ITEC at 60: Book revives forgotten chapter in India's global outreach

ITEC at 60: India's International Development Partnerships

by Maria Elizabeth Joseph, Swati Sinha & Shimreisa Chahongnao

Published by: Thomson Press/Ananta Aspen Centre/Gates Foundation

216 pages 

Price not stated  When was the last time you got hold of a book that talks of a specific Indian policy? No, I don’t mean the memoirs mostly IAS officers write about their term in offices with dollops of personal life thrown in. I mean a good hard look at any Indian government policy spanning several decades. 

 

It will be almost impossible to find one. You can be sure, for instance, coming out of the Trump term, a furious avalanche of books will plaster the United States bookshops soon. Hardly any book will be written about the comparable period of Indian policy. This is true of not only this era, but books on Indian government policies hardly ever get written, except for foreign policy where there has been a plethora of well-written books, including by the current External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.

 

Yet as the Indian economy gathers critical mass in the world, it would be unrealistic to say Indian public policy does not merit such a deep-down study. In the circumstances, the role falls on observers from outside the government. ITEC at 60: India’s International Development Partnerships is one of those. Shimreisa Chahongnao, Maria Elizabeth Joseph and Swati Sinha of Ananta Aspen Centre have made a brave attempt to understand a vital piece of Indian policy— Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation. The book examines how India, despite domestic constraints, has tried to offer assistance to a large band of nations in the so-called Global South since 1964. It was and continues to be a global university system developed by India but without any bells and whistles. 

 

This slim book of 216 pages starts an interesting conversation on an often forgotten corner of India’s efforts to reach out to nations with a form of cooperation that was actually unique for those times. “This decision to set up the ITEC programme was based on the belief that it was essential to foster relations grounded in mutual concern and interdependence… technical and economic cooperation was viewed as a vital element of an integrated and forward thinking foreign policy,” the authors write. The Trumpian tariff and H1B visa dystopia would have looked less so from India’s point of view if these initiatives were sustained, it now seems. Indian chip, smart weapons and pharma products would have found easier access where ITEC made significant strides.

 

When the Indian government under Lal Bahadur Shastri started the ITEC programme, this was the same period when the US government was either offering food aid or arms to topple “unfriendly” governments. The  Central Intelligence Agency, among other things, had organised a massive books programme to seed ideas of freedom behind the Iron Curtain. Europe was torn about what to offer without raising hackles in the countries it had till then recently, kept colonised. India’s efforts, despite the small sums it could offer, was a brave offer in this context. The programme became better organised from the early 1980s when the ITEC started financing visits of economic delegations from partner countries, including training in Indian military facilities. Despite avowedly non-political themes, local issues did impact. “In Algeria, India supported independence efforts and later provided expertise in education, agriculture and industry, culminating in agreements on economic and technical cooperation”. 

 

Despite these promising starts, India often stepped back at crucial points instead of building on the reach ITEC provided. A reassessment of India’s foreign policy orientation led to the formation of the Economic Coordination Unit (ECU). Yet, they write, the ECU’s efforts were constrained by institutional ambiguity within the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and overlapped with the line ministries, limiting its effectiveness and perpetuating an “institutional void in managing international development assistance at MEA headquarters”.

 

The numbers ITEC has trained so far are not chicken feed. Nearly half a million people from 161 countries have been through this global knowledge network. Generations of Indian leaders pass through the pages of this book. In fact, it is a pity that the authors did not consider adding colour by bringing these leaders to life in this analysis. The other absence is the mention of similar efforts by other countries from Asia, both Japan and now China. Did the ITEC make any substantial effort to tailor their efforts in response? A comparison would have really helped to steer the policy in fresh directions. It is difficult but the absence of voices from the recipient countries would have added perspective to this account of a vital Indian global outreach. These are questions that would be hopefully addressed in a subsequent edition.