The Western world is unhappy with the decision of the Narendra Modi government to stop wheat exports for the time being. Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was able to ‘round up’ some of the diplomatic gains during his trilateral tour of Europe during the Ukraine war. But with the recent decision to ban grain exports, it seems to have lost some ground.
In early May, the Prime Minister himself, standing in Germany, claimed that India could come forward to supply food grains to the rest of the world if the WTO allowed it. The Centre also said that it would send trade teams to nine countries to look into the possibility of exporting wheat, keeping in mind the bumper yield of wheat. But the international community is practically a bit confused as the Centre abruptly backed away from that decision and decided to impose a ban on wheat exports abroad.
India’s decision has been criticized by the industrialized nations of G-7. A meeting of agriculture ministers from the G-7 countries was already scheduled in Stuttgart, Germany, over the wheat crisis in the wake of the Ukraine-Russia war. This ‘fresh’ decision to stop India’s exports was seriously discussed there. Afterwards, German Agriculture Minister Kem Ozemi said in a statement that “if everyone imposes sanctions on their exports or locks up their markets for other countries, the food crisis will get worse.”
New Delhi is under pressure as India has not joined the US and Western world condemnation of Russia in the diplomatic camp. On top of that, the fact that India continues to buy crude oil from Russia at lower prices has not pleased the US. There is a lot of pressure on this. This time the list of dissatisfaction was added to the Indian ban on wheat exports. Germany is currently in the lead of G-7. India has been invited as an observer country to the forthcoming meeting of this powerful group of Japan, Italy, France, Germany, Canada, America and Britain. The meeting is scheduled for next month. According to sources, if India’s decision on exports does not change, then Narendra Modi will be under pressure there.
According to ministry sources, New Delhi could take specific countries on a wheat export route to balance domestic obligations and international pressure. That is to say, after this, the state which will ask for wheat directly from India, their requests will be judged. According to government sources, if the price of wheat stabilizes in the Indian market in a few weeks, the door will be opened to send wheat on a debt-to-equity basis with other countries (i.e. India and its imposition of necessary conditions in exchange for wheat exports). It has also been said that the country with which India has strong bilateral relations will be given more importance.
The Commerce and Industry Ministry also placed onion seeds export under the category of “prohibited”. Both the orders of onion seeds and wheat came into effect at once.