WTO talks: NDA's radio silence takes the toll on India's stance

The NDA government may be suffering the consequences of its near zero-engagement policy with media when it comes to the current WTO negotiations. Unwilling to communicate at the political level and choking the usual routes of briefings that take place during such events, it has got the media drawing India out as the loony lone-ranger at the WTO negotiations in Geneva.

 

It is a lone ranger alright. But it’s only trying to pull back some of the negotiating chips it gave away for nothing under the Bali package. 

 

The negotiations of the Bali package saw India (under the UPA government) do a last minute u-turn on its allies and agree with the US to have a shorter deadline of one year to seal the Trade Facilitation pact and a four year deadline to decide the deal on minimum support price for farmers. It was an unbalanced package that promises to make the Doha Development round agenda diminish further with time. This broke trust between India and other allied developing countries. Therefore India stands as a lone figure right now in Geneva. 

 

The UPA political leadership, unable to decide what sitting at the international power-table really required it to do, remained equivocal about what it was looking for at such negotiations– friendly pow-wows with world leaders or hard-bargained additional gains from the talks. In many of these hard-nosed scuffles, its diplomats went with the express or unwritten rule – do not be seen standing alone and do not be seen ‘obstructing’ a deal. They always came back with a deal, be it climate change or WTO, only too often to assess later that India had lost more than it had gained. This was the case with the Bali rounds of WTO talks too. 

 

Any diplomat that has engaged with multilateral negotiations will tell, brinkmanship is part of the game – it helps when the players at the table are not really equal. So is finding strategic allies (not photo-op friends) during the process, in which each country is playing to safeguard its interests using all possible legitimate diplomatic tools at its disposal. Some deploy not so legit ones as well, such as spying on delegates.  

 

The NDA was slow getting in to administrative saddle to realise that over the year, since Bali, little progress had taken place on the deal that safeguards its existing interests – the MSP for agriculture bit. In contrast, the details on Trade Facilitation had been sealed up ready for it to sign in July – a clear sign of bad faith. 

 

While the bet is still out on how much India will gain from the latter deal, it’s rather clear that in permitting Trade Facilitation to close three years ahead of the MSP agreement, India lost bargaining chips to get a favourable agreement safeguarding its food security mechanisms over the next three years. NDA claims it’s trying to regain some balance between the two.

 

While taking the strong, albeit late-hour stand at Geneva, the NDA government forgot that such international negotiations are also played out between arguing nations in the public domain. In fact, developed countries have a strong outreach component built in to their negotiating strategies. NDA’s failure on this count stems from the lack of its real active engagement with the media in general. 

 

The next 48 hours will show whether the new government was only sabre-rattling or if it is better able to play the multinational negotiations firmly. It’s hard to see India come back from Geneva with more than some face-saving assurances unless it is willing to stand alone this year, force the talks to reset the balance and recompose its group of allies. But as much, Narendra Modi’s government faces the challenge of explaining and engaging with the media on the final results in detail and from a high enough political podium.