According to Human Development Report 2004 South Asia is home to world’s 39.2% people living on less than one Dollar a day (global total 1,1000 million in 2000); 37.6% undernourished people of total population (global total 831 million in 2000); 31.7% primary age children not in school (global total 104 million in 2000); 36.6% primary age girl’s not in school (global total 59 million in 2000); 33.4% children dying each year under age five (global total 11 million in 2002); 20.6% population without access to improved water sources (1,197 million in 2000); and 39.0% people without access to adequate sanitation (2,742 million in 2000). These seven issues are part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted at the UN Millennium summit in September 2000. The leaders of the world have committed themselves to the eradicating poverty, hunger, promoting human dignity and achieving peace, democracy and environmental sustainability.
The above-mentioned figures are for us and our governments to see and even though these may not find a direct reference, SAARC social charter adopted in January 2004 is geared towards meeting MDGs.
Some of the significant objectives of SAARC social charter are:
- Place people at the centre of development and direct their economies to meet human needs more effectively;
- Recognise that the achievement of sustained social development requires sound, equitable and broad-based economic policies;
- Promote participatory governance, human dignity, social justice and solidarity at the national, regional and international levels;
- Promote the equitable distribution of income and greater access to resources through equity and equality of opportunity for all;
- Ensure that disadvantaged, marginalized and vulnerable persons and groups are included in social development, and that society acknowledges and responds to the consequences of disability by securing the legal rights of the individual and by making the physical and social environment accessible;
- Recognize the promotion of health as a regional objective and strive to enhance it by responding to urgent health issues and outbreak of any communicable disease in the region through sharing information with each other, imparting public health and curative skills to professionals in the region; and adopting a coordinated approach to health related issues in international fora;
- Recognize that empowering people, particularly women, to strengthen their own capacities is an important objective of development and its principal resource. Empowerment requires the full participation of people in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of decisions and sharing the results equitably;
- Strengthen policies and programmes that improve, broaden and ensure the participation of women in all spheres of political, economic, social and cultural life, as equal partners, and improve their access to all resources needed for the full enjoyment of their fundamental freedoms and other entitlements.
These goals have been put on paper by SAARC countries governments in year 2004 but they have been drafting policies towards achieving them since their independence. However, the language still remains that of welfare rather than of rights. This can be amply demonstrated by a critical reading of the charter itself. Every nation in South Asia on one hand has acknowledged the problems of people and put them on paper in forms of policies and programmes but in no way guaranteed basic rights and access to resources to people, which could achieve sustainable livelihood and justice for them. There has also been no attempt towards democratising public institutions at all levels, which would ensure greater political participation of marginal and vulnerable communities in public life.
Our study of select policies in South Asia has shown that governments on one hand has acknowledged the demands of peoples for greater social and political participation, economic equality, and sustainability of livelihood but on other hand has not established administrative and operational mechanisms, which could put them to practice. This poses new challenges for the civil society and rights activists at large, which demand greater attention towards devising newer approaches and strategies to demand accountability and democratisation of public institutions. The inadequacies in the political and administrative processes have been supplemented by the neo-liberal economic policies initiated by these governments.
The neo-liberal model of globalisation vigorously promotes the rights of free trade and capital, which brings it in direct conflict with basic tenets of universal human rights. There is a constant tension between the ‘social’ yearning for democratic values and ‘economic’ competition for unhindered profit, trade and movement of capital. Although globalisation is a contested concept, it is nonetheless a process that affects everyone at many different levels. From the 1980s onwards, the countries of South Asian region have moved to varying degrees, to a strategy of development based on export-orientation, liberalisation and privatisation based on the marketist neo-liberal economic paradigm. The process of globalisation gained impetus in the early 1990s, when all the governments in the region (barring that of Nepal, which had a very different situation) went through fairly comprehensive policies of internal liberalisation, reduction of direct state responsibility for a range of goods and services and privatisation. This commonality of policy experience meant in turn that outcomes were also quite similar, despite the very different initial conditions in the different economies. Some of these outcomes are:
- Growing income inequalities in all the economies of the region;
- Deceleration in employment generation;
- Stagnation or increase in levels of poverty;
- Deterioration in quality of employment;
- Growing informalisation and marginalisation of labour;
- Increased hardship and vulnerability of marginalised communities;
- Decrease in expenditure and subsidies on social sector such as food, agriculture, education, health, poverty alleviation, employment generation etc.
- Dismantling of handicrafts and cottage industries;
- Loss of rights of communities over Common Property Resources (CPR);
- Growing integration of village economy with wider economic processes increasing their susceptibility and vulnerability with respect to changes at broader marketing processes etc.
