The fifth ministerial of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) failed and the Indian media was quick enough to lap it up as a huge success for India and the developing world. Some of the leading dailies had dramatic headlines on 16 September:
"Cancun's fall: the rich hardsell, poor don't buy" – Indian Express
"India gains at Cancun" – The Times of India
"Cancun meet collapses after standoff" – The Hindu
The stories that followed eloquently and proudly informed readers of how India had bravely warded off the unfair and unequal trade order being imposed on the world and how it played a leading role in protecting the interests of millions of farmers and poor people from developing countries. "India Inc. hails Jaitley", read another headline, applauding the Union Minister for Commerce Arun Jaitley for successfully leading the fight against the vested economic and political interests of the developed world. "The fact that we brought the concerns of developing countries to the centre stage reflects the success of Cancun", Jaitley is reported to have said at the conclusion of the talks.
Centre stage and success? One had all along been led to believe, with a vehemence that brooked no misgiving, that the whole purpose of trade liberalisation and the WTO was always to benefit the developing world. Now one is expected to believe that these concerns were not even in the picture in the first place, and that the entire struggle is to get them to the centre stage, and that 'success' lies in actually achieving this objective. It is interesting to look at the semantics of the media take on the talks—the talks failed? Or did they succeed? If they failed, did India gain? If India gained, did the talks fail? How could they fail? If India gained because the talks failed, who actually failed? Who lost? If nobody lost, how did the talks fail? If everybody lost, why the celebration? If failure is success, why were the talks held in the first place? And who wanted them? Who continues to want them?