Westerners and Non Residential Indians have rediscovered classical Indian music, which went global a generation ago at the time of the Beatles. Today is has become big business as some classical musicians devote a third of their time to overseas concerts. With globalization’s economic and communications revolution, Indians abroad feel closer to India than ever before with a growing appetite for things Indian. The explosion of interest in Indian cinema, known as Bollywood film, is prominent particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom The thousands who similarly come to India to study Yoga, Buddhism and other important under appreciated aspects of Indian culture highlight the fact globalization is more of a two way street than most people realize.
To understand the Non Residential Indian community in America note that Indian immigration to the United States has been particularly related to the high-tech sectors. Until recently, about twenty-five percent of the graduates of India’s four most prestigious technology institutes immigrated to the United States. This has lead to a situation where more Indian technological talent is in the U.S. rather than India. Business Week reported, “an extraordinarily large number of enterprises in Silicon Valley–more than 30 percent–were started by Asians, with the overwhelming number being Indian”. Some argue that the globalization of this migration was a way for talent to find opportunities. The argument goes that some Indians were already more ambitious and hardworking than their compatriots back home, but they often saw their efforts being obstructed or under valued in India.
Though even this is changing as Non Residential Indian s, in some ways the ultimate globalizes, who alter India when they return with western goods, values and spouses, are returning to India to run for election there, starting on local levels, promising to apply the expertise they learned in the West. The prominence of Non Residential Indians in America and the West is growing rapidly as seen when Pulitzer prizes, Nobel prizes and other important awards are increasingly bestowed upon Indians, in India, the United States and across the world. While India clearly has access to important gateways of globalization, such as well-established channels of media and commerce, it also has its own unique, large Non Residential Indian community, a large and potentially important gateway of globalization. The ultimate question is whether these gateways of globalization will bring real progress and modernity to India. While India has some characteristics of modernism one cannot yet call India modern. Modernity is not just Westernization, with Japan being a modern country that has its on values at its core rather than Western values.
In classical social theory, modernity increases the credence given to status of education or other merit based achievements while it reduces the credence given to birth status. The psychological concept of subjectivity, the ability to empathize with and share in another’s plight and fate, is at the heart of modernity and lacking it, many argue modernity in a society degenerates to crass commercialism. Likewise, if consumer items remain in the hands of the few rather than being disseminated among the many, such a society has the visible signs of modernism but not the ideological underpinnings. Some ask if the caste system, which came to India through previous invaders, the Aryans, will continue to keep the different classes divided or will modernism’s system of meritocracy finally tear caste’s walls down? Only time will tell if India’s gateways of globalization will spread ideology and not just consumption throughout the Indian subcontinent.
Works Cited
Ranger, Steve. "Minister: Globalization a "Two-Way Street"" BusinessWeek - Business News, Stock Market & Financial Advice. Web. 05 Dec. 2009. <http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/apr2007/gb20070409_906113.htm>.
