Rigged Rules, Rising Powers: Why India Won’t Play WTO’s Old Game

There is an instructive scene in Martin Scorsese's "Casino" where Robert De Niro's character explains the unwritten rules of Las Vegas.

The house always wins, he says, not because the odds are good (they aren't), but because the game is designed that way. India’s relationship with the World Trade Organization operates on a similar principle. It isn’t that India is reckless or recalcitrant. It’s that the system, as written, wasn’t designed for an India of consequence. And now that it is one, the rules are starting to crack.

At the WTO’s 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) in June 2022, India’s trade minister Piyush Goyal delayed final agreement on key issues—fisheries subsidies, public stockholding for food, and a broad COVID-19 patent waiver—until they secured assurances on India’s concerns. The symbolism was intentional: India was sending a message that its domestic priorities– cheap food for the masses, subsidy space for farmers, and flexibilities in medicine patents–must not be sacrificed to global orthodoxy.

The caricature of India as the WTO’s resident killjoy misses the point. The fundamental problem is not Indian intransigence but a global trading system built on 1980s presumptions that no longer hold. The WTO's architecture presumes a world where India remains perpetually minor. History had other plans.

Agricultural Subsidies and Food Security

For India, farming is literally existential. India’s public stockholding (PSH) scheme buys rice and wheat at minimum support prices (MSP) well above market rates, then sells them cheaply through food stores. Nearly 80 crore Indians depend on subsidised grain to survive, and farm interests dominate the electorate ​​in vast swathes of the country.

Yet WTO rules constrain how much support a government can offer. The so-called Amber Box subsidy cap (10% of production value for developing countries) was set in the 1990s when India played little role in global markets. Today, it looms as a straightjacket on a nation that has become the world’s second-largest rice and wheat producer. In practice, India has regularly exceeded this ceiling. For example, its 2020/21 rice procurement program was calculated at 52% above the allowable limit. US analysts even estimate India’s domestic price support for rice at 87% of its production value – nearly nine times the 10% cap. These numbers draw WTO scrutiny. But the problem isn’t the support, it’s the rule.

That rule was softened, slightly, with a “peace clause” in 2013 that immunised such subsidies from dispute, pending a more permanent fix. That fix hasn’t materialised. India wants either a recalibration of the baseline or a blanket exemption for public food stockholding. Until then, we will keep invoking the clause and keep feeding our people.

The hypocrisy isn’t subtle. Countries like Canada complain about Indian subsidies while their own leaders cheer on protests against reforms that would have reduced them. When India deregulates, it is accused of betraying farmers. When it subsidises, it is accused of distorting markets. There is no right answer because the framework itself is rigged.

Intellectual Property and Public Health

India’s pharmaceutical industry was built not on WTO rules, but in the gaps between them. Our courts have interpreted TRIPS to allow cheap generics and block evergreening. In 2013, India’s Supreme Court refused to grant a patent on Novartis’s cancer drug Glivec. The ruling was a masterclass in balancing legality with ethics.

In 2020, India and South Africa spearheaded a proposal to temporarily waive patent rights on COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, invoking the Doha Declaration’s principle that TRIPS should be interpreted to protect public health (notably, the WTO ministerial in Doha 2001 affirmed that public health is paramount). Wealthy nations initially resisted these proposals; after nearly two years of negotiations, a watered-down waiver eventually passed, covering only vaccines, and long after it would have mattered.

Digital Trade and Data Sovereignty

A newer battlefield is the digital economy. Since 1998, members have agreed not to impose customs duties on electronic transmissions (like downloads of books, music, software). Develop. ed countries push to keep this moratorium indefinitely, citing the importance of open digital trade. India (with South Africa, Indonesia, etc.) has consistently objected, arguing that untaxed digital flows benefit tech multinationals, deprive poorer states of revenue, and remove leverage over an industry already too powerful.

At the WTO Ministerial Conference (MC13) in Abu Dhabi (2024), India refused to endorse an e-commerce declaration unless it could keep its “digital services tax” and data localisation rules in place. Indian officials point out that many products (films, books, games) once traded in physical form are now digital, and those incur no customs under the moratorium.

India’s position is that without a reciprocal solution (like an international digital tax or compensation), extending the ban unconditionally would be unfair. A Reuters report noted that India’s stance even drew warnings from chip manufacturers, who said duties on cross-border data (like chip design files) could backfire on India’s own tech ambitions.

That may be true. But the greater peril lies in allowing a precedent that cements Silicon Valley’s supremacy at the expense of emerging tech powers. India is demanding a seat at the table before the rules are carved in stone.

Structural Imbalances and the Limits of WTO

More fundamentally, India’s WTO battles reflect how the institution’s architecture was built for the world of 1995, not 2025. At that time, negotiators assumed developing countries like India would remain minor players.

Rules on agriculture, industrial tariffs, even dispute voting, were all agreed when India’s share of global trade and subsidies was small. The rules’ inertia benefits those who wrote them—largely the US and EU, who now weaponise them against rising economies.

India portrays itself as voicing the “Global South,” demanding that special and differential treatment (SDT) remain robust. It continues to classify itself as a developing country with large gaps in welfare. When in 2019 major economies pushed to narrow SDT (arguing that countries meeting certain wealth or trade thresholds should graduate), India forcefully rejected any change, calling SDT a “treaty-given right” and noting that significant development gaps persist.

Yes, some poorer members wish India would accept more responsibility. Yes, its tactics frustrate the West. But the real sin lies with an organisation that has failed to adapt. If rules written in Geneva cannot accommodate the realities of Mumbai, Lagos, or Jakarta, then the rules need rewriting.

India’s assertiveness at the WTO hasn't been an aberration. It is a preview. As more emerging economies reach middle-income status, they will ask the same questions: who wrote these rules, and why do they still apply?

If the WTO remains a relic of the 20th century, it will be treated as one—ignored, circumvented, or gamed. If it evolves, India might yet become its strongest advocate. Until then, expect more delays, more demands, and more discomfort. The house doesn’t always win anymore.