The Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade is now in India. We spent the first three days (September 5th , 6th and 7th) in New Delhi. We left New Delhi late in the evening of the 7th and have arrived after midnight in Hyderabad. From New Delhi to Hyderabad, the flight's duration was about two hours. We are starting again at 8.30 am as we only have one day in Hyderabad. I’d like to share with you what I learned in New Delhi.

Firstly, overall, the three messages I heard were as follows:

1. Canadians need to be more assertive in marketing Canadian exports to India.

2. If the Canadian government and we as Canadians seriously want to build a commercial partnership with India, then we have to commit to invest resources and build a relationship with Indians for a long period of time. The examples of South Korea and Japan were used as these two countries have achieved significant commercial prosperity by committing to work with Indians over the long term.

3. The great faith Indians have in the diaspora community in interpreting Canada to Indians and India to Canadians.

On September 6th, we started the day by meeting with the Centre for Policy Research. The Centre is a non-partisan research institute which develops substantive policy options for the improvement of policy making and provides advisory services to governments and other organizations on social and economic development. This Centre works closely with Canadians, especially with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). In fact, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, the President and CEO of the Centre and a distinguished scholar, also serves on the Board of IDRC. We discussed topics of mutual interest from the role India is playing in the development of Afghanistan. India has consciously decided to play a constructive role in developing Afghanistan; and even when it is attacked it has not reacted with violence. The challenges India faces with its neighbors, particularly Pakistan and China, were discussed extensively. I am now starting to appreciate India’s dilemma regarding how they are to work with their neighbors peacefully, the way that Mahatma Gandhi had envisioned. We learned a lot from our discussions of what challenges India faces. They also gave us some idea as to what role Canada could be playing in this region. This discussion added to our knowledge from what we had learned from our study and readings.

We then went to tour India's Parliament. The national legislature is bicameral. There is the Rajya Sabha (upper house) and Lok Sabha (lower house). The Rajya Sabha (the upper house) has 245 members – 233 elected by weighted votes of the elected members of Parliament and the legislative assemblies of states and union territories and 12 appointed by the President. The Lok Sabha (lower house) has 545 members – 543 elected by constituencies (79 seats are reserved for "scheduled castes" and 40 for "scheduled tribes") and two representatives of Anglo-Indians appointed by the President.

There were a number of explanations about reservations; that is quotas or reserved seats for specific disadvantaged groups, such as the Scheduled Castes and Tribes. This is a bureaucratic name for India's out castes, so called because of the specific castes suffering from the stigma of “untouchability” and aboriginal tribes that are listed in the "schedules" which are part of the constitution. We learned that the upper house has passed a bill that would reserve one-third of the seats for women. I understand that this bill will now go to the lower house and there is a good possibility that it will pass and become law in India. India is a very diverse country and it is attempting to have a representative group reflected in its Parliament. Canada also is a very diverse group and we in the future will need to look at ways to make our citizens see themselves reflected in their representatives. I believe we can learn some interesting lessons from India.

We were also shown a museum that is part of India's Library of Parliament. This museum reflects India's democracy through the centuries.

The Speaker of the Lok Sabha (lower house), Meira Kumar, received us very warmly. She is the first Dalit to become speaker. The Dalit or "the oppressed" is a term preferred since the 1970s by the new generation of those from India's bottom caste system. They have been known by various terms such as "untouchables" or "Harijans"(“people of God,” a name given to them by Mahatma Gandhi). “Untouchability” is, sadly, a stigma placed on the lowest of India's castes. The term very literally means that the person cannot be touched by a higher caste Hindu because of the fear that such contact may pollute the higher caste Hindu. This has been outlawed in the constitution but sadly it is still practiced in many parts of rural India. Now caste discrimination is a punishable offense and prosecutions occasionally occur.

In the afternoon we met with Mr. Basu and his officials. He is the Secretary General for Agriculture. There was a very lively discussion with him. He explained to us that 60 percent of India's population works on farms and produces 16 percent of its GDP. The remaining 84 percent of GDP needs to be produced by forty percent of the population. Therein lays the gap. He was very frank with us and said that we need to market our agriculture products more aggressively. He remarked that he had said this to us many years ago. We have not followed his advice. There are many benefits to canola oil and we need to have a marketing strategy and a competitive price, as we are competing with palm oil.

We were also supposed to meet with the foreign minister Krishna. Unfortunately, he was sick. Instead we met with the Secretary of State Perneet Kaur. The Minister was very complimentary of the relationship the Canadian diaspora has built with Indians. She went on to speak about how important it was to understand that India has a very vibrant democracy and its rapid economic growth has led to challenges. There needs to be continuous negotiation with the people on issues of expropriation and working conditions.

We then heard from Harsh Mander who has been appointed by the Supreme Court of India as a food commissioner. He is presently working on a food bill. He said to us that every second child in India is malnourished. I will set out the details of his project in a separate blog dedicated to this subject.

In the evening and the next day we met with Canadian businessmen working in India and Indian businessmen working with Canadian companies. Their messages to us were very clear.

1. If we are serious about trade with India our government and companies need to stay here for a long time.

2. Learn the rules of trade of India.

3. India has an independent judiciary.

Most importantly, they said to us they believe both India and Canada can very much benefit from this partnership. I agree with them.

On the 7th of September, we were well-received by a number of Ministers. Their message to us was that there are many opportunities for both India and Canada to trade. Canadians need to get involved. This would be a win-win situation for both our countries. We finished around 6.30 and drove directly to the airport to go to Hyderabad.

In the last few days I have acquired a better insight of the challenges India faces and more importantly, the challenges Canadians will face when trading with India. I am leaving New Delhi with the firm belief if we as a country want to continue to prosper in the future, we need to find ways of trading with India. I will share with you my experience of Hyderabad soon.

 

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