Globalization: The Dark Side

Today I am working in one of Asia’s biggest software giant with a staggering yearly turn over of more than 4 billion. Not only my company is an exception in country but there are many other distinguished names like Infosys, Wipro, Satyam etc in the same league. Yes this is era of globalization where outsourcing in the IT sector has brought prosperity in the country, getting a bachelor degree in any stream related to computers almost assures a job now days. Every year there has been a phenomenal growth on the salary in the IT sector as well, in fact every year this rise is in two figures of percentage, in short appreciation of Indian brains is at charm. If you compare the salary of a normal government employee with a person of relevant year of experience in IT sector, that comparison would be a joke. Average salary for a 5 year experienced government employee would be around 3-4 Lakhs where in IT sector this would be 10-15 Lakhs which is almost three times; this reason should be sufficient to understand the difference in the living standards of a normal employee or a tech sector employee.

Today wearing the top brand clothing, with attire from the leading designers, spending thousands of rupees on luxury items like watches, bikes, jewelry and other fashion accessories surely one can easily distinguish a couple sitting next to you in a cinema theater or in a mall. This concludes the ultra modern generation X who lives today like no tomorrow, ask them and they would reply back saying “Live life in king size”. This is the mantra for the high tech sector young generation where the relations are maintained through mobile calls and through net meetings. West impact can be easily seen on this generation which has started adopting the west culture and have become the “Modern Era Hippies”. I guess the phrase “India Shining” is becoming true now. The stock market is scaling heights reaching 14000 mark and GDP reaching 7 marks which may reach 8.8 as per the prediction by 2008. This looks the perfect face for the country which is growing and growing with a rapid speed. But are we really developing holistically?

India is a country of cultural diversity; we say that there is a change in language every 100 miles while traversing the country full circle and this should be the appropriate remark on the growth of India in last few years. Not more than few kilometers from the metro cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore or Hyderabad you can witness this diversity where a man traveling in a posh car charities money to the beggars out side his window. The slums are visible even in the center part of the cities which mocks the skyscrapers the so called symbol of the fastest growing economy and country; where shelter less person is trashed by the drunk drivers. Ironically the joy of globalization has only enjoyed by no more than 5 million people of the country which is no more than 0.5% of the total population. 70% of the population still lives in villages far away from the era of globalization, struggling for their survival, struggling for how to get the next meal, struggling for providing enough water and harvest to the crop for making it better than last time and we still say that we are living in an era of globalization.

In a country like India where a humongous amount of population living almost being unaware of the latest rapid growth in country reason being lack of knowledge, education, infrastructure along with shortage of skilled persons to provide the basic level of understanding of these aspects of life and their importance to a common man who lives unaware of the boom in all the sectors lately in country. Government: no need to say always hurries in “clearing Office of profit bill”, “50% reservation for non-generals”, “allegation on each other for corruption” , “latest high profile murders” but still sleeps on the most important needs of the bulk of the population which is availability of education and basic infrastructure. The sleeping shouldn’t prolong else it will drag back the spark of growth IT sector has ignited lately.

One thing is for sure that one person can not make change in the country; it has to be a group effort; and thanks to the global competition which has brought the concept of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibilities) in the country where to match the MNC (Multi National Company) culture world wide all the multinational has reserved some part of their earning to be contributed for the growth of the people who can’t help them self. The average age in the country’s buzzing sector is around 25, an age where the fire of doing something and something useful is still alive, unlike the government sector where the average age touches 40 years where people are busy passing on their responsibilities and failures to someone else. Now as the government is also eyeing on the privatization in most of their own sector which has come to stagnation in last few years, useless to say this ministry of disinvestment was a great idea from the last government and continuing to someone’s well thought plan is still considered insulting by the politicians who runs the country. The idea behind this privatization also brings a healthy and tough competition around all the sectors and the functioning body acts as MNC. If this stays true then the cultures of CSR will also going to be considered in privatized government sector. All the government sectors provide healthy profits to government but the problem is diverting the money earned in profit for social causes, although government has got many bodies for these social responsibilities of them towards the part of population that needs them but still the implementation lacks aggression required to get them to the needy.

Let the young crowd of the country get this message and they also understand that there exists one more life out of the AC cubical where they spend their most of the time in weekdays and enjoying most of the weekend in leisure and luxury, which is their social and moral responsibility towards their country, if the country has to grow and enter to the globalization then the youth of country has to take an active participation in it. This reminds me the famous lines of a movie last year which says: “No country is perfect; we need to work towards making it better (perfect)”.