I’m back with many trophies from the battlefront: Murasoli Maran

With his pencil-thin moustache and his long sideburns commerce minister Murasoli Maran looks like a comical villain in a spaghetti-western movie. Looks can be, and in this case most certainly are, deceptive. Mr Maran is a tough nut to crack. A heart patient with a pacemaker who literally lives his second life having recovered from a massive heart attack, 67 running on 68, Mr Maran is a live wire and shows no signs of exhaustion and sleepless nights.

Murasoli Maran

At Doha, Qatar, where Mr Maran represented India at the Fourth Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organisation last week, he participated continuously for 36 hours in painstaking negotiations. “Many of them who didn’t want me there thought they could exhaust me and force me to go and sleep while they finalised the declaration” chuckles Mr Maran as he recalls US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick making sympathetic enquiries about his heart and health. “My heart is okay, it is in the right place” Mr Maran recalls telling an anxious Mr Zoellick who managed to tie up support from across the world but was unable to get India on board. “Even Cuba went along with them” recalls Mr Maran, “They decided to be part of the Latin American group consensus which the US shaped. My Left critics in India are attacking me on Doha. They should find out the views of China and Cuba and then talk” he says contemptuously of the CPI(M).

Mr Maran may spend the next few days defending the Doha outcome in Parliament and outside against Opposition criticism, but for now he looks like the cat that ate the canary. Basking in the glory of developing country praise for his negotiating skills and pleased to be at the receiving end of developed country barbs, Mr Maran remains in the offensive mode. In Doha he battled the world for India, in New Delhi he is ready to battle the Opposition for his government.
Excerpts from a free-wheeling interview over the weekend with Sanjaya Baru of The Financial Express:

The Financial Times of London has expressed the view that “the only real loser in Doha was India”; while The Wall Street Journal has said that your “tough negotiating stance was a wake-up call to the developed world” and that “India heralds a new balance of power in the WTO”? Why do we get such sharp differences of perspective even in the international media?

Our intention was to protect our national interest and I have achieved that goal. I am happy with what we have been able to get.

What did you achieve at Doha?
It is a question of fixing the text of the declaration which runs into 10 pages. There was a text on 13th November which was suddenly altered in the late hours without our knowing and a new text was presented on the14th. There were three earlier drafts and you know we rejected all of them. We could have avoided all this and the unpleasantness it entailed if we had avoided sudden surprises and had a draft that incorporated the concerns of all member countries. The WTO process was not transparent and was not democratic.

Developing countries had no role to play in the agenda setting. If this continues the institution will be greatly harmed. That is why the negotiations became so long-drawn at Doha. We finally secured a draft that meets our concerns.

Is it true that the November 13th draft would have been better and you made a mistake rejecting it?
I am sorry that is not true. That text was suddenly withdrawn and another text was presented. They played mischief.

Who played the mischief?
I don’t want to name anyone.

Is it the WTO Secretariat you are blaming?
Yes. They are not transparent. This last minute change of text on November 13th was totally wrong. We could have accepted that draft with some changes of course, but it was altered without anyone’s consent.

Do you think the WTO secretariat would be more transparent and fair if the Director-General was not someone like Mr Moore, but is from the developing world like Mr Supachai Panitchpakdi?
WTO is WTO. It is not the individual I am blaming, the real thing is that market power talks. Those who are powerful call the shots. The reality is that a majority of the members are from the developing world, but we are not united. If we stand together and work together no one can harm us.

Why did we fail in uniting the developing world?
Every country only looks after its national interest, naturally. Then, the least developed countries were given some special concessions by the European Union so they have a different view on some issues which concern us. The EU has this policy of “everything but arms” as a special gesture to the LDCs, so they have split the developing world.

You went to Seattle willing to accept a new but limited round of negotiations, why did you reject a new round and only emphasise implementation issues before Doha?
We wanted to give priority to implementation issues. We did not oppose or support a “new round”. My concern was with issues. What issues will be on the agenda. There we have ensured that the issues which we do not want on the agenda are not yet there.

These “new issues” have only been postponed, not abandoned. In fact the Doha Declaration puts them firmly on the WTO agenda.
No, that is not correct. The position after Doha is the same as after Singapore. I have taken the issue back to the Singapore Declaration, we have not added anything at all at Doha.

In Singapore the question of investment, competition policy, trade facilitation and so on were only to be discussed in working groups, but at Doha you have agreed to put them in the main declaration.
That is not true. It is precisely on this issue that we held up the entire proceedings for 18 hours. India alone stood in the way and I made it very clear that I am willing to return home without signing any declaration if my point of view is not incorporated. The declaration has made it clear that there will have to be an “explicit consensus” among all member countries before these issues are brought into any negotiating agenda. They will be studied for the next two years, that is what was decided at Singapore. So there is no progress beyond this point.

You have ensured postponement by two years but you could not prevent the declaration bringing the issues on board.
But I have prevented the declaration from regarding these issues as available for negotiations. Let me specifically draw your attention to what the Chairman of the General Council has recorded in the official record of the Doha Ministerial. (He gives FE a printed text, and reads it out:) “I would like to note that some delegations have requested clarification concerning paragraphs 20, 23, 26 and 27 of the draft declaration. Let me say that with respect to the reference to an “explicit consensus” being needed, in these paragraphs, for a decision to be taken at the Fifth Session of the Ministerial Conference, my understanding is that, at that Session, a decision would indeed need to be taken, by explicit consensus, before negotiations on Trade and Investment and Trade and Competition Policy, Transparency in Government Procurement and trade Facilitation could proceed. In my view, this would also give each Member the right to take a position on modalities that would prevent negotiations from proceeding after the Fifth Session of the Ministerial Conference until that Member is prepared to join in an explicit consensus”.

