tional corporate freedom is based on the destruction of citizen freedom everywhere. Globalization implies the dismantling of the powers of democratic institutions of individual countries - local councils, regional governments and parliaments.

WHILE THE NEHRUVIAN era of state directed development is being attacked by the globalizers and trade liberalizers, globalization is magnifying the problems of centralization: unaccountability, corruption, uniformity, inequality, environmental destruction and cultural erosion. Ever since the new economic policies were put in place in l991 in response to the World Bank and IMF directives, decision making has moved out of communities and regions to Delhi and then out of Delhi to Washington and Geneva and to corporate headquarters of transnational corporations (TNCS).

Unaccountability of government and corporations to people has increased. Corruption has exploded. Uniformity has expanded both ecologically and culturally. As agriculture gets corporatized, the landscape of small, biologically diverse farms is giving way to miles of monocultures of sunflowers, vegetables and shrimps for export. The McDonaldization of India has begun. Environmental destruction is taking place faster and over larger areas with globalization.

While globalization is strengthening the negative aspects of the development era, it is dismantling the positive aspects of a state focussing on the basic needs of people, a state committed to equality and justice, a State protecting resources and livelihoods through policy and regulatory mechanisms.

Basic needs have been replaced by import of luxury goods like cars and cosmetics and export of luxury products like flowers and shrimps. Land ceilings have been removed in urban and rural areas, transferring land and real estate to speculators or big corporations. The livelihoods of small producers are being destroyed by trade liberalization. Two million weavers in Andhra Pradesh lost their livelihoods when free export of cotton was allowed, taking cotton beyond the access of weavers. 200,000 producers of Bikaneri Bhujia (a regional snack speciality) are threatened with the entry of Pepsico in the manufacture and marketing of Bikaneri Bhujia. New power plants have been established by bypassing the requirements of Environmental Impact Assessment. Deregulation does not imply an end to the state - it is a change in the function of the state. The state is now exclusively an instrument of global capital. Globalization has rendered the relationship between the community, the state and the corporation - or, to use Marc Nerfin's more colourful categories, the relationship between the citizen, the prince and the merchant � totally fluid.

THE APPEAL OF globalization is usually based on the idea that it implies less red tape, less centralization and less bureaucratic control. It is celebrated because it implies the erosion of the power of the State.

Globalization does mean "less government" for regulation of business and commerce. But less government for commerce and corporations can go hand-in-hand with more government in the lives of ordinary people. As globalization allows increasing transfer of resources from the public domain - either under the control of communities or that of the state - discontent increases, leading to law and order problems. In such a situation, even a minimalist state restricted only to policing will become enormously large and all-pervasive, devouring much of the wealth of society and intruding into every aspect of citizens' lives.

For example, under the new infrastructure policies, foreign companies can have 100% equity participation, but the government will acquire the land, displace people and deal with "law-and-order" problems created by displacements.

Most of the ideological projection of globalization has focussed on the new relationship of the prince and the merchant, the state and the corporation, the government and the market. The State has been stepping back more and more from the regulation of commerce and capital.

Reflecting this ideology of deregulation, the Indian Finance Minister stated that "Power should move to the boardroom," i.e., from the state to the corporations. However, the shift from the rule of the nation state to that of the corporations does not imply more power to the people.

If anything, it implies less power in the hands of people, because transnational corporations are more powerful than governments and also because they are unaccountable to democratic control.

The erosion of the power of the nation-state leads to a concentration of power in the hands of corporations. It does not devolve power to the people. It does not move power downwards into the hands of communities. In fact, it takes power away from the local level and transforms institutions of the state from being protectors of the rights of people to being protectors of the profits of corporations. This creates an inverted State, a state more committed to the protection of foreign investment and less to the protection of the citizens of the country'. The inversion of the state is well exemplified in a recently announced proposal that foreign Security experts would train Indian police to protect the "life and property of foreign investors".