GLOBALIZATION AND RURAL SOCIETY IN INDIA

Rural societies are traditional in nature and globalization has far reaching cultural and social impacts on these traditional societies. Thus, transition to market-oriented societies should be managed properly in order to avoid any discounting of vulnerable sections of society and also to prevent corruption, nepotism, and monopolization by other larger sections.

The effects of Globalization on the local or native traditions and culture are broadened in the case of rural societies, particularly in countries like India, Bhutan, etc. Globalization challenges the values that are regarded as traditional such as family systems, hospitality habits, kinship support systems, respect for the elders, and social attitude and behavior.

Globalization seeks every person to be an economic section and the young and old get little attention in return. The privilege of education, information and market will naturally support the richer sections of the society and again there would be a divide between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’.

The effects of globalization on rural society in India are innumerable, especially in South India:

Firstly, the rural population has increased while total land available for cultivation remains the same.  Thus, the average land available for each household continues to decrease. Moreover, the predominant inheritance system and demographic crisis has affected the intra-village economic differentiation. However, each child has the right to inherit the same share of their parental property. This and the number of heirs in previous generations thus have resulted in the present socio-economic status of the villagers in South India. As among previous generations there were only a few households with a single heir, there is now an increasing economic differentiation among villagers.  There are some large landowners who usually purchase land from those whose land does not any longer provide even for their subsistence. Thus the number of villagers who are now landless and who depend on their income from work as agricultural laborer has increased. There is an increase in the number of poor villagers which is even worsened by the increasing mechanization of the few large landowners, because of which there is a reduction in the demand for agricultural labor. No other income-earning opportunities in the villages has increased chances of urban migration, as it becomes a strategy of survival for growing numbers of South Indian Villagers.

Secondly, there is hardly any increase in the profitability of cultivating different varieties of crops. As there is a disparity in the input and the output prices of the crops, the total or net income of the farmers has rarely increased. Farmers also complained about the growth in shortage of village laborers and the rise in daily wage rates .There is a quite considerable disparity between what landowners opinionate about their farm laborers wage demands and how the farm laborers themselves discuss their employment conditions.

Thirdly, farming has lost its attraction, as most South Indian rural parents now want their children to earn a University Degree. Other factors include: changing crop prices, World Food Shortage, welfare legislation introduced by the Indian government to alleviate poverty such as widow pensions, the Below Poverty Line, life in urban slums.

Hence, even if there are advantages of globalization in the urban sector, it is not advantageous for the Indian rural sector or societies, especially in the Southern part of the Subcontinent.

Akshara Bhargava