Globalization, Democracy and Culture : Situating Gandhian Alternatives/Asha Kaushik. Jaipur, Pointer, 2002, x, 171 p., $22. ISBN 81-7132-298-0.

Contents: Preface. 1. Globalization, democracy and culture : a theoretical perspective. 2. Critiquing globalization : Swaraj as an alternative worldview and a strategy. 3. Nation and nationalism in a globalizing era : an alternative Gandhian formulation. 4. Swadeshi and the globalizing world. 5. Citizen and the state : Gandhi and Indian democracy. 6. Pyramid and the community : Gandhi’s alternative of decentralist democracy. 7. Gandhi and the constitutionalization of Panchayati Raj in India. 8. Culture and gender in India : Gandhi’s post-traditional reconstruction. 9. Nation state, religio-identity and Gandhi’s Samabhava. 10. Gandhian politics : a politico—aesthetic interpretation. 11. Towards a conclusion : in defence of a humane—democratic order. Bibliography. Index.

"Globalization is with us. In the new millennium, the global impact of globalization, both in theory and practice, is clearly visible in its overbearing omnipresence, overshadowing all other aspects of socio-cultural, politico-economic life. Yet the positivistic claims that it is inevitable and irreversible and that ‘there is no alternative to it’ (TINA) are contestable and non-acceptable.

"The present work contends that guided by the politico-economic transnational practices, globalization has emerged as a totalizing process in terms of both hegemonic structures and homogenizing cultural traits. It is an ideological derivative, rather, a neo-liberal reincarnation of the earlier conceptualizations of progress, growth—obsessed industrialization, modernization, glorification of the ‘invisible hand’ of the market, objectification of nature and an instrumental treatment of humanity.

"The work further contends that Gandhi is the first major political thinker—activist to have challenged the arrogant imperialist west-centric model of development. Gandhi’s critique, it is argued, is not a romantic declaration of war on the consequences of progress, but a revolt against its hegemonizing political essence and its ever-spiralling politico-economic ambitions of dominating the world.

"The book ably brings out that Gandhi’s alternative of a humane, decentralized nonviolent politico-economic order and a non-hegemonic global order, far from being regressive, as is often alleged in view of his appeal to the past, is in our view, a timely corrective to the misplaced priorities of the contemporary development/globalization model." (jacket)

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