Abstract

This article attempts to look at the manner in which the leftwing in Indian politics has dealt with the globalisation of India's economy and the consequent changes in foreign policy over the two decades since 1991. The left in India opposed the new economic policies, of which globalisation was a central aspect, and worked to build a wide consensus against it within the polity. The left's opposition to globalisation was premised on the fact that it would lead to a watering-down of India's sovereignty and will lead to the imposition of economic and foreign policies that would be detrimental to the nation. Despite deep internal differences on a range of issues within the left in India, this was a shared understanding of what globalisation meant and what its consequences would be. This article looks at how the left built up its opposition to globalisation of the Indian economy and how has it steered this opposition over the two decades since. It argues that the left's analysis of both the major characteristics of globalisation as well as its consequences for India's economy and foreign policy have proved to be grossly inadequate, if not entirely erroneous. However, despite mounting evidence that globalisation was not a disaster for the Indian economy, nor did it whittle down the State's sovereignty, there was no revision in the left's analysis or political stand. The article argues that the Indian radical has been unable to come to terms with or define globalisation, and remains unsure of how to engage with it. This has led to theoretical confusions, which have opened the door to the left's hegemonisation by the idea of nationalism, to the extent where its positions often become indistinguishable from the radical right. The article concludes by suggesting that this failure to analyse and engage with globalisation has been both a symptom as well as the cause of the weakening of the leftwing in Indian politics