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Journalism of Courage
NEW DELHI, July 18: India will be able to tackle the effects of sanctions effectively only when it takes steps to become an economic power. The best way to deal with the sanctions is to reform and liberalise in a way that Western countries find it difficult to push India into a corner. These ideas were put forward by eminent economist Prof Jagdish Bhagwati, as measures to tackle the sanctions India is facing.
India may have won one year’s reprieve, but that was no reason for complacency. India must push forward its reforms to become an economic power. The rest of the world would respect India and not try to push it around once India achieved economic strength, Bhagwati said. He was speaking at a seminar on `India’s economic response to sanctions’ organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). Jaswant Singh, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, also spoke at the seminar. He said that the nuclear tests were borne out of security concerns, but added that economic security was an integral partof the overall security of a country. Until economic security was achieved India would not be a strong country.
Bhagwati said that the economic sanctions would have direct and indirect effects on the country and they had to be dealt with in separate ways. The direct effects would not be too much as there was division within US policy makers and the developed world about the efficacy of sanctions. Credit sanctions would hurt US business more than India as cheap credit for US companies was aimed at making them more competitive abroad. Food sanctions had already been lifted and the definition of humanitarian aid had been expanded to include a number of core projects.
He said that unilateral sanctions did not work and this was another reason why the US was deferring sanctions by one year. “India should use this year to ensure that it becomes an economic power,” Bhagwati said. “Make no mistake.
