Globalisation and India

VOLATILE GEOPOLITICAL REALITIES DO NOT AUGUR THE END OF GLOBALISATION

- ANITA INDER SINGH

Globalisation, a complex phenomenon, is about the growth of interdependence across continents rather than just regions or within states. Further, the internet facilitated instant global communication.

Globalisation has survived financial crises, the worldwide Covid-19 health emergency, and political instability. Improved international collaboration has increased global capital flow. Global trade in goods and services has made a strong comeback after the pandemic, although recovery has been unequal across areas.

Globalisation will also survive Donald Trump 2.0 and his mercantilist threats, but it also faces challenges from the economic and political upsets triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

For centuries, issues as varied as war, migration, and technological change have added layers of global connections. They did not take place in just one country or one continent. Chinese and Indian tea, spices, and handicrafts made their way into Europe centuries ago, long before the word globalisation was coined.

At another, political level, India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru stressed that post-colonial countries had a global role to play and had no intention of being ignored, passed by, or led by the nose by more powerful countries. Indian independence and non-alignment meant that hundreds of thousands of Indians would no longer serve in the British-Indian armed forces, and that struck at the core of Britain's global military power in the mid-20th century. And in the 21st century, emerging market economies, some of them former western colonies, want political choices and multiple trading partners to navigate an interdependent world.