Christ Church, Chandigarh December 03-05, 2005

The Context:

The beginning of the Indian Perestroika

Perestroika is the Russian word, which passed into English for the economic reforms introduced in June 1987 by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Its literal meaning is "restructuring", which refers to restructuring of the Soviet economy. The Indian economy also underwent a similar exercise of restructuring in the early 1990s.

India's experiment with the globalisation started in full stream in the early 1990s, when P.V. Narasimha Rao Government, belonging to India's largest political party, the Congress Party, was in power (1991-96). India's financial position at that time was quite shaky. India was, for the first time, just on the brink of international default, with no forex reserves left. In 1990-91, India had a current

account deficit of $9.7 billion that had nearly emptied the reserves and driven India close to bankruptcy. Apart from Gulf War-I, the situation then had turned bad for India on two more accounts, an unfavourable trade balance as well as the colossal size of foreign and domestic public debt.

Both the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) blamed

that situation to ever-rising subsidies to agriculture and exports. They also pointed out that provision of subsidized food, sugar, kerosene oil, cooking gas etc. to the poor people under the public distribution system, and selling of diesel below-cost to the public transport system and trucks carrying public goods, had further contributed to the bad shape which the Indian economy found itself in.

When approached for relief, the WB and the IMF put some stringent conditions before the hapless Indian government. Given its weak bargaining power at that time, Indian government agreed to meet those conditions. The reforms progressed furthest in the areas of opening up of foreign investment, liberalizing the trade regime, and deregulating domestic business and the capital market. With these policy steps, India soon appeared to be very much back on a trajectory of relatively rapid, sustainable growth.

In order to make the process of globalisation smooth, privatisation and liberalization policies came along as well. Under the privatisation scheme, most of the public sector undertakings have been/ are being sold to the private sector. Under the liberalization scheme, a liberal, investor-friendly regime has been replacing the previous restrictive policy regime. Other examples of economic reforms include reduction in protection levels, reforming the banking, insurance and the power sectors, price-decontrols, a significant reduction of fiscal deficit through reduction in budgetary subsidies, changes in the labour laws.

The Present Scenario:

What Globalisation has brought into India are the brand-names in consumer items like cold drinks, wafers, potato chips, breakfast cereals, tinned food and chocolates! These are the ‘priority' areas for multinationals like Coca Cola, Pepsi, Kellogs, Nestle, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) or MacDonald's or for that matter, the leading manufacturers of cosmetics and designer clothes! These are mainly the types of companies, which have entered the Indian market ever since globalisation started.

Globalisation for India means the ‘birth of the ‘McWorld' - a cultural integration and uniformity that hypnotizes the developing world with latest fashion apparels, fast and loud music, computers with higher and higher gigabytes and fast food! It is all MTV, McIntosh and McDonald's! This means cultural imperialism. What one sees in Indian metropolitan cities, is that the traditional cultural values such as family, community, respect for life, hospitality, etc., are coming into strong confrontation and losing battle with the values communicated through Western movies, videos, cable, music and satellite television, advertisements, and the idolized figures of entertainment and sports.

India 's farmers have risen in arms against the WTO agriculture policy, and the workers have risen against mass layoffs accompanying privatizations, mergers and take-overs.

The Challenge

The reforms of the last two decades have created a situation where the overwhelming majority of the people and the bulk of the resources of this planet have come to be at the mercy of a small sections of the financial, military and political operatives, enabling them to control the destinies of billion. As the Church, we are called to actively resist those forces, which defaces and dehumanise the precious creation of our Living God.

Fundamentalism, as a reaction to globalization has grown around the world. It has not only given rise to global terrorism, such as 9/11 but it has also strengthened institutions, which exploit people especially women such as patriarchy. Loosening of family ties, loss of livelihood options, slackening of people's ties to the land which sustained them, have created a vicious circle in which women, the “marginalized of the marginalized” are often the worst victims.

The Response:

The National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) along with the Church of North India –Synodical Board of Health Services (CNI-SBHS) organized a two day Youth Empowerment Workshop on “Gender Justice – Combating Globalisation” in Christ Church, Chandigarh, Punjab, to:

•  Equip youth in gender justice and overcoming violence by confronting negative impacts of globalisation.

• Discover alternative to resist globalisation to transform society into kingdom of God.

• Create awareness about gender justice in Church and society and link between globalisation and patriarchal exploitation in India and countries in south.

• Equip youth leaders to facilitate youths in Churches to build up grassroots ecumenical movement.

The City:

The city of Chandigarh is a Union Territory , which serves as the capital of two states, Haryana and Punjab . It has a predominant Punjabi culture. The citizens of Chandigarh rank it high in satisfaction factor and would not like to live anywhere else. This city, planned by Le Corbusier, is a visual delight with wide boulevards and neatly planned sectors. It is poised at a very important juncture. The city will shortly witness a big growth boom with a host of multinational corporations set to invest in the city. Very soon, India 's second Information Park will be established in the city, the first being in Bangalore . With all set for the IT boom the city is an important gateway to the Northern India.

The Participants:

A total of twenty-five participants hailing from in and around Chandigarh , and other nearby towns participated in the workshop. The majority of the youngsters were students. Although a substantial percentage included nurses, community health workers and also a lone youth pastor.

The Resource Persons

The Resource persons included Amelia Andrews, Associate Executive Secretary-Communication, NCCI and Mrs. Blessina Kumar, Coordinator, Community Health, CNI-SBHS.

The Voices of the people