Politics and culture

Politics: globalisation has a political side.

• Neo-liberal politics trusts free markets and dislikes government subsidies and controls. Others call for an inclusive globalisation that protects the poor.
• Regional bodies have grown: the EU, ASEAN and SAARC.
• Inter-governmental organisations (IGOs) like the WTO set world rules.
• International non-governmental organisations (INGOs) like Greenpeace and the Red Cross work across borders.

Culture: does globalisation make every culture the same?

• Homogenisation: the fear that all cultures will become alike, mostly American.
• Glocalisation: the mixing of the global with the local. Global companies adapt to local tastes: TV channels in Indian languages, McDonald's serving vegetarian food (with no beef or pork in India, and going fully vegetarian during Navaratri in some outlets), Bhangra pop mixing Punjabi folk with Western music.

Is glocalisation only a market strategy to sell more? Partly, yes; but it also shows that local cultures are strong enough to reshape global products.

New lifestyles have grown: a culture of consumption around malls and multiplexes, and a corporate culture that shapes cities and a new class of young professionals.

Some traditional arts and crafts suffer:

• about 30 theatre groups of Parel and Girgaum in Mumbai closed;
• handloom weavers of Sircilla (Telangana) faced debt, and some took their own lives;
• traditional dombari performers (acrobats) lost their audiences to TV and the circus.

Culture is not fixed: it changes and mixes, gaining some things and losing others.