The process of globalisation in India since beginning has witnessed a range of popular struggles against it is raising the question of securing sustainability of socio-economic rights for marginalised communities. These struggles operate at various levels and involve almost all sections of civil society. However, young students, rights activists, researchers, and other professionals especially in cities somehow remain critically unconnected from these struggles and there is a need to forge linkages between them and perhaps this is equally true of other countries in the region. These linkages would help broaden the base of these struggles and also raise awareness and thinking levels of these groups. The enhanced understanding amongst them of the globalisation processes and anti-globalisation struggles would strengthen the struggle for basic human rights for all. Failing to understand these dimensions may result in their alienation and increasing apathy,, which can have negative impact on the rights of marginalised communities in particular and society in general.
The process of globalisation has also created multiple centres of power and governance. With increased privatisation now it is no more possible for the people at all levels to hold the state responsible for its failure to provide basic services. The emergence of these new spheres of authority at local, regional, national and global level demands increased co-operation between all actors and at all levels. Since the inequalities and disparities in such a system are quite high the groups at the lower levels are often ignored from these processes. These groups have to find ways and means to assert their rights in this age of hegemonic capital. In the process of assertion the support of all other classes who are in some way slightly privileged is also essential to deal with “complex sovereignty”. Since the ruling argument has often been that some one will have to bear the price of ‘Development’ in the larger interest of ‘Nation’. However, the people have started challenging and asking, why should only the vulnerable and marginal communities always suffer? Why can’t the gains of the process be distributed equitably? Why should the reforms carried in the name of generating employment and high economic growth result in further impoverishment and disempowerment? It is these issues, which are now beginning to gather the centre stage all over the world.
The peoples’ movements and struggles throughout South Asia have contributed to the evolution of a new perspective on issues of development, governance, transparency, and accountability, which include:
- A model of development that will be truly inclusive and not exclusionary.
- People's power is superior to state power and they are agents for social change.
- Women are equal partners at all level of decision-making and development.
- Ensure a participatory democratic, transparent, and accountable government.
- Nurture a culture of protest against all forms of injustice.
- Promote constructive work at the village level through efforts of voluntary action and government.
- Bring policy changes, which would ensure equitable development, and ensure a just and sustainable livelihood to millions of poor.
- Emphasise non-violent direct action as a tool of basic change.
- Control of livelihood resources should be in the hands of the local people/communities so that people's basic survival is guaranteed.
- Protect the indigenous peoples culture and their way of life, especially that of the indigenous tribes, which is increasingly being threatened by a 'mainstream' model of development.
- Implement pro-poor policies and legislations that have been enacted but never implemented for example, a minimum wage act, equal wage for equal work, bonded labour release rehabilitation act, or scheduled caste and scheduled tribes atrocities act.
- Develop an ethos of conservation that is based on the synthesis of human rights of forest dwellers and required conservation needs.
These struggles have also thrown new light on the administration and delivery of justice mechanisms, which is closely linked with the governance and various forms of governmental justice – retributive justice, restorative justice, conciliatory justice, minimal justice, affirmative prescriptions, autonomy as justice etc. They have introduced new ways of seeking justice with some success through Public Interest Litigations and explored the relations between rights, capabilities, entitlements and law in terms of governance of justice. Finally, its significance has been sought in the notion of accountability and responsibility – responsibility of the state, its various organs, various governmental institutions, and their national and international commitments – to provide social justice by ensuring social, political and economic rights.
One of the offshoots of the Globalisation process has been corporatisation of education with decreasing funds from the government and increasing privatisation of higher education system. The whole system is now geared to meet the needs of market. In the name of higher education, vocational and professional education, educational shops in form of private universities are mushrooming throughout the country. These centres are reinforcing the factory schooling and preparing South Asian countries to become the backyard of West by employing cheap labour in BPO sector and sweat shops established by MNCs. Education is losing its ideals of knowledge and learning for creative living and serving the community. The economic reforms in a way are posing greater challenge for the education system and the need to explore alternative means to sustain creativity and interest in the quest for knowledge and scientific reasoning today is more evident than ever before in past.
Hence in a situation of political and administrative failures, and nation states losing its legitimacy due to non-performance and bureaucratic corruption in changing economic circumstance we need to rethink the concepts of rights, justice and development. It is also necessary to understand the key concepts of the globalisation process, its impact on various communities, notion of sustainable livelihood and socio-economic rights of communities at the margins of development. The globalisation process has affected communities differently and we need to explore them critically. For example, there are a small group of women and Dalits who have benefited from the process,, which has opened up spaces hitherto closed for them. In a contrary like India, there are millions of women, Dalits, indigenous peoples and other marginalised communities who have been at the receiving end of the process. This indicates towards the inherent complexity of the systems,, which need to be understood. There is also a need in the education system to explore the relationship between education, dynamics of globalisation and its impact on the communities. It also needs to address the question of human rights of all in general and marginalised communities in particular. The struggle for bringing the marginal voices to the centre has to be fought at all levels and education and training is only one of the ways in, which it can be achieved.