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VIEWPOINT: KAUTILYA
An India That Is Out Of Step
Ten years after reforms, the country is still groping
for a proper global role
By Jairam Ramesh
What is it about India that even after a decade of economic
reforms and major changes in foreign policy, we still cling to shibboleths
of the past? We crave global recognition. We desperately want to take
on a leadership role on the world stage. But while we are more than ready
to assert and demand our rights, we are less than enthusiastic in taking
on responsibilities. On many important international issues, India stands
isolated and quite frankly, our credibility is taking a knock day by day.
The most recent example of our solitariness
comes from the recently concluded UN General Assembly session on HIV/aids.
Every country facing an epidemic came out strongly in favour of large-scale
use of anti-retroviral drugs. While these drugs are not curatives, they
control the spread of the infection and prolong lives. India was the sole
exception and struck a discordant note arguing that we just could not
afford the large-scale use of these drugs in our anti-aids programme.
True, at a cost of about $1 (Rs 47) per person per day, the annual bill
for the use of the anti-retrovirals if they were to be distributed free,
as they are in countries like Botswana and Brazil, would be over a billion
dollars. But our position was not nuanced and what others could not understand
was how India could come out against anti-retrovirals when Indian companies
are revolutionising the supply of these drugs elsewhere in the world.
The Kyoto Protocol is a second example of how
misaligned we are with the rest of the world. Signed in 1997, the protocol
sets targets for reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases which are
warming the earth. It imposes no quantitative targets on developing countries
like India and it is actually a very good deal for us, a deal that we
will definitely not get in the future. Yet we are not signatories to the
protocol. But that does not prevent us from being sanctimonious. We went
into apoplectic fits when US President George Bush announced America's
rejection of the protocol.
 The
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) is a third instance of our being
different. First, the argument was that there is no national consensus
on India ratifying it. This is actually a nice way of saying that we do
not have the courage to do what needs to be done and what the world recognises
as the right thing to do. Then, the argument veered to why India should
sign the CTBT when the US Senate had rejected it. A further twist was
given by the argument that India had already declared a moratorium on
further nuclear tests and that this brought India into the CTBT regime
on a de facto, if not a de jure, basis. But then why not sign the CTBT
and signal that India wishes to be in the international mainstream of
nuclear non-proliferation?
Or take the issue of a new round of global trade
negotiations under the aegis of the WTO. Such a round is inevitable and
may be kick-started at the next WTO ministerial meeting in November this
year at Qatar. India is perhaps one of the few countries which have expressed
reservations, if not opposition. The point is that India stands to gain
from a new round that focuses on issues like tariff reductions in advanced
countries for imports of labour-intensive manufactures, reduction of agricultural
subsidies in the developed world, liberalising trade in services and abolition
of the anti-dumping mechanism where our ability to hurt is dwarfed by
our probability of getting hurt. Our approach to the WTO stands out in
sharp contrast with how the Chinese are negotiating their entry on terms
which are less favourable than what India has been able to get away with.
Intellectual property rights or the matter of
patents have acquired a whole new dimension in the wake of the aids crisis.
Countries like Brazil and South Africa have tough patent laws that give
them flexibility to reduce prices of essential drugs. The Americans have
chosen not to challenge these laws realising that it would be a public
relations disaster if they are seen to be putting the profits of a few
multinationals ahead of the needs of millions of poor and suffering patients.
But India figures nowhere in this debate since our patent laws have yet
to be in full accordance with the WTO agreement called trips (Trade-Related
Intellectual Property Rights). What other countries are demonstrating
is that you can be in trips and protect consumers while we in India are
still engaged on theological debates on the matter.
The problem with us is we think that as the
world's second-most populous country and the world's fourth-largest economy
based on purchasing power parity, we have an automatic right on the world's
head table. The sad truth is that the world is increasingly getting cynical
about India. We have never been known to say what we mean and mean what
we say. However, in the 1990s, we had succeeded in convincing the world
that we were changing. But it is clear that the more things change, the
more they remain the same.
(The author is with the Congress party. These
are his personal views.)
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