BY SWAPAN DASGUPTA

An Attitude Problem

The discreet charms of being a Third World choirboy.

Prime Minister I.K. Gujral has drawn flak for being in the wrong place at the right time. Stung by criticism that he loves getting his red passport stamped, Gujral chose to sit it out in Delhi at a time when he should rightly have been in Malaysia for the G-15 summit. Not that the mere presence of the prime minister would have made a real difference to the hysterical tone of the proceedings. At least it would have indicated the importance India attaches to economic diplomacy. As things stand, New Delhi conveys the impression that its foreign policy is guided more by spurious emotionalism -- such as Third World solidarity -- than by enlightened self-interest.

It all boils down to what Americans evocatively call "attitude". To well-meaning souls like Gujral and Vice-President Krishan Kant, who represented India at the G-15 meet, true nationalism involves the flailing of arms against the evil West. The Indian foreign policy consensus is at its archaic best when embracing tyrants like President Saddam Hussain of Iraq or taking a side swipe at "third rate" Britain. No wonder, Kant did not feel it necessary to even raise his pinkie in protest when Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed conveniently transformed the G-15 agenda into an unseemly show of bluster and bravado.

In many ways, Mahathir epitomises the sublimated desires of every nationalist with a chip on his shoulder. Understandably impatient with some of the West's sanctimonious arrogance, Mahathir goes overboard by viewing international relations as a grand conspiracy. Without any regard for either accuracy or good taste, he has blamed the fragile state of the South-east Asian markets on currency speculators and Jews. For Mahathir and his disciples in South Block, the innate fiscal profligacy underpinning the ephemeral success story of the Asian Tigers is of trivial importance. What matters is that there is a western plot to keep Asia in permanent subservience. Mirroring this approach, Vice-President Kant, for example, demanded the West supply state-of-the-art technology to the developing countries without, however, insisting on market access in goods and services. Since Third World nationalism rests on the belief that the West must pay reparations for colonialism, Kant echoed the curious notion that free trade is a one-way street.

India's approach to the World Trade Organisation (wto) reflects this duplicity. It is quite in order to press for the scrapping of textile quotas and other protectionist weapons being used by the economic nationalists in the West, but this offensive has to be prefaced by the understanding that all trade barriers are undesirable. India, unfortunately, has never accepted the principle of reciprocity. Having grudgingly signed up for the wto, it is still wondering why it accepted membership in the first place. It has dragged its feet on intellectual property rights, the removal of import restrictions and the multilateral agreement on investment. This obstructionist attitude is, of course, of no significance since the global agenda does not depend on the state of Indian confusion. What it does is highlight India as a nation of the permanently aggrieved, a country that is content being a Third World choirboy. One day India will have to re-evaluate its attitude. By then it will have been relegated to the Fourth World.   

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