The Indian flavour at Doha

By C. Rammanohar Reddy

With India emerging as one of the most important players at the WTO conference, it was India's time on the last few days of the Doha meeting. Even the satire had an Indian connection to it. The NGOs had pasted the walls of the convention centre with copies of a 1995 cheque, issued by the ``WTO Bank of Geneva'' to the developing countries for income from faster growth of developing country's exports, greater market access and trade concessions. But the cheque was stamped ``dishonoured''.

The inspiration comes from the Prime Minister's speech to the U.N. earlier this week when he likened the previous GATT round's promises to the developing countries to ``a bounced cheque''.

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There was a dark side to the expression of the India connection too. Tempers frayed and acerbic statements were occasionally made. A pressperson told Mr. Anthony Gooch, E.U. spokesperson, on the tense morning of November 14 - when it seemed as if the conference was going to collapse - that Mr. Murasoli Maran had told him that there was no ministerial declaration. (What the Commerce Minister meant was that there was no agreed statement) Mr. Gooch was quick to turn to an Indian journalist who was present and abrasively said: ``If you have the draft declaration, why don't you give it to your Minister who seems to need a copy?''

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Misinformation and manipulation ran riot during the conference, as ministers were wooed, pressure applied on Governments and alliances broken. The focus of the attention seemed to be the alliance among India, the Africa group and the least developed countries. On November 12, Kenya announced at a meeting of the Africa group that India had decided to join the E.U. and the U.S. bandwagon; so the Africans should forget about any developing country unity. Somewhat mysteriously, a U.S. reporter got a call at the same time from the U.S. press office informing him that Kenya was to give shortly a briefing where it was going to make an important policy announcement. Fortunately, the Indian delegation got wind of the Kenyan statement and issued its own statement reaffirming its position. There was no press briefing by Kenya, but as subsequent events showed the damage to the alliance had been done.

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With most NGOs more eager to catch their flight home rather than to wait for the final outcome on the extended day, there were few to support India on the afternoon of November 14 when it seemed as if it was going to block the adoption of a negotiating agenda for the next round. But there was the French farmer and anti- globalisation campaigner, Mr. Jose Bove, with a ready even if slightly premature quote: ``50 years ago India said Britain out of the country; today it is saying WTO out of the country''.

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Tailpiece: Two observations by a senior WTO official about the highlights of the Doha meeting: ``WTO joins China, WTO isolated by India''. Whatever one may say about who decides things at the WTO, one thing was clear. The focus at Doha, for very different reasons, was on the world's two largest countries.

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