Globalisation at Peril

The recent pitch by the Prime Minister to push swadeshi and Atmanirbhar Bharat to support local businesses has rekindled a worldwide debate on countering the forces of globalisation by adopting localisation as a measure for India’s economic revival. The outbreak of an uninvited virus from China has not only crippled the global economy but has also muddled the global societal structure. Deriving a comparison with the Great Depression of 1929, countries are quashing their growth trajectories due to disruptions in supply chains and contractions in demand. Isolation, self-sufficiency and self-dependence seem to have become the
order of the day.

Globalisation, which had attained worldwide acceptance for its benefits in the early 1990s, has also contributed to the creation of unequal societies with low growth and high debt. The outcome has been the upsurge of issues like the global financial crisis, migrant issues, Brexit, and multiple protests in countries like Hong Kong, Bolivia, Iraq, and Lebanon, among others, while the current crisis of COVID-19 clearly adds to the vulnerabilities of the same. The failure of globalisation emanates not from the creation of the crisis but due to its inability to respond and resolve.