Globalization: Debts, Arms and Reforms in South Asia

This book critically analyses the pitfalls of dependence of South Asian countries on foreign debt, arms and technology, in the light of spreading globalization and economic reforms. It is analysed in the book as to how the expenditures on arms and debt servicing have adversely been affecting investments in health and education sectors, due to which developing countries continue to remain “developing”. Tracing the colonial legacy, it also discusses the role of international commissions in improving the economic lot of developing countries, formulated under the aegis of the United Nations. These commissions are being formed right after the end of colonialism in the aftermath of the Second World War. For example: in the 1950s: “The United Nations Development Decade I”, in the 1960s: “The United Nations Development Decade-II”; in the 1970s: “Partners in Development”; in the 1980s: “North-South: A Program for Survival”; in the 1990s: “The Challenge to the South”; and for the 2000s: “United Nations Millennium Declaration” (… to eradicate poverty from the face of earth by 2015). Despite these international commissions to reduce poverty in developing countries, the concrete socio-economic reality still remains the same as what was said in 1967 by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that “We in the West must bear in mind that the poor countries are poor primarily because we have exploited them through political or economic exploitation.”