IMPERIALIST GLOBALISATION AND THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SOUTH ASIA

Jayati GHOSH (Jawaharlal Nehru University)

This paper will begin by examining the economic effects of globalisation on the South Asian region. While this is now regarded as a region of relative economic success, compared to the crisis-ridden regions of Southeast Asia and Latin America, in fact the process of global capitalist integration in South Asia has entailed lower rates of investment and growth, de-industrialisation, falling rates of employment generation, increased inequality and economic volatility, and greater material and social insecurity among most of the population.

The paper will then turn to the issue of the significance of the South Asian region (broadly interpreted to include Afghanistan to Myanmar) for the imperialist core, and in particular the United States. While the economic significance appears to be less than is the case for other regions, in that this region seems to be less important for both markets and resources, there are other sources of interest. Geopolitically, the region is viewed both in terms of its capacity (especially that of India) to assist in the containment of the potential power of China, and as a means of providing access to the oil and mineral resources of Central Asia and the Bay of Bengal area. The region is also the location for struggle for control over other, newer forms of economic territory : certain types of skilled labour, the purchasing power of the local elites, etc.

The interaction of these processes creates social and economic systems which are fragile and prone to stagnation. The consequent social and political instability is increasingly expressed in conflicts within and across countries in the region, ranging from civil war type situations in Sri Lanka and Nepal, to low-intensity continuous military engagement between India and Pakistan, to the rise of fundamentalist and proto-fascist social and political movements across the region, which target particular communities within a society as the enemy. While at one level these conflicts are useful to imperialism since they serve to diffuse and divert social opposition and prevent the successful emergence of progressive alternatives, they are also highly volatile and have the potential to spin out of control. The structural contradictions of current capitalism are thus expressed in this region, through both economic and social-political instability.