Socio- cultural diversities and globalization issue and perspectives

Globalization is the new "Mantra" that the developed world is recommending for the development of the developing societies including India. Before one takes up its magic, multiplying effects on the development of our society, one needs to discern the concept of "development." Development is associated with the tradition of Enlightenment in the western world. The underlying assumption is that humans are in control of their destiny and can make their own choices without looking forward to the verdict of divine or supernatural powers.
The word "development" got currency after the U.S. Government launched Marshall Plan in the late 1940s. A speech writer for President Harry Truman, coined the term to indicate the efforts to bridge the gap between the 'developed' and the 'underdeveloped' countries. This terminology dominated the world community for the past five decades or so. The difficulty is that this term is either treated as a macro activity with a special focus on economics or it has been mostly appropriated by a small group of elite actors who showed more of professional and managerial concerns than something that appears of some significance to a lay person. A number of indicators, more economic than social, were evolved to determine the level of development of a nation, suggesting that governments are the principal actors in the development process. In essence,
development meant setting up of specific policy goals and adopting strategies or mechanisms to achieve them. Whether it was reconstruction of western Europe or "new" nations in Africa or Asia which gained independence from colonial regimes, developmentimplied practically nothing short of imitating the achievements of the already developed countries by employing the ill,fated word, "modernization". It was assumed that countries that were not yet developed could be turned around by importing capital and expertise from the outside. The State was to act as an engine of this process and as a result of that assumption, foreign aid became a resource flow from the developed to the under,developed (now called
'developing') nations, without recognising the existence of a rich variety of voluntary associations, needed for a civil society.