India's negotiating imperatives

The evolving regional trade context should be the primary guiding factor for the AITIGA review

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The raison d'etre for international negotiations is to tackle global challenges through international cooperation where each country advances its national interests. India's approach is no different, but the exercise of arriving at a common national position in negotiations is a complexone, as the erudite scholarly diplomat Ambassador Mohan Kumar explains in his book India's Moment. The book is an attempt to set straight India's record in multilateral negotiations, which is often criticised as obstructionist.

India's predicament in negotiations has been analysed through the prism ofan integrated assessment framework consisting of six factors of variable importance-Gandhi Litmus Test (poverty veto); policy space; domestic politics; geopolitical imperatives; commitment to multilateralism, and principles; and realpolitik and material gain. The author's assertion that the "poverty veto" always triumphed in India's negotiations ignores the underlying fears of our negotiators going wrong that is so symptomatic of our bureaucracy.