Congress leader Jairam Ramesh flags 'withdrawal' of NITI Aayog's working paper on Indo-U.S. trade
He claimed that the NITI Aayog paper called for allowing duty-free import of genetically-modified (GM) maize and soyabean from the United States, and alleged that the Narendra Modi government prioritises Midwestern American farmers over their counterparts in states, such as Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan.
The NITI Aayog had, in a working paper titled "Promoting India-US Agricultural Trade Under the New US Trade Regime", suggested that in the aftermath of "reciprocal tariffs" imposed by the U.S., India should adopt a dual-track approach and selectively reduce the high tariffs on non-sensitive agricultural commodities' imports from Washington, while also strategically offering concessions where domestic supply gaps exist.
"This was the NITI Aayog Working Paper on Promoting India-US Agricultural Trade Under the New US Trade Regime that was officially issued on May 30, 2025, but taken off the website a few days later and is now officially withdrawn," Mr. Ramesh said in a post on X.
In another post, he claimed that the NITI Aayog paper called for allowing duty-free import of GM maize and soyabean from the U.S.
"For the Modi sarkar, the interests of Midwestern American farmers and large Multinational Corporation traders are bigger than that of the maize farmers of Bihar and soyabean farmers of MP, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan," he alleged.
Who authorised the release of the paper and is this a preview of the forthcoming Indo-U.S. trade agreement, the former Union Minister asked.
When contacted, a NITI Aayog spokesperson did not offer any comment.
The working paper had noted that the sudden announcement of "reciprocal tariffs" and enhanced market access for US exports, following Donald Trump's re-election as the U.S. President in January, has sent shockwaves across the world, especially among the trading partners of America.
"India can also strategically offer concessions where domestic supply gaps exist, such as in edible oils and nuts," the paper had suggested.
Noting that India is the largest importer of edible oil in the world and the U.S. has a huge export surplus of soyabean, which is GM, the paper had said India can offer some concession to the U.S. in the import of soyabean oil to meet demands in that country and reduce the trade imbalance, without harming domestic production.
The paper had also suggested that India should negotiate more access to the U.S. market for high-performing exports like shrimp, fish, spices, rice, tea, coffee and rubber. India earns approximately $5.75 billion annually from agri-exports to the U.S. Expanding this through duty waivers or TRQs should be part of trade talks.
Meanwhile, India has hardened its position on issues related to agriculture as negotiations with a US team in Washington have entered a crucial stage, an official said on Monday.
The official also said that the stay of the Indian team, headed by Special Secretary in the Department of Commerce Rajesh Agrawal, is likely to be extended further.
The team is in Washington for negotiations on an interim trade agreement with the U.S. Both sides are rushing to close a deal ahead of the July 9 deadline for the full implementation of the 26% reciprocal tariff, which has been suspended since April.
"If the proposed trade talks fail, the 26% tariffs will come into force again," the official added.
The stay of the Indian officials was already extended by three days till June 30. Initially, the delegation was scheduled to spend two days in the U.S., with the talks having commenced on June 26.
Another official said the Commerce Ministry has informed domestic exporters and industry that talks are on for the first phase of the proposed bilateral trade agreement.
There would be more phases.
These talks are significant as both countries are engaged in negotiations for an interim trade deal and are trying to finalise the pact before July 9, the deadline for the expiry of the suspension of the reciprocal tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on April 2.
On April 2, the U..S imposed an additional 26% reciprocal tariff on Indian goods but suspended it for 90 days. However, the 10% baseline tariff imposed by the US remains in place. India is seeking full exemption from the additional 26% tariff.
The U.S. is demanding duty concessions in the agriculture and dairy sectors.
But these segments are difficult and challenging areas for India to give duty concessions to the US as Indian farmers are into sustenance farming and have small land holdings.
Therefore, these sectors are politically sensitive as well.
India has not opened up the dairy sector for any of its trading partners in any free-trade pacts it has signed so far.
The US wants duty concessions on certain industrial goods, automobiles, especially electric vehicles, wines, petrochemical products, dairy and agricultural items like apples, tree nuts and GM crops.
