International Organizations

• The United Nations Organization or simply UNO/UN is regarded as the most important international organization in today’s world.
• International organizations help with matters of war and peace as well as help countries create better living conditions for us all.
• An international organization can help to produce information and ideas about how to cooperate each other experience overall growth.
• An international organization can also provide mechanisms, rules, and a bureaucracy, to help members have more confidence that the costs will be shared properly and to benefit governments.
• In 1945, the UN was founded as a successor to the League of Nations.
• The UN’s perspective is to bring countries together to improve the prospects of social and economic development all over the world.

Structure of the UNO

• There are five important bodies of UNO, as shown in the following diagram −
  

• In the UN Security Council, there are five permanent members and ten non-permanent members.
• The five permanent members are −
  --> The United States,
  --> Russia,
  --> The United Kingdom,
  --> France, and
  --> China.
• All these five members have the veto power.
• The non-permanent members serve for only two years at a time and give way to newly elected members.
• The non-permanent members are elected in a manner so that they represent all continents of the world.
• In the UN General Assembly, all members have one vote each.
• The Secretary-General is the head of the UN.

Functions of UN

• The major functions of the UN are −

  --> Creation of a Peacebuilding Commission.

  --> Acceptance of the responsibility to the international community in case of failures of national governments to protect their own citizens from atrocities.

  --> Establishment of a Human Rights Council (operational since 19 June 2006).

  --> Condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, etc.

Agencies of UN

The UN consists of many different structures and agencies (collectively known as UN Family – shown in the map given below) and they have specialized role to play. For example −

• World Health Organization (WHO),
• United Nations Development Programme (UNDP),
• United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC),
• United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR),
• United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF),
• United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), etc.

Environment & Politics

• In the present world, cultivable area is barely expanding any more, and a substantial portion of existing agricultural land is losing fertility (transforming into barren land or desert).
• Grasslands have been overgrazed; fisheries overharvested; water bodies have suffered extensive depletion; and pollution, severely restricting food production.
• According to the Human Development Report 2006 of the United Nations Development Program −

  --> About 1.2 billion people in developing countries have no access to safe water and

  --> About 2.6 billion have no access to sanitation.

• These problems collectively causing the death of more than three million children every year.
• Natural forest’s areas are steadily decreasing across the world.
• Depletion of ozone layer and global warming are other major threats to the ecosystems.
• In the present context, the issues of environment and natural resources are political in deeper sense (and part of the world politics).

International Programs

• In 1972, the Club of Rome, a global think tank, published a book titled as “Limits to Growth,” dramatizing the potential depletion of the Earth’s resources against the backdrop of swiftly growing world population.
• United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and other international and regional organizations began holding international conferences and promoting detailed studies to get a more coordinated and effective response to environmental problems, as it already became a significant issue of global politics.
• The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 1992 (also known as the Earth Summit) was the beginning of international effort on global scale.
• The Rio Summit produced conventions dealing with climate change, biodiversity, forestry, and recommended a list of development practices called ‘Agenda 21’.
• First World, generally refer to the ‘global North’ were pursuing a different environmental agenda than the poor and developing countries of the Third World, called the ‘global South’.
• Further, the Northern states are largely concerned with ozone depletion and global warming, the Southern states are anxious to address the relationship between economic development and environmental management.
• Some critics however have pointed out that the Agenda 21 was biased in favor of economic growth rather than ensuring ecological conservation.
• ‘Commons’ in a global political sense are those resources, which are not owned by anyone, but rather shared by a community.
• The areas or regions of the world, which are located outside the sovereign jurisdiction of any one state, and, therefore require common governance by the international community.
• Examples of ‘global commons’ are the earth’s atmosphere, Antarctica, the ocean floor (and the high seas i.e. beyond the 200 nautical miles from the respective coast), and outer space.
• For the global consensus, there have been many path-breaking agreements such as the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, the 1987 Montreal Protocol, and the 1991 Antarctic Environmental Protocol.
• However, a major problem underlying all ecological issues relates to the difficulty of achieving consensus on common environment.
• The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) also discussed that the parties should act to protect the climate system “on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common, but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.”
• The Kyoto Protocol (1997, Kyoto, Japan) is an international agreement that sets targets for industrialized countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. However, India, China, and other developing countries are exempted.
• India signed and ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol in August 2002.
• The global economy relied on oil for much of the 20th century as a portable and indispensable fuel.
• The World Council of Indigenous People was formed in 1975.

