Hard Line at WTO Earns Indian Praise

Nath has been contesting and winning elections for 28 years in one of the poorest regions of India and has learned how to balance political and economic priorities. "Who was sitting with me on the table in Geneva? The American negotiator is an academician. The Brazilian foreign minister is a diplomat. And here I was with 28 years of election politics," Nath said in the interview. "I know how to drive a hard bargain."

During the talks, he said, he kept a list of trading countries, writing down points deemed "Must Haves" and "Cannot Accept."

"At any time, I knew exactly how much I could yield to whom," he said with a laugh, showing his notes.

Nath is also an important fundraiser for the ruling Congress party. He studied in one of India's most prestigious private schools and recently wrote a book about this country's economic dream, titled "India's Century."

While writing of a bright future, Nath represents an impoverished constituency, Chhindwara, where about 1.2 million people earn less than a dollar a day. Villagers there dote on him, sometimes washing his feet with their bare hands in metal basins as a sign of respect. He enjoys a sultan-like image among his voters with sometimes flamboyant gestures of largess.

Last year, he arranged for two jets to fly senior Indian industrialists into Chhindwara. He urged them to examine the possibility of turning the power- and water-starved region into a hub of agricultural and forest production.

In 2006, he invited E.U. Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson to his New Delhi home for his birthday. He also invited a few thousand non-English-speaking poor farmers from Chhindwara. Soon, Nath was swamped by an enthusiastic crowd calling him "Brother Kamal."

Mandelson was a key figure in the Geneva talks, which he later called very difficult and confrontational.

Devinder Sharma, an analyst at the Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security, called Nath "a very astute politician. If he had returned to India from Geneva without the safeguard mechanisms on agriculture, he would have been in unimaginable political trouble. . . . He understands the global economic vocabulary, but he is also a mass leader in India."

Nath said he is not entirely happy the Geneva talks crumbled. The outcome delays decisions on some positive international opportunities for Indians trading in sugar, fruits and vegetables, and cotton, he noted.

But in the end, he said, the problem was the Americans.

Nath recalled that on Tuesday, just before the talks collapsed, U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said, "You know, Kamal, I love you."

"I said, 'Susan, I love you, too. But you clearly don't love me enough, otherwise we would have had a deal on our hands.' "