Ever since India unexpectedly announced a ban on wheat exports last week it has gotten a lot of international heat for compounding a worldwide shortfall triggered by the Ukraine-Russia war. Now at a high-level ministerial meeting (Global Food Security – Call to Action) in New York, MoS external affairs V Muraleedharan has defended India’s position by making the comparison with what had happened to anti-Covid vaccines: “Open markets must not become an argument to perpetuate inequity and promote discrimination.”
Recall that India had effectively banned the export of vaccines in April last year, as the Delta wave engulfed it. But if India’s own vaccine orders had been placed in a timely way, it need not have failed to meet other countries’ orders. Effectively it joined the richer countries in rendering the open market for anti-Covid vaccines non-existent at that time.
In today’s wheat scenario too what is needed is better domestic policy, including higher MSP, rather than a knee-jerk reaction that hurts both the country’s reputation as a reliable supplier in global markets and its own farmers. Instead of unpersuasively pointing fingers at hoarding and speculation, India should reverse the export ban.