Globalization

• It would be incorrect to assume that globalization has purely economic dimensions; it is a multidimensional concept, which includes political, economic, cultural, and ideological manifestations.
• The impact of globalization is greatly uneven, as it affects some societies more than others and some parts of some societies more than others.
• Globalization has a strong historical basis, and it is important to view contemporary flows against this backdrop.
• The technological advancement is one of the most major causes of globalization.
• WTO and IMF though are the major players, but Economic globalization involves many other factors as well.
• What is often called economic globalization usually involves greater economic flows among different countries of the world.
• Many economists and other experts are worried that globalization is likely to benefit only a small section of the population while impoverishing those who were dependent on the government for jobs and welfare (education, health, sanitation, etc.).
• It has been emphasized that the policy would ensure institutional safeguards or create ‘social safety nets’ to minimize the negative effects of globalization on those who are economically weak.
• Many experts believe that the social safety net is not sufficient to safeguard the needs of economically weak class. This is the reason that some economists and other scholars describe the globalization as “re-colonization.” However, supporters argue that greater trade among countries allows each economy to do what it does best and benefits every class of economy.
• As per the cultural perspective, globalization leads to the rise of a uniform culture or what is called as cultural homogenization. For example, ‘McDonaldization.’
• Cultural homogenization is dangerous not only for the poor countries, but also for the whole of humanity; it leads to the shrinking of the rich cultural heritage of the entire globe

Critics of Globalization

The critics of globalization make a variety of arguments such as −

• The leftist people argue that contemporary globalization represents a particular phase of global capitalism that makes the rich richer (and fewer) and the poor poorer.
• But it is interesting to note here that anti-globalization movements to participate in global networks, allying with those who feel like them in other countries.
• Further, many anti-globalization movements are not opposed to the idea of globalization per se as much as they are opposed to a specific program of globalization, which they see as a form of imperialism.
• For example, in 1999, at the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Meeting, it is argued that the interests of the developing world were not given sufficient importance in the evolving global economic system and policy.

World Social Forum

• The World Social Forum (WSF) is another global platform, which brings together a wide coalition composed of human rights activists, environmentalists, labor, youth, and women activists in order to oppose the neo-liberal globalization.
• The first WSF meeting was organized in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2001 and the fourth WSF meeting was held in Mumbai in 2004 and so on.
• In India, there have been left wing protests to economic liberalization.
• These leftist people voiced through political parties as well as through forums like the Indian Social Forum.
• Trade unions of industrial workforce as well as those representing farmers’ interest have organized protests against the entry of multinationals.

Popular Movements

• During the 1970s, in some parts of Uttarakhand, villagers protested against the practices of commercial logging that the government had permitted.
• To protect the trees, the villagers used a novel tactic. They used to hug the trees to prevent them from being cut down; this method became popular as ‘Chipko Movement’ (as shown in the image given below).
• The movement took up economic issues of landless forest workers and asked for guarantees of a minimum wage.
• The movement achieved a victory when the government issued a ban on cutting of trees in the Himalayan regions for fifteen years, until the green cover was fully restored.
• In spite of the impressive growth in many sectors of the economy in the first twenty years of independence, poverty and inequalities still remain a great problem; probably, because benefits of economic growth did not reach evenly to all sections of the society.

Evolution of Voluntary Organizations

• Many of the politically active groups lost their faith in existing democratic institutions and electoral politics and some groups therefore chose to step outside of party politics and got engage in mass mobilization for registering their protests.
• The middle class young activists launched service organizations and constructive programs among rural poor.
• As these works were voluntary in nature (social work), many of these organizations came to known as voluntary organizations or voluntary sector organizations.
• Since these voluntary organizations decided to remain outside of the politics and do not contest election; hence, they became popular as ‘non-party political formation.’
• Dalit Panthers, a militant organization of the Dalit youth, was formed in Maharashtra in 1972.
• In the post-independence period, Dalit groups were mainly fighting against the perpetual caste based inequalities and material injustices that they faced in spite of constitutional guarantees of equality and justice
• In the 1980s, farmers’ dissension was also rising, which gave birth to farmers’ agitation against the government’s decision (especially increasing the electricity rate).
• The Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) was one of the leading organizations (exclusively involved for the farmers’ movement) during the period of eighties.
• Activities conducted by the BKU to pressurize the state through rallies, demonstrations, sit-ins, and jail bharo (courting imprisonment) agitations to get their demands accepted.
• Dissented Fish workers, especially from Kerala, took the main responsibility of mobilizing fellow workers, including women workers from other States.
• When the government’s deep sea fishing policy (1991) that opened up India’s waters to large commercial vessels including those of the multinational fishing companies came into existence, work of the National Fish Workers’ Forum (NFF) consolidated its first legal battle with the Union government successfully.
• Another movement initiated by women was the movement against the sale of liquor/alcohol. Women in Nellore came together in spontaneous local initiatives to protest against arrack and forced closure of the wine shop.
• In the 1988-89, Narmada Bachao Aandolan (NBA), a movement to save the Narmada, opposed the construction of these dams and questioned the nature of ongoing developmental projects in the country.
• NBA continued a sustained agitation for more than twenty years and used every available democratic strategy to put forward its demands.
• The movement for Right to Information (RTI) is commenced in 1990, when a mass-based organization called the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) in Rajasthan took the initiative in demanding records of famine relief work and accounts of laborers.
• These movements suggest that the routine functioning of democracy did not have enough space for the voices of these social groups; therefore, the real-life impact of these movements on the nature of public policies seems to be very limited.

Foreign Policy

• During the period immediately after the second world War, the world divided into two clear poles — one was under the influence of the United States and its western allies and the other was under the influence of the then Soviet Union.
• The polarization of power was the beginning of Cold War Era between the two blocs led by the superpowers namely the US and the USSR.
• The foreign policy of a nation reflects the interplay of domestic and external factors.

Nehru Policy

• Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, was also the foreign minister and played a crucial role in shaping India’s foreign policy between 1946 and 1964.
• The three major objectives of Nehru’s foreign policy were −

  --> To preserve the hard-earned sovereignty,

  --> To protect territorial integrity, and

  --> To promote rapid economic development.

• To achieve these three objectives, Pandit Nehru adopted the strategy of nonalignment.
• Because of its nonalignment policy, in 1956, when Britain attacked Egypt over the Suez Canal issue, India led the world protest against this neo-colonial invasion.
• However, while India was trying to convince the other developing countries about the policy of non-alignment, Pakistan joined the US-led military alliances.
• Secondly, throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Nehru had been remained an ardent advocate of Asian unity.
• The Afro-Asian conference that held in the Indonesian city of Bandung in 1955, commonly known as the Bandung Conference, recognized as the zenith of India’s engagement with the newly independent Asian and African nations.
• Later, the Bandung Conference led to the establishment of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and Pandit Nehru was the co-founder of the NAM.
• The First Summit of the NAM was held in Belgrade in September 1961.

Bilateral Agreements

• Panchsheel was the joint effort under which, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, by the Indian Prime Minister Nehru and the Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai was signed on 29 April 1954 in the direction of stronger relationship between the two countries.
• In spite of the ‘Panchsheel Agreement,’ between the period of 1957 and 1959, the Chinese occupied the Aksai-chin area and built a strategic road there.
• Finally, China launched a swift and massive invasion in October 1962 on both the disputed regions i.e. Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin area in Jammu and Kashmir.
• A long-term dispute between India and Pakistan about the sharing of river water was resolved through mediation by the World Bank. Resultantly, the India-Pakistan Indus Waters Treaty was signed by Nehru and General Ayub Khan in 1960.
• An armed conflict between India and Pakistan began in 1965; at that time, Lal Bahadur Shastri was the Prime Minister of India. The hostilities came to an end with the UN intervention.
• Later, the-then Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Pakistan’s General Ayub Khan signed the Tashkent Agreement in January 1966, and it was mediated by the Soviet Union.
• In 1971, the US and China supported Pakistan.
• India signed a 20-year Treaty of Peace and Friendship with the Soviet Union in August 1971 to counter the US-Pakistan-China axis.
• Pakistan’s attack on India in December 1971, was the major loss for both the countries; secondly, because of this war, East Pakistan became an Independent country as Bangladesh.
• The dispute was resolved through the signing of the Shimla Agreement between Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on July 3, 1972.

Nuclear Development

• Another important development of this period was the first nuclear explosion undertaken by India in May 1974.
• When Communist China conducted nuclear tests in October 1964, the five nuclear weapon powers i.e. the US, the USSR, the UK, France, and China (the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council) tried to impose the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968 on the rest of the world. However, India always considered the NPT as discriminatory and had refused to sign it.
• India conducted a series of nuclear tests in May 1998, demonstrating its capacity to use nuclear energy for military purposes.
• Before the period of 1990, Russia was the important political friend of India, but after the period of 1990, Russia, though it continues to be an important friend of India, has lost its global preeminence and India’s pro-US policy started developing.
• India’s foreign policy is always dictated by ideas of national interest.