Professional Documents
Culture Documents
On Neoliberalism
On Neoliberalism
NEOLIBERLISM
In
India:
Police brutality
against worker’s
strike at Honda car
plant, Gurgaon
Malls of the few, chawls of the many
P. Sainath (2005)
The scenes from Gurgaon gave us more than just a picture of one labour protest,
police brutality or corporate tyranny. It presented us a microcosm of the new and
old Indias. Different rules and realities for different classes of society.
The Haryana police lived up to their history… Gurgaon was about the police and
administration increasingly acting as enforcement agents of big corporations. Not
without precedent in the past. But more and more a symbol of the new India…
The streets of Gurgaon gave us a glimpse of something larger than a single protest.
Bigger than a portrait of the Haryana police. Greater than Honda. Far more
complex than the "image of India" as an investment destination. It presented us a
microcosm of the new and old Indias. Of private cities and gated communities. Of
different realities for different classes of society. Of ever-growing inequality. Of the
malls of the few and the chawls of the many.
What is neoliberalism?
-Ideologically: a theoretical doctrine that proposes that human well-being can best
be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an
institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free
markets and free trade; Uses concepts of human dignity and individual freedom to
appeal to broadly to a wide variety of constituents, becoming a ‘common sense’
discourse