Governments have come and gone, but India's stand on farm subsidies and stock holding hasn't altered one bit.
Centrist or right wing formations have realised one thing – Bharat cannot be ignored.
Even if their heart is not in it, the vote bank that resides in rural India is crucial.
Bharat defines India and as such is the fulcrum around which our thinking is predicated.
So, if we are aggressive, there is a reason, India's agricultural community and its rights cannot be compromised at the altar of global commerce.
Yes, the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) would have added a trillion dollars to global GDP, but accepting it would have been tantamount to surrender.
In the past, I have covered momentous and complex trade negotiations – G4 and G6 groupings – and the unequivocal message from the Indian prism was always – no can do.
Even as Kamal Nath would bang heads with say a Rob Portman (US Trade Representative) or Peter Mandelson (European Trade Commissioner), sitting in the ante room deliberately kept open for me by minister Nath, one could see the passion and intensity with which India refused to back down.
In London 2006, I remember how Nath stared the West down.
Hardball
Ministers have come and gone – from Murasoli Maran, Arun Jaitley, Kamal Nath, Anand Sharma and now Nirmala Sitharaman – but India has not budged from its stated position.
The West has likened us to hostage takers.
The climactic jousting between the developed world and the developing world led by India is at the very kernel of the fracture.
Trade diplomats in Geneva have said they are "flabbergasted," "astonished" and "dismayed" and described India's position as "hostage-taking" and "suicidal."
India's strategic imperatives driven by agricultural subsidies and rights of the farmers remain the cornerstone of our principled fight.
On July 20, even as commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman was negotiating with other trade ministers in far away Sydney, Prime Minister Modi, mindful of the hopes and aspirations of millions of Indian farmers, was putting the final touches to playing hardball.
Hardball revolved around the TFA which is basically aimed at greater transparency and simplification of customs procedures, use of electronic payments and risk management techniques and faster clearances at ports.
While India has no problem with implementing this Agreement and has autonomously taken several similar measures, the problem emanates from the fact that the developed world has deliberately avoided discussing other issues such as Ministerial Decision on public stockholding for food security purposes (extremely vital from an Indian perspective).
Sadly, even a work programme has not been established on this front.
The Protocol of the TFA was to be adopted by July 31, 2014 by the WTO, after which this would come into force automatically from July 31, next year if ratified by two-thirds of the world's nations.
Given the resistance and the machinations of the western world in taking forward the other decisions, India's concern was that once the TFA was inked, the other more important issues would be ignored.
With the Africa grouping, already browbeaten and its voice broken, it was incumbent on India to grapple adroitly.
That is when gridlock set in.
India's concerns were plain and simple – without a permanent solution, its public stock holding programme would be hampered by the present ceiling on subsidy to farmers which is pegged at 10 per cent of the value of production.
India is already close to breaching the permissible levels of subsidy through purchases at Minimum Support Prices (MSP) in the case of rice and wheat and hence we will not be able to continue at the current levels of procurement for long, MSP policy acts as a means to keep Indian farmers engaged in cultivation, and any tinkering will result in jeopardising the livelihood of half of India's population and finally any challenge to this premise will raise strong reactions in our domestic constituencies.
Modi and his advisers understood the importance of what was happening in an extremely dynamic environment.
Modi and his advisers understood the importance of what was happening in an extremely dynamic environment. They were willing to fight in the trenches despite the fact that John Kerry's trip was to overlap with the negotiations
They were willing to fight in the trenches despite the fact that John Kerry's trip was to overlap with the negotiations. India knows that it will now be under tremendous pressure from the developed world to change this stand along with varied threats of adverse impact on bilateral ties (the US has dropped hints) while developed countries and the WTO DG will continue to remind us of the distinct timelines in the ministerial decisions on the two issues.
The Protocol of Amendment for the TFA can be adopted in the General Council by a simple majority and India will face the possibility of the vote going against it (knowing full well that the option of voting has never been exercised in the WTO).
Derailment
Carping Cassandras be damned – Modi was clear in his mind (and this can be substantiated by the Government's Strategy Note) which articulated on July 20 – "The only way to force action on the other decisions was to slow down the implementation of the decision on Trade Facilitation and the only time to do it was now before the General Council adopted the Protocol of Amendment."
So, India was ready to derail the WTO and rightly so, for it knew very well the weakest link between TFA and the rest of the Bali package including food security was in imminent danger of snapping if the TFA protocol got approved.
Beyond that, it would have been impossible to stop the implementation of the TFA.
The Protocol of the TFA was to be adopted by July 31, 2014 by the WTO, after which this would come into force automatically from July 31, next year if ratified by two-thirds of the world¿s nations. Pictured are the WTO headquarters in Geneva
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