This is an important clarification which is in the official record of the Doha Ministerial and no one can ignore its implications. We have not gone a step beyond Singapore as far as the so-called “Singapore issues” are concerned. I asked the Chairman of the meeting for this clarification and got this incorporated in the official record of the meeting so that nobody can blame me.

But the opposition parties have already charged you with not defending India’s interests properly.
Who has said so? I have shared my views with many senior leaders in the Opposition who are aware of the real issues and I don’t think they have any problem. It is only people who are ignorant who shout loudly and criticise. I don’t think leaders like Dr Manmohan Singh or Mr Pranab Mukherjee will speak like Mr VP Singh and Mr Jaipal Reddy. Those who know the issues will recognise that I have defended our national interest very well. My job was to protect the interests of Indian industry and agriculture. I have done that.

But when you met the Opposition before going to Doha you said you will oppose a new round and now you have come back supporting a new round.
I have never said we will oppose a new round. I have always emphasised what is the agenda, what are issues. We opposed certain issues and we continue to oppose them. These issues are not yet on the agenda for a new round, they are only to be discussed, which is what was decided at Singapore in 1996. We will continue to discuss and we have two more years to discuss whether or not they should be included on the agenda of a new round. That decision will be made by ‘explicit consensus’ among all members.

But there seem to be different interpretations coming out from different countries on this. The EU does not have the same view as you on what was actually agreed to at Doha.
That is where the Chairman’s interpretation and its incorporation in the official record become important. His interpretation is very clear, where is the scope for any confusion?

Is this Chairman’s clarification which you quote a “fig leaf” to protect you from being attacked for conceding ground on the Singapore issues?
No! This is not a fig leaf. It is a substantial gain for us.

Why did the support for the Indian position weaken between Mexico, Singapore and Doha in the last two months? Why did the Like-Minded Group of developing countries peel off like an onion leaving India standing alone?
We were not alone. Many developing countries openly supported our views.

But at the end few stayed the course, why?
I can not comment on other countries. I know what each of the ministers told me. If they finally could not stand as firm as we did it may be because each country has some compulsion or the other. India can not comment on other countries, everybody has their own compulsions. Some were, of course, bought off with goodies, in front of my eyes! Some were pressured in other ways. Some were able to exchange favours. But they all supported our stand. We should be proud that we were able to stand firm.

You have claimed that you have yielded ground on environment in exchange for gains in agriculture. But on environment you have also yielded on a principle of not linking trade with non-trade issues.
India is committed to clean environment. Our Supreme Court is actively defending environmental causes. Environment as a subject is already in and there are already multilateral environment agreements (MEA). But we opposed this text which EU was very keen on and finally agreed to give and take.

Our worry was that environment will be used as a protectionist weapon and we will make sure that WTO does not permit this. I made a political concession to European Union to get their support for agriculture.

There are MEAs like CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species), the Montreal Convention on CFCs, etc. We are already signatories to these agreements. We have told the world we respect environmental concerns, in fact in India we have done this for centuries. Our people have the highest regard for environment, plant and animal life. We only don’t want this to become a protectionist weapon. We will fight against that.

When you look back on the preparations for Doha, do you now see any other way in which India should have approached the negotiations?
International trade negotiations are not a one shot affair. It is a continuous process of give and take. We tried to pursue a win-win approach in which all countries are satisfied. I believe I have been able to defend our national interest very well at Doha and to that extent the meeting was a success. I have come back from Doha with many trophies. First, we got the declaration on TRIPs and public health. India and Brazil were at the forefront of this campaign which will benefit people all over the world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. This is the biggest trophy we got. It will also benefit the Indian pharmaceutical companies.

My second trophy was securing recognition of implementation issues which are today explicitly recognised in the declaration. The third trophy was the declaration on agriculture where we have been able to address our food security interests, created the basis for a ‘development box’ and ensured better market access in developed country markets. My fourth trophy is the agreement relating to textiles. In textiles, the real challenge for us is internal, to be able to make use of the market opportunities coming our way. Finally, we have been able to bring the issue of geographical indications back onto the agenda for the future. Most important, the issues pertaining to special and differential treatment have also been incorporated in the way we would have liked them to be. No critic can show that anything we have agreed to will harm India.

With all these trophies in your hand why were you and your delegation so glum at the closing session in Doha? While all delegations were seen clapping hands, your entire delegation sat with folded arms and very glum. You seemed deeply disappointed.
No, I was just tired, we were all tired. I had worked continuously for 36 hours and we were fighting on so many fronts. There was so much mischief going on, so many rumours floated, so many planted media reports, such pressure tactics. I am sorry that such things happen at such international meetings, but we had to fight on many fronts. In fact, some hoped that I would wilt under pressure. They know I am a heart patient. I was even advised to go and rest at one point in this closed door meeting. Some countries would have been very happy if I had done that. I had to stay there till the very end. I was not disappointed, just tired and a bit anxious that I might miss my flight home.