Mainstream political parties in India seem to have caught in a time warp of old ideas and old relationships with hardly any party responding smartly to the new ideas being propagated globally. Manifestos are repeating stale lines on foreign policies, and India was, regrettably, literally a bystander at the G-20 London summit.
With top economists running the government there were great expectations from India at the G-20 summit. But our sole contribution was to speak up against protectionism?but trade liberalisation got references only in the sidelines. China came out with an apparently badly worked out new currency arrangement, but at least got notoriety. India has the tradition and the skills with which it could have played a leading role, but had little to say. Its diplomatic bureaucracy has no skills in all this and its economists kept quiet and so the Brazilians, South Africans and Russians carried the day.
We could have for example, spoken about our experience with going slow on capital account convertibility, or about the kind of institutions that are needed to bolster transparency. Neither was unfortunately in the forefront of our arguments.
RBI deputy governor Rakesh Mohan was listened too largely on his record rather than on any intrinsic contribution we had made as a country. The point his earlier chief YV Reddy had made at the G-20 meeting under India?s presidency in Delhi that ?for the first time, the international community through the G-20 endorsed the idea of the voluntary ?principles? for prevention and solution of sovereign crises, which he had suggested when it appeared that the ?SDRM? was not workable.? (Reserve Bank of India, 2007), saw a pale mention in the group Mohan mentored.
Apart from its relative silence on matters economic, it had nothing of consequence to say on nuclear disarmament and the future of energy and climate change. Even worse, it had no position of consequence on developments on security in and around the volatile subcontinent and seemed happy with polite noises on ?its importance? in the new arrangements being worked out.
?The author is a former Union minister. Email: yalagh@gmail.com