India's game plan on GATT: Will it work?

RESISTANCE to GATT secretary general Arthur Dunkel's proposals is building up in India. But even as the government tries to pacify fears that it will give *in to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) - the all- encompassing global trade rules that are being negotiated - its game plan seems ambiguous and the indications are it will be forced to toe the line of developed countries.

Shortly after nearly 15,000 farmers gathered in Delhi (see page 5) to bum a copy of the Dunkel draft (DD) text, Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao assured Parliament the government would spare no effort to protect India's interests. Nevertheless, several members of Parliament and envi- ronmentalists are dissatisfied.

Sharad Yadav, the Janata Dal (B)'s firebrand parliamentarian, exemplifies anti-Dunkel opinion when he the intellectual points they form the most crucial aspect of a "strategy of industrialised countries to deny nations like India access to technology, capacity for technological change, or acquisition of any competitive capacity."

In lay terms, intellectual property refers to the invention or formulation of a product, technology or design and rights to the reognition of the inventiveness. Developed, countries argue the neglect of IPRs by others - Third World countries in particular - has made their goods and services available without adequate compensation. Under Western pressure, Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) were made part of the GATT agenda in 1986 at Punta del Este, Uruguay.
Loss aF freedom Dinesh Abrol of Delhi's National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies, who is also joint convener of the National right (IPR) provisions in DD are the Working Group on Patent Laws, most damaging, especially because warns, "A uniform acceptance of the IPRs regime suggested by DD, would resulHn the total loss of freedom that is now allowed by India's patent laws, to keep scientific research in line with the country's developmental objectives and other social and economic interests."

While DD proposes that "patents will be available for any invention, product and process in all fields of technology", the existing Indian Patents Act (IPA), 1970, does not provide patent, protection for certain products. IPA grants patents only to processes used to make a product, provided they vary from the process used to make the original product. Before 1970, multinational corporations were free to use product patents to prevent Indian enterprises from producing their products. But, Abrol points out, after IPA was enacted, Indian pharmaceutical firms could make new medicinal drugs between three and five years of their introduction abroad.

In a related argument, Nirmal K Chandra of the Indian Ins ,titute of Management in Calcutta, notes the TRIPS scheme demands licensing of intellectual property in such stringent terms that patent-holders can prevent the use of even basic scientific knowledge to develop new or secondary technologies. If enforced, warns Abrol, the licensing provisions would hit several fast- growing, export-oriented industries, especially computer software because "any fresh soft- ware package needs some existing software".

However, the most dramatic protests in the country during the past prevent the use three months have been against DD's proposals on IPRs for biological processes, plants and animals and biotechnology. These are the provisions that have become the target of protests by farmer organisations, such as technologies the Bharatiya Kisan Union and the Karnatak Rajya Ryota Sangha, who contend present Indian law does not recognisC intellectual property in any form of life - plant or animal.

DD allows protection of plant varieties "either by patents or any effective sui generis system" and environmentalist Vandana Shiva notes the latter requirement "semantically suggests that while various signatories to GATT would be allowed to have their need-specific IPR systems, its implication may actually be the opposite". According to her, the key word, is notes that the efficacy of an IPR system will be decided not by the country of origin but by the developed countries who dominate GATT. Indian agricultural experts warn sui generis systems in developed countries have strengthened rights in favour of plant breeders, not farmers. Most importantly, they prevent farmers from multiplying and selling seeds of new varieties.

There are other powerful sections of Indian industry and agriculture who feel DD's provisions will facilitate growth and expand.economic activity. A prominent leader of this group is Maharashtra's Sharad Joshi, who is actively mobilising pro-Dunkel opinion. Pro-Dunkel lobbies in industry include Associated Chambers of Commerce, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and Confederation of Indian Industry. FICCI president K R Poddar states that DD, despite certain shortcomings, represent a "good compromise formula". In the drug industry, the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India, which is dominated by multinationals, is strident in its demands that the Dunkel proposals be accepted.

Intellectual Property Rights: The Variuos Views

Muscle and bone
Union commerce ministry officials, meanwhile, say they are willing to hear both sides. But, the government seems to be closer to the pro-DD position, contending IPRs are as vital for the Indian economy to develop foreign investment, as "muscles and bones are to the human body". Union commerce secretary A V Ganesan, while hinting that his ministry is with DD, nevertheless told a recent meeting of industry organisations that it is important the country to maintain farmers' rights to acquire and retain plant and seed varieties.

Though much of future Indian scientific and industrial activity will be affected by DD, the Union commerce ministry, as the GATT talks supposedly concern trade. Commerce ministry officials insist they are aware of the dangers to Indian interests and they are negotiating safer grounds of agreement. Nonetheless, many politicians and activists accuse the commerce ministry of being far too secretive and even MPs attached to the ministry's consultative committee and others who have served on it say they have no definite information on the strategy and scope of India's negotiating positions.

This impression cuts across even party lines. "We have been told only that the government is doing something. What this means, no one knows," says Hannan Mollah of the CPM. And, Prithviraj Chavan of the ruling Congress, who is recognised as an erudite commentator on GATT-related issues, concedes, "Parlia-ment has not been given much information on DD negotiations." But, he argues, its better that these complex issues are left to experts.

In contrast, Union agriculture minister Balram Jakhar, who is reportedly influential among farmers in Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana, told Down To Earth his ministry has sent a detailed note to the commerce ministry outlining its "opposition to the Dunkel proposals three months ago. I am still waiting for an answer."

Unexamined implications
Indeed, Parliament itself has found little time during the past two years to examine the implications of DD he and what must be negotiated.Eighteen months ago, nearly 350 MPs raft will for signed a petition urging the government to recognize the latent dangers in the TRIPS scheme. Mollah, who initiated the campaign, recalls, "Many MPs agreed to put their names on simply because I told them that GATT was dangerous to the country. Most of them did not even ask what GATT was about."

Not surprisingly, the position on DD of several MPs conforms to dwir party's stand on liberalisation and globalisation of the Indian emnomy.

"Do you really think it is possible Jw India to reject outright the Dunkel dmft?" asks Chavan. "Can we stay Wated like Albania or Myanmai?" Any sober cons*deration of India's Oftrests, he contends, must recog nise that India accounts for only 0.4 per cent of global trade and can negotiate only from this position. But he adds, "As our economy grows stronger, we will acquire greaterweight in global negotiations."

In contrast, Mollah foresees DD's impact on India as "nothing but a recolonising process". And adopting a midway stance is BJP representative Prem Kumar Dhumal, who wants India to sign DD "but only after extracting more favourable terms".

Though Dhumal is flummoxed when asked how such terms can be obtained, he is not alone in his conviction. The commerce ministry argues in a note to MPs that as many developed countries are still bickering over DD, "there may be opportunities for us also to seek improve ments and changes in the Dunkel package". But former foreign secretary Muchkund Dubey, who was a member of India's negotiating team at several GATT meetings in the late 1980s, explains the implication in the note is that "on its own, the government has no mind to seek changes. If developed countries sank their tradie differences on issues such as agriculture, India would accept the fait accompli presented to it."

Opinions within the country are polarised, but how strong the anti-Dunkel opposition can become depends on how much force the nation's farmers can muster.

The Brussels draft Versus The Dunkel Draft