The Left parties have prepared a long, written response to a government note on the Doha round negotiations at the World Trade Organisation.
The first sentence says, as a point of criticism, that the UPA government's note on the negotiations "does not reflect any significant departure from the positions adopted by the previous government".
But just one sentence later, the response bemoans the fact that in three specific ways, the new government has moved away from Third World unity, hammered out in 2003 (when the previous government was in office). Departure from the NDA government's negotiating positions is therefore not the problem, it is the direction of departure.
In which direction would the Left have us move? "India's long-term interests are best served by making common cause with the developing countries," says part of the second sentence in the note. That would be fine, except that when India did that in previous trade negotiations, it became the boy who stood on the burning deck -- the other developing countries simply deserted the ranks.
Heedless of this history, the Left argues in its memo that "the solidarity of the South, and not expedient 'issue-based' coalitions with [the] USA/EU, must be the bed-rock of our strategy in WTO". In other words, don't do deals with the developed countries even if that is in our interest. Simply go back to the Third World-ism of old.
It is the die-hard advocates of that old attitude who criticised India for having done a "sell-out" in the Uruguay Round a decade ago. It so happens that, despite that "sell-out", India has been able to increase its share of world trade after half a century of decline.
Indeed, till oil prices went through the roof last year, India even notched up a current account surplus for three years in a row -- a far cry from the days of endless foreign exchange crises.
All those doomsday scenarios that had been spelt out have remained in the Left's library of false alarms. So something must be right with India's trade policy and with its trade-negotiating strategy.
That is not to argue that the government is doing everything right. The Left makes several specific suggestions aimed at toughening India's negotiating positions. This is fine, because no one wants to concede more than what is strictly necessary. Domestic criticism can even be useful in stiffening the government's spine before it enters the negotiating room.
What is problematic is the general mindset that calls for, among other things, the re-introduction of import licences that we have only recently got rid of, the dredging up of that old chestnut called South-South trade, and "direct trade measures such as long-term contracts at affordable prices" (presumably in defiance of market realities) in order to take care of food-importing Third World countries like Egypt.
It is evident that the Left still lives in a time warp, and is not applying a reality check to the positions it holds dear. Why this should be so is a matter of opinion, but intellectual dishonesty should not be ruled out.
For instance, its note on the WTO negotiations asserts that "by some of the estimates" three-quarters of the rural population live below the poverty line. Since the rural population accounts for about 70 per cent of the total, and we have urban poor as well, the Left is saying that more than 55 per cent of the people are below the poverty line. It is hard to believe that this is seriously meant.
Such positions sit side by side with silence from the Left on the real WTO-related scandal. This is the failure to prepare for the end of textile trade quotas, which was the biggest benefit flowing from the Uruguay Round. China did get ready, and has emerged as the biggest beneficiary.
The losers include India's cotton farmers, and the thousands who could have got jobs in textile mills. Why are they not the concern of the Left? Why does it get more het up over trade negotiations than about failure to grab real trade opportunities?
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