. In the twenty-first century, due to globalization, the world has witnessed a major transformation

in political, social, and cultural spheres across the globe. According to Britton, ‘globalization

is viewed as a whirlwind of relentless and disruptive change which leaves governments

helpless and leaves a trail of economic, social, cultural and environmental problems in its

wake.

2. Broadly speaking it can be suggested that ‘though the word globalization (as a

synonym to privatization and liberalization) is more often used in its economic sense of

removing trade barriers and state controls on widely the unification of peoples, cultures and

various fields.

3. Globalization is multi-dimensional-number of worlds taking shape. A network of connection

is all around and that is globalization is all about. Allen discussed different types of

globalization among which two of them are relevant for this paper, although others are

interconnected- that is, cultural globalization and political globalization. Basically, culture

and politics are more influenced by the phenomenon of globalization. The influence is

widespread, touching various aspects and consequencing evolution of culture, political

culture awakening, formation of new politico-cultural identity due to increase in human

mobility, weakening subcultures, expansion of western consumerism, etc are some of the

pros and cons of globalization.

Political globalization triggers at continuous erosion of a nation state’s power whereas

cultural globalization refers to homogenization and hybridization of worldwide culture.

As already stated the main focus of the study here is Indian political culture at the

crossroads.

The rest of the paper will try to concentrate on how Indian political culture has adopted

globalized culture.

GLOBALIZATION AND INDIAN POLITICAL CULTURE- The analysts of Indian political culture

have resisted themselves from depending on western methodology as they are inadequate

for so many diversities. The scholars of Indian political culture can aptly be classified as

classifiers, thematizers, and constructivists with their emphasis on forms and idioms of

India’s political culture, consistent themes of political culture with special mention of a few

human attributes, peculiar to India and politics of culture in India respectively to focus on

how different political cultures evolved or disappeared. In the backdrop of such an

analytical tradition, India faced globalization. In India, out of globalization, a few things

ushered in like free trade, international competitiveness, choice of industries, netizenship,

communication media with growing awareness of interconnectedness and

interdependency. A peculiar hybrid culture has started reshaping us to make us fit into the

a’ global village’. Globalization is after all a phenomenon and a process by which the world

becomes a ‘global village’. Though globalization, liberalization, and privatization are three

important elements of New Economic Policy (NEP) globalization alone has caused enormous economic integration with the world economy through reduction of export duties, foreign

investment, the flow of foreign technology and skills. With these are added liberalization

and privatization along with the resultant higher rate of per capita income, aiming at full

employment, self-reliance, and reduction of inequalities and poverty. On the one hand, it

has created high purchasing power of the people, but on the other, it also has spread a false

notion of prosperity and growth. But the needs of the bulk of the people have been

neglected. Local manufacturers and workers have been replaced by big business houses. It

has created a new type of consumerism that has changed the political culture of the country

drastically. Rural poor have been affected, the rural agrarian economy has been affected,

marginal or small-scale farmers are to adopt themselves with a new type of needs of the

society.

All these have contributed to a sea change in India’s political culture. Since the 1990s right

from the onset of globalization people’s attitude towards society, political institutions, their

handling of political rights, usages, languages used in politics have witnessed a sea change

putting India at a crossroads. The mode of relationships among people, between people and

politicians has been transformed along with the transformation of the economy. The phrase

like political courtesy has disappeared as the nature of the public mind has changed. The

new mode of consumerism has made people more need-oriented and need also has

increased with a resultant increase in political corruption. The so-called market economy

has created a good market in the political field as well. Following Rajni Kothari, we can aptly

analyze this. Rajni Kothari made a good analysis of India’s political culture in his book Politics in India (published in 1970). He falls in the category of thematizer so far as Indian political culture is

concerned. He identifies the themes of India’s political culture about which he himself

admits that they are ‘analytical generalizations that are ‘unproved’ and are bound to be

‘gross’ and are not applicable to all types of history and all sections of India’s society. But

the specific political culture that has emerged after globalization can be aptly explained with

the help of his thematic forms. Kothari basically develops four gross themes- tolerance of

ambiguity, an image of fragmented, dispersed, and intermittent authority, a close

relationship between ideology and politics, and patterns of trust and distrust in collective

undertakings.

First comes the tolerance of ambiguity which is unique to India which has created an

enormous amount of accommodativeness and is also marked by huge eclecticism. Indian

society can tolerate varied types of value premises and doctrinal positions which has

resulted in ideological flexibility and which probably has helped the globalized market

economy to delve into Indian political culture because as per Kothari this tolerance has led

to results such as low morale of collective orientation, excessive submissiveness or an

attitude of despair or taking every action as pointless. Masses have accepted the changes

without much resistance. Next comes the theme of dispersed and intermittent authority.

Taking authority as an arbitral is deep-rooted in Indian culture. Authority’s attitude or

control or way of dispute resolution is acceptable to everyone and this gives the political

authority to manipulate the masses or popular sentiments or to redirect the mindset

towards them. We can here cite the instance of demonetization policy. It was nobody’s

choice but was imposed on us. On a positive note, this notion of authority has allowed it to

become a catalyst of change. The third theme is the close relationship between ideology

and politics. This relationship emerges out of political elites’ self-proclaimed image of

‘morality inducer’. “ As a result, Indians look upon their politicians as moral men, as

exhorters, sermonizers and makers of promises. Promises are often not kept and masses

forget that very conveniently and these professional lapses are widely accepted. The fourth

variant is patterns of trust and distrust in collective undertakings. Unquestionable trust is

often found in charismatic leadership but distrustfulness is often found in the modern

political field. If we look at the chronology of events in Indian politics we can easily come to

the conclusion that notion like political morality is on the descent so far as Indian politics is

concerned. The coming and going or floor-crossing of MLAs and MPs before and after the

election is just the perfect proof. Insensitiveness of political decision-makers or public

policymakers towards the needs of the masses is also a matter of concern here. Following

Kothari even if we underestimate this analysis as not a universal one but still these

characteristics of Indian political culture have made it easier for the globalized culture to

penetrate.

CONCLUSION: Attempts to improve the economic conditions through globalization have

already been made in our country. Liberalization has ushered in. But along with

globalization, a particular political culture is on the rise which is qualitatively deteriorated.

Basically, this is a kind of imposed one to suit the changing needs of the time. The kind of

soft adaptive political culture that India has inherited basically is helping our political

authority to do this. Globalization has both positive and negative impacts on countries.

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