Identity Locality and Globalization: Experiences of India and Indonesia

India and Indonesia have had a long history of communication, going back to the earlier centuries of the Christian era. They also share a history of colonial rule by two European countries. They became independent of colonial rule within two years of each other. In the 1950s the two countries shared certain views of their alignment with the rest of the world but from the 1960s the views seemed to diverge. Strategies of economic development also differed in the two countries in the ensuing decades. India after independence opted for parliamentary democracy and planned economy based on the principles of social justice and secularism. In Indonesia, the choice for a well-articulated political system in the initial years of independence was not clear, and the Indonesian society was frequently opting out of one style of functioning to another, eventually leading to the establishment of what was known as Guided Democracy based on ‘Pancasila’. In many ways colonial structures have been changed in the two countries through deliberate policy measures and through changes in the economic and political environment. Comparing the experiences India and Indonesia have gone through in respect of social and economic changes from the time of opening up of their economies to a greater degree of influence coming from foreign trade and foreign investment would also be a useful exercise. To discuss the common experiences of Indonesia and India since independence, an international conference was held, with the participation of a team of scholars with multi-disciplinary background. The present volume is an attempt to synthesize the perceptions of the two nation-states which have in their diverse ways gone through the thick and thin of national politics and international politics and economics. The contributions in this volume have been grouped under eight sub-themes: models; globalization and economics; globalization, religion and politics; globalization, gender and bodies; globalization and space; political identities; local values and human rights; and pop cultures.