India in the WTO

The popular perception about the WTO in India has been the subject of discussion in seminars and conferences. WTO scholars often express the view that the Indian public and civil society do not understand the WTO well.  And, that therefore opposition to the WTO is often a result of such unfamiliarity and ignorance. I sometimes blog about perceptions about the WTO that different domestic Indian actors have. Here is yet another constituency in India that seems to view the WTO as unsustainable. But does the WTO really propagate homogeneity?

S Gurumurthy, who is convener of the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch had this to say about globalisation and the WTO in a press interview:

Q. In one of your earlier interviews, you told rediff.com that globalisation was not sustainable.

Answer:

Who is talking about globalisation today? Today, it’s just not environmentally, ecologically and culturally sustainable. I have always maintained that it was not economically sustainable, because it is contrary to the very meaning and definition of economics which is associated with frugality.

It is an executive class economics different from the economy class which brings out the difference between economics and excessiveness.

Moreover, globalisation disregards the existence of countries; they talk about a global society, global rule, global citizens, global villages, etc. It was an absolutely idealistic idiosyncrasy. That is gone.

Who is talking about the WTO? I told you long ago that the WTO will not last. If you create an artificial structure, it will not stand. People in different parts of the world have their own models of living; you cannot homogenise them, make them wear the same dress, eat the same food, or see the same cinema or have the same goals. This is what West-centric globalisation attempted, and got the first taste of it in the last four, five years.

Mr Gurumurthy is a leading Chartered Accountant and is closely associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He is a member of the taskforce created by the BJP to look into the issue of black money stashed away in secret foreign bank accounts.

The Swadeshi Jagaran Manch is an Indian political organisation that propagates the market philosophy of Swadeshi, which means self-reliance and favors preference for the neighbourhood or local over the foreign in economic governance and management. It is thus the ideological opposite of globalization. Here is what Wikipedia says about the Swadeshi Jagaran Manch:

The Swadeshi Jagaran Manch is an Indian political organisation committed to the promotion of Swadeshi (Indigenous) industries and culture. It is usually recognised as a part of the Sangh Parivar of Hindu nationalist organisations. SJM came into existence on November 22, 1991 at Nagpur. Representatives of five national level organisations including Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh(BMS), Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad(ABVP), Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS), Akhil Bharatiya Grahak Panchayat (ABGP) & Sahkar Bharati took this decision in the presence of Shri Dattopant Thengdi, founder of BMS. For proper execution of movement a Central Committee was formed and Dr. M.G. Bokare (Ex Vice Chancellor, Nagpur University) was given the responsibility of convenor. On 12 January 1992, Birth Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda, the first massive campaign against the economic policy of central government started. People from all walks of life with distinct ideologies came together on the SJM platform to fight against economic imperialism. Subsequently literature on Swadeshi, intellectual property rights. General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and economic imperialism of multinationals was published and distributed to popularize the cause of SJM. Later on many other organisations joined the forces for Swadeshi like Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, Vidya Bharati, Rashtra Sevika Samiti, Bharatiya Sikshan Mandal etc. Today SJM has become an all-encompassing movement with more than 15 organisations associated with it.