Assertive Sitharaman halts G-20 summation; shows govt has changed, but the sovereign position has not

NEW DELHI: Power dressing and the soft drape of the sari may not be mentioned in the same breath, but at the recently held G-20 meet in Australia, this received a subcontinental makeover.

Commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s strong pitch for adhering to assurances made to India at the Bali round of the WTO in December 2013, took many by surprise, not least because unlike her mannered interventions in TV debates back home, she broke some protocols to drive in some home truths on the matter.

While many of the G-20 countries voiced their hope that India would be willing to sign off on trade facilitation along with the governmental change that had been affected in Delhi, Sitharaman along with the Argentinians and South Africans (with liberal quotes from Mahatma Gandhi) made it clear that each stood by decisions taken by their governments in December 2013 in Bali.

“Despite reiterating in most bilaterals that India would be sticking to its December stance, and even at the G-20 meet itself, during the summation the Australian trade minister Andrew Robb did not mention these concerns expressed by these three countries,” said a source present at the meeting.

As Robb was concluding the summation, Sitharaman intervened, a breach of protocol which raised eyebrows across the G-20 high table. “Robb asked the minister whether she was aware that speaking after the summation was not part of the protocol.

The minister replied that she was ‘most conscious of the fact’ that it was not so,” said the source.

She went ahead and asked as to why the concerns of India, Argentina, and South Africa and the absent LDC nations were not part of the summation.

“The Argentinian minister very rightly quoted Mahatma Gandhi to describe our position, that the ends do not justify the means, that trade facilitation cannot be a standalone issue, and our concerns on food security and public stock holding have to be part of that process,” she is reported to have said.