India is seeking duty concessions for labour-intensive sectors like textiles, gems and jewellery, leather goods, garments, plastics, chemicals, shrimp, oil seeds, grapes and bananas in the proposed trade pact.
The two countries are also looking to conclude talks for the first tranche of the proposed bilateral trade agreement (BTA) by fall (September-October). The pact is aimed at more than doubling the bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030 from the current $191 billion.
Before the first tranche, they are trying for an interim trade pact.
The U.S. team was here from June 5 to June 11 for the talks. The negotiations will continue both virtually and physically in the days to come.
India's merchandise exports to the U.S. rose by 21.78% to $17.25 billion in April-May this fiscal, while imports rose by 25.8 per cent to $8.87 billion.
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The Wire
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The Kerala Precedent: How Article 356 Became a Weapon of Cold War Politics
Newly declassified British intelligence files have confirmed coordinated CIA-UK operations with Congress leaders that led to the downfall of Kerala's 1959 Communist government. EMS Namboodiripad. On July 31, 1959, the Nehru Government invoked Article 356 of the Constitution to dismiss a state government for the first time against a non-Congress administration. E.M.S. Namboodiripad, who had served as Kerala's chief minister from April 5, 1957, saw his Communist-led government terminated after 27 months in power. What followed was not just a change of government, but a constitutional precedent that would haunt Indian federalism for decades. For 65 years, the story of this dismissal has been contested territory. To supporters of the Vimochana Samaram (Liberation Struggle), the mass agitation that culminated in the dismissal represented a popular uprising against Communist overreach. 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The trained operatives were then "infiltrated into the Indian National Trade Union Congress," bolstering its ability to counter CPI-aligned unions. This created what McGarr describes as sustained political pressure that complemented CIA funding efforts. "The people of India have the right to know the truth about the 1959 dismissal of Kerala's first Communist government. I believe that much is still remaining hidden about the Vimochana Samaram, which was shaped not only by local politics but also by external interventions that influenced the course of democracy in postcolonial India. The newly revealed UK involvement is almost unbelievable, but surprisingly new," observed eminent political scientist G. Gopakumar. Ballot box Communists The undivided CPI's electoral victory in Kerala in 1957 created one of the earliest democratically elected Communist governments in the world. It was only the second revolutionary government ever elected democratically, after communist success in San Marino from 1945 to 1957. This democratic path to socialism sent ripples across the Cold War world, where the ideological battle between capitalism and communism typically played out through revolution or military intervention, not electoral politics. In Washington and London, policymakers watched apprehensively as Namboodiripad's government began implementing the radical reforms that had brought it to power. The Communist government's troubles began with its very success in implementing promised reforms. The Kerala Education Bill of 1957, piloted by state education minister Joseph Mundassery, aimed to bring the state's schools under tighter government regulation. The legislation required that teacher appointments in grant-aided private schools – many run by Christian churches and caste organisations – be made from government-approved lists. For the powerful Syrian Catholic Church and organisations like the Nair Service Society, these reforms represented an existential threat to decades-old control over education and patronage networks. The changes would have significantly affected the livelihoods and autonomy of thousands of teachers while reducing the influence of religious and community organisations over educational institutions. Even more explosive were the agrarian reforms championed by revenue minister K.R. Gouri. The legislation sought to confer ownership rights to long-term tenant cultivators, fix ceilings on landholdings, and prevent arbitrary eviction of tenants. For the landed elites – particularly the Nair and Syrian Christian communities who had dominated Kerala's rural economy for generations – these reforms were unacceptable. The gathering storm Opposition to the EMS government began coalescing almost immediately after the bills were introduced. The Syrian Catholic Church mobilised its considerable resources against the education bill, with Church leaders framing the legislation as an attack on religious freedom and minority rights. Simultaneously, the Nair Service Society, under Mannathu Padmanabhan's leadership, began organising against the land reforms. The Indian National Congress, smarting from its electoral defeat, provided political coordination for what would become a formidable opposition coalition. The protests, initially peaceful, gradually escalated. The turning point came on June 13, 1959, at Angamaly, where police firing on protesters resulted in seven deaths. Similar incidents followed across the state, creating a cycle of violence and political mobilisation that would ultimately provide the justification for central intervention. Evidence of foreign involvement The question of foreign involvement in the Vimochana Samaram has been the subject of scholarly investigation for decades. CIA funding of the Congress party has been documented on multiple occasions. The most significant admission came from Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who served as US Ambassador to India in the 1970s. In his memoir A Dangerous Place, Moynihan revealed that the CIA had secretly funded the Indian National Congress on multiple occasions, including operations targeting Kerala's Communist government. "In the 1950s, as the role of world policeman shifted from Britain to the United States, the CIA overthrew several democratically elected governments in the Third World, often with extreme bloodshed,' explains Thomas Isaac, CPIM leader and Kerala's former finance minister. Yet in former British colonies like British Guiana, India, and Iran, it was still British intelligence that held sway in the early years. The coup in British Guiana was initiated by Britain itself. 'Now, for the first time, concrete records reveal Britain's interventions in Kerala—until now known only through the memoirs of B.N. Mullik, then head of India's Intelligence Bureau," says Issac who co-authored the book Toppling the First Ministry: Kerala, the CIA, and the Struggle for Social Justice, along with Richard W. Franke. While the CIA's role in funnelling money to Congress politicians and anti-communist trade unions has been hinted at in past memoirs and research, McGarr's work adds detailed evidence of Britain's parallel campaign. The Cold War context Understanding the foreign dimension requires recognising Kerala's significance in Cold War calculations. A democratically elected Communist government in an Indian state represented a dangerous precedent from the perspective of Western policymakers who saw containment of Communism as a strategic imperative. Internal CIA documents, some later declassified, show the extraordinary level of attention Kerala commanded in Washington's intelligence apparatus. The agency produced detailed intelligence assessments tracking political developments in what internal communications referred to as "India's Communist State." The fear was not just about Kerala itself, but about the precedent it might set. If Communism could succeed through democratic means in one corner of the world, what would prevent similar outcomes elsewhere in the developing world? This concern shaped Western intelligence approaches to the crisis. The constitutional precedent On July 31, 1959, on the advice of the Union Cabinet, President Rajendra Prasad invoked Article 356 of the Constitution to dismiss Kerala's elected chief minister E.M.S. Namboodiripad and his cabinet, and ordered the dissolution of the state assembly. The decision came after months of escalating protests and violence, setting a precedent for using the provision against non-Congress administrations that would be repeatedly invoked in subsequent decades. Prime Minister Nehru, despite his initial reluctance as revealed in the British archives, ultimately accepted the advice of his Cabinet to dismiss the EMS government. The justification was the breakdown of law and order, but critics argued that the violence had been manufactured to create grounds for constitutional intervention. The dismissal of Kerala's Communist government established what would become known as the "Kerala precedent" – the use of Article 356 to remove an elected state government facing political opposition based on ideological grounds. While Article 356 had been used before in Punjab (1951) and PEPSU (1953), the Kerala case marked its first deployment against a Communist government and set the template for future political misuse of this constitutional provision. Over the following decades, Article 356 would be invoked repeatedly against state governments that were inconvenient to the party in power at the Center, fundamentally altering the federal balance envisioned by the Constitution's framers. Historical reassessment Recent research has begun to provide a more nuanced understanding of the Vimochana Samaram, moving beyond simple narratives of popular uprising or foreign conspiracy. The evidence suggests a complex interaction of genuine domestic grievances, opportunistic political calculation and foreign intelligence operations. The concerns of various Kerala communities about the Communist government's reforms were real and significant. The education bill openly threatened the autonomy of religious institutions, while the land reforms challenged established property relations. These fears of the elite provided the raw material for political mobilisation. 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Perhaps most importantly, the Kerala case demonstrates how constitutional provisions designed to protect democracy can be turned against it when political will is lacking. The misuse of Article 356, beginning with the Kerala precedent, would become one of the most contentious issues in Indian federalism. The unfinished story As archives continue to open and more documents become available, our understanding of the Kerala episode continues to evolve. The full scope of foreign involvement may never be completely known, as intