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Will India's Disengaging Trade Policy Restrict It from Playing a Greater Global Role?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 January 2021

Amitendu Palit
Amitendu Palit*
Affiliation:
Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, Singapore
*
Email: isasap@nus.edu.sg
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Abstract

India's ambition of playing a prominent role in regional and global affairs has been particularly visible since the assumption of office by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2014. The ambition has resulted in India's external engagement, abandoning the posturing of non-alignment for a more proactive multi-alignment strategy. Its efforts to engage with major powers such as the US and China, as well as other global middle powers such as Japan, the UK, and Australia, have been positioned on rapid economic progress, enabled by one of the fastest rates of growth among major economies. Attempts to expand global strategic influence, a natural outcome of robust economic expansion, should have seen India pursuing an aggressive outward-oriented external trade policy for increasing its share in global trade. India, though, has shown a marked resistance to open trade, including being reluctant to engage in regional and bilateral trade negotiations. This paper examines the dichotomy between India's desire to play a prominent global role and its aversion to open trade policies. Attributing the inward-looking approach to lack of competitiveness of Indian industry, absence of domestic pro-trade constituencies, and discomfort in negotiating new-generation trade issues, the paper argues India's quest for greater global strategic influence might be adversely affected by its restrictive trade policies.

Keywords

Indiaindustrial policyeconomic statecrafttrade policycompetitiveness
Type
Original Article
Information
World Trade Review , Volume 20 , Special Issue 2: Economic Statecraft and Global Trade in the 21st Century , May 2021 , pp. 203 - 219
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

Dr Amitendu Palit is Senior Research Fellow and Research Lead (Trade & Economic Policy) at the Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) in the National University of Singapore (NUS). He can be reached at isasap@nus.edu.sg and amitendu@gmail.com.

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