बेबाक · Editorial
From Brussels to Wellington, India's Trade Diplomacy Must Be Judged by the Jobs It Creates at Home
India is signing partnerships at a brisk pace, but each one should be measured by whether it delivers decent work, resilient supply and fair mobility to Indians at home.
A crowded diplomatic calendar
India's external economic engagement now spans several continents. India, Belgium and Luxembourg have agreed to strengthen economic ties and explore deeper cooperation in aerospace, research, innovation and higher education. India and Canada held their inaugural Migration and Mobility Dialogue in Delhi. India and Armenia used Foreign Office Consultations to review trade, investment, science and technology, artificial intelligence, education and cultural exchanges. Poland and India aim to raise bilateral trade from $6 billion to $10 billion. A free trade agreement with New Zealand promises stronger trade, investment and professional mobility. The direction is right. A middle power that wants to be respected rather than owned needs many partners, not one patron. But a busy calendar is not the same thing as a strategy.
Openness against protection
The core tension sits inside the Union government's own argument. The Union Commerce Minister says the India-US trade deal will show that farmers' interests are protected. He also defends the government's decision to withdraw from the China-backed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), arguing that joining the bloc would have sounded the death knell for India's manufacturing ambitions. That claim is contested, and it deserves scrutiny rather than applause. The real question is whether India can open its economy selectively, deal by deal, to partners it trusts, without exposing farmers and small manufacturers to shocks they cannot absorb. Choosing bilateral agreements over a large regional bloc is a defensible bet. It is still a bet, and its returns have to be shown.
The case on both sides
Both positions deserve their strongest form. Those who favour caution point out that cheap imports can hollow out domestic industry before it matures, and that agriculture supports too many livelihoods to be traded away for tariff concessions elsewhere. Those who favour deeper integration reply that protection has often sheltered inefficiency, and that India's exporters need predictable access to large markets to grow. The diaspora organisation Indiaspora adds a third concern: Indian professionals are vital to the US economy, visa restrictions could hurt the communities that depend on them, and political leaders should recognise foreign professionals' economic contributions. Mobility, which features in the Canada dialogue and the New Zealand agreement, is clearly a priority for India. It is also what partners can most easily restrict.
The domestic test
The evidence from home should temper any celebration. Even as unemployment falls, India lacks enough decent work, and poor-quality employment has consequences for growth: workers without social security spend less, save less and stay vulnerable to economic shocks. C Rangarajan has urged India to build oil reserves and reduce energy imports, since geopolitical tension and disruptions to international trade have underscored the need for stronger domestic capabilities and greater economic resilience. Domestic connectivity matters too. The Bengaluru-Mumbai Vande Bharat sleeper service connects three states and improves access to North Karnataka, and the Railways has announced another Vande Bharat corridor via Hubballi. Agreements abroad are only as valuable as the capacity at home to make use of them. That means formal jobs, energy security and infrastructure that brings smaller towns into national markets.
Verdict: diplomacy needs a scorecard
Diversifying partnerships is sound policy. So is sustained engagement in the neighbourhood, which the Maldivian President's outreach to Pakistan and the two defence MoUs, as reported, appear to call for. What is missing is accountability for results. Joint statements on aerospace or artificial intelligence count for little unless they produce investment, research collaboration and jobs that can be traced. Growth that does not reach those at the bottom is a vanity metric, and the same is true of trade. A deal that adds a joint statement but no decent job is a diplomatic achievement, not an economic one.
What should be done
The Union government should publish an annual, public outcomes report for every trade agreement and strategic partnership. It should track trade volumes against stated targets, such as the $10 billion goal with Poland, along with investment received, mobility visas granted and returned, and the sectors and states that benefit. Parliament's standing committees should review each agreement before it is signed and again after implementation, with farmer and MSME representatives heard on the record. Mobility clauses should be paired with mutual recognition of qualifications and portable social security, so that Indian workers abroad are not left exposed when a host country's politics changes. At home, the oil reserves that Rangarajan recommends should be built up on a published timeline. Partnerships abroad should be built on resilience at home, not used as a substitute for it.
A trade deal that adds a joint statement but no decent job is a diplomatic achievement, not an economic one.
What this editorial rests on
Drawn from our live multi-newsroom feed — read the reporting at source.
An editorial is the considered opinion of the FarziUPSC desk, argued from the sourced reporting above and written under our published persona, बेबाक. We name institutions, not parties. If we are wrong, we will say so. How we work →