Deconstructing India’s Negotiating Dexterity

The question “does India negotiate?” needs to be answered right in the beginning, and the answer is a resounding yes. It does negotiate in the multilateral frameworks. Any prev­ailing counter-opinion describing India’s postu­ring as ‘‘defensive,’’ ‘‘prickly,’’ and ‘‘obstructionist’’ (p 4) reflects a generalisation, especially among a section of the Western and affiliated audience and does not withstand empirical scrutiny. Before identifying India as being a multilateral naysayer, it is vital to trace India’s interests with respect to a particular issue.

Karthik Nachiappan, the author of Does India Negotiate? provides concrete rationale and evidence behind this and successfully pummels such preconceived notions. Such evidence is furni­shed by meticulous empirical examination of primary and secondary sources, coupled with relevant semi-structured interviews, thus demonstrating the realistic Indian negotiating positions, interests, and decisions represented during the formalisation of four different regimes, namely the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), and the Uruguay Round Trade Agreement, broadly between the late 1980s up to the mid 1990s. It must be noted that the primary negotiating agency varied with different nodal mini­stries—health, environment, external affairs, and commerce, respectively, for each of the regimes chosen.