This is not a review of our government's policies nor is this mentioning the advantages/ Disadvantages of each of them.This is a write up, to just show, how they affected an India family, my family: a family which is the part of the "working class".My dad joined IAF as a non-commissioned technician at the age of 19. I believe it was the year 1975, just when we were still in our own inebriate that we triumphed over the Pakistan and created a new nation. He worked there for 15 years and took the VRS in the year 1990. That's where our story starts.

A year before the LPG reforms of this country, my dad was retired. And after 15 years of service in the armed forces all he got was 80000/-. Let me tell you here there is no property he was left with and there is nothing he can bank on except for the retirement "benefits" he got.

After retiring, we shifted to our home town. There was this family of two kids and wife before him which he had to take care of. He did not get any employment in the private sector as he did not have any degree. Also, the lower cadre of armed forces is considered to be hardened idiotic who do not a brain of their own. I guess we all are well versed with the rhetoric of the military where the officers say "You are not there to think! You are there to do what I tell you to do, soldier!' That was the first time my dad understood the value of education.

For three years we all were there with no employment for him and staying in a small secluded place. In 1993 he got a job in LIC as an LDC. We were happy because at that time government job of whatever kind was a big deal. Then came another reform, insurance sector is liberalized and it goes into hands of private owners and the IRDA. As a part of this it is made autonomous and made it a corporate. Corporate, simple terms is an organization that generates its own money for its survival. That is it uses from its own profits, it doesn't depend on the government. So it gets to frame most of its rules. The 4th and 5th pay commission that our government "enacted" if you will, excluded the insurance sector. Now the insurance sector, LIC has its own pay commissions and there was only one pay revision, I don't know what to call was it a pay commission or not, because there was not much difference in his pay and the "grade". 

After 10-12 years of service he decided, we must buy a house. So, we started to look for a house. We bought a decent 2 bedroom individual house with some verandah and some place in the front where we used to plant our trees. Me and my sister used watch them as the time passed by. Slowly it was the time for my sister to get married. So we sold the house and did all the needful. It was in a time span of about five years, and when he wanted to buy a good old house again, the property values had multiplied: the unintended consequence of Globalization.

With his service remaining and the prevailing value of a decent house there was little chance to get a loan from the bank along with all the recoveries my dad's pay slip was already showing. My brother-in-law is in USA. But as all the social text books say, under the hegemony of the United States. Like any other Indian from the working class background he also, earns in dollar but spends in rupees (If you know what I mean). He bought the Wii, went to Disney land and experienced all that country has to offer. But there is no happiness and this is one kind of truth that he cannot digest. This makes him even more unhappy. I am not accusing him for something, because that is not his fault he never intended it to be like that. I am just trying to show you another effect of globalization: the Consumerism. We are trying to find out happiness in the iphone and flat panels screens. I buy only the "branded" jeans irrespective of whether I can afford it or not. Today, one jeans of mine costs around 2500/- but my first pay was 1500/- pm, where I used to give tuitions to engineering students. Nothing of this sort came to mind when I was buying the jeans, so now I am in credit card debt.

I read in an essay we are "spiritual beings with a human existence and not human beings with spiritual existence", Karl Marx was the first one to realize that this has reversed even before the mankind got to know of it, although he was not aware of it. I am writing this essay because something happened to me. I had to write an extract for "the effects of Globalization on the Indian working class". I did not know the answer and in due course of conversation I told my dad this is one thing that is going in my mind right now. He said you have our own lives before you to present. Why don't you notice? Please do not judge the people in this essay; you can judge the essay I am always in for comments. This is not an account of blame game. I am not telling that this is a story of a victim of globalization, but this is just telling how the working class is affected.

The developed countries, do not want the developing countries get industrialized as they fear the "environment" is getting effected. In which part of the world the environment has degraded the most? The EAST or the WEST? They do not want to open their governments for foreign commodities but agree to give loans only if the "third world" opens up its gates and agrees for a "free market". That's why there are very less MNC's from the third world. All the MNCs from the west were trying to control the governments of the east and south.Do you see the chains of gold slowly tightening! They may be made of gold but they are still chains whose purpose to bind oneself.