Since last two-weeks, like every other ‘civilised’
human being of the globalised world, I too became a follower of the historic
(or hysteric?) ‘Brexit’ samachar. In the ‘Globalised’ world, one needs to be
aware of the important incidents taking place 10000\20000 kilometre away in
order to be called as ‘knowledgeable’. So I did – who does not want to be
adorned with such an attractive title like ‘knowledgeable’? Even though like
many of “Bong middle class” panellists, I also do not have a first-hand
knowledge about England or Great Britain or UK – but won the right to
contribute in their decision making process by knowing some people of the
geography as friends \relatives or by feeling attached to them through our
ancestral professional association with the once rulers.
Every one of us is well aware of the recent
developments in global politics. Everyone knows that global politics, same like
all other global trends, is not a static phenomenon – it never was. Only thing
constant about global politics is ‘Change’. And everyone is aware of Newton’s
Third Law (or an idiomatic expression?) - “For every
action, there
is an equal and opposite reaction.” What then, made most of
us imagine that 1) global politics will become static after the concept of
‘globalisation’ evolved and accepted by most of the counties in 1990s? And 2)
the very much action-oriented ‘Globalisation’ will never face a ‘reaction’?
I remember meeting a friend in western region of
India. This time I was staying at her home. This was my third visit to the city.
At that time, some uproar broke out against
the unfriendly approach of people of that city to migrant labourers from
another state. I obviously was eager to discuss the issue with my liberal
friend. I asked her how the situation was. And she started, as usual – “see
these are poor people having no work in their own state; that is reason they
are migrating – we should always have our sympathy with them. We are all
Indians after all...” I received an answer which could make peace-preaching
religious leaders happy but I am not a religious leader – was not satisfied at
all. So I continued, “But migrant
labourers bring lot of troubles too – even if you tell that influx has nothing
to do with increasing criminal activities, you cannot avoid seeing shanties
mushrooming everywhere. Is your city infrastructure ready to take the load? Do
you find there is no social impact?” Few of my lines were enough to make her
open up – beyond my expectation! She took the queue – “You know what a mess is
this! The whole city is getting dirty...they
use streets as public toilet. Footpaths are being encroached – and if you and
me tell them to develop clean habit – they are going to call you intolerant!
You know it’s us who are responsible for all these. Every builder - contractor
wants to recruit the cheapest labourer possible and its only people from your
region who are ready to work at that rate.”
- I knew
where the discussion was heading towards. Who are responsible for all those “mess”?
Wild development plans – to which we all “experts” are directly or indirectly attached,
money-yielding economy, without which “we” are jobless and, job-creation machinery
which tries to recruit all of a growing population as ‘resource’ (whereas we
cannot think of surviving without being a resource) – both of us knew we cannot
get rid of any of the development options – even thinking of returning to the
standard of living practiced three hundred years back is impossible. So, on the
one hand we will continue attracting cheap migrant labourers to fulfil our
dream of Globalised development and on the other, once the migrant labourers we
import reach a sizable number – they will try to influence and if possible
change our cultural vision so that it suits them the best. And “we” won’t be
able to accept ‘other’ people propose ‘our’ girls to cover from head to foot because
their culture wants it - conflict remains never ending.
Our very optimistic Globalisation plans never
thought of side-effects. Probably none of the optimistic plans do. When the
side effects come – we search for a remedy.
Interesting is, in case of a global problem in a globalised world, even one’s
searching for own remedy makes his\her neighbour feel threatened. The new
medicine one is trying may work or fail – but neighbours become more concerned
about the experiment.
We have already developed a habit of thinking
global - there should not be any difference between Gujarat and Assam, we
should be able to speak the same language in USA and France; everything should
be standardised (remembering some of my USA-returned superior’s remarks for being
forced to recruit a German\French language professional :D) ...what will happen
if the concept we have developed does not work for ever? What if some of the places\ people\ country
tries to look for some other option? A plan’s not working eternally is threatening
– Very threatening!
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