Social Implications of Neo - Imperialism in India

The globalisation process, which aimed at integration of economies and global development, is basically a reflection of neo-imperialism ideas. The question addressed in this paper is: what are the social implications of the neo-imperialism (globalisation) process in India, particularly on the social security aspects of the working population? Accordingly, an attempt is made in this paper to examine changes in the social security status of the working population that have been brought about since the introduction of globalisation process in terms of employment, labour absorption and the labour market conditions in India. It is seen that the overall growth rate of the organised sector employment maintained its declining trend from the period 1977-78 to 1999-2000. The growth rate of the public sector employment declined more than the private sector employment and this trend continues up to the present. From 1997, the public sector employment grew negatively. Though there has been marginal increase in the percentage growth rate of employment in the private sector, the quality of the life of the working population may not have increased as the characteristics of these employees are similar to those in the unorganized labour with lower or no social security. In order to understand the changing dimensions of unorganized sector, the data on the growth performance and labour absorption in agricultural and non-agricultural enterprises in India from the Economic Censuses are analysed. It is also seen that the increase in employment has been much lower than that of the number of enterprises, indicating the low labour absorption capacity in both the Agricultural and the Non-Agricultural Enterprises. In addition, the number of workers per enterprise has shown a steady decline from 1980 to 1998, revealing a falling trend in labour absorption in enterprises of both sectors. The paper concluded that the trends in the labour market reveal deplorable conditions of the working population in India. This situation would affect not only the social and economic conditions of the present working population, but also the further additions to it. Therefore, it is argued that the policies towards de-linking budgetary support to the working population, reducing labour absorption in the public sector as part of the globalisation strategy and relying on the market forces to absorb labour and fix their wages, would adversely affect the employment situation in India. Hence, efforts should be initiated to improve the labour absorption capacity of the country at remunerative levels of real wages so that the problems of rise in unemployment could be solved.