A punch from the Manch

If leaders of the Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) were not so close to the main constituent of the ruling alliance, the Bharatiya Janata Party, their hair-brained views on trade policy would not have merited editorial response. To get ten thousand people together at one place and listen to long speeches does not call for too much effort in a country where so many million are unemployed and lack free entertainment. However, to get the prime minister to receive a memorandum requires political influence of a high order and that the SJM leaders seem to have.

The desire expressed by SJM that the government defend India’s national interests at the Cancun ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is well-taken. Governments are duty-bound to defend national interest. There’s no harm reiterating that demand once in a while. But there is something patently absurd about demanding concessions from others while declaring that we will offer none. The SJM and its ilk make a fundamental error in imagining that multilateral trade negotiations are a one-way street or only a battle between the developed and developing nations. Far from it. Many of the concessions that India does not want to make are being sought even by developing countries. Our own less developed neighbours want us to lower our tariffs and eliminate non-tariff barriers to trade. Apart from the objectionable racism of the demand that the Indian trade negotiators must fight with “white people”, this slogan flies in the face of the reality of India’s external trade profile. India’s largest trade partner is the US, followed by the EU. If we were to accept the demand of the SJM that we fight “white people”, to whom do we export?

The more specific demand made by SJM that Union commerce minister Arun Jaitley should not budge from the position adopted by former commerce minister, Murasoli Maran, at the Doha ministerial, is also an unreasonable demand. Many countries have changed their stance since Doha. The US has agreed to an unbundling of Singapore Issues and has changed its position on TRIPs and public health. India has been offered an attractive package of tariff elimination in seven areas of export interest to it. Much has happened since Doha, warranting changes in the Indian position. If Jaitley can do a deal at Cancun that Maran could not, it is partly because of the success of India’s stance on many issues. Rather than view this as a certificate of our self-confidence, SJM sloganeering panders to the worst insecurities of an ignorant people. Truly, no one would have taken this antediluvian organisation seriously but for its easy access to the corridors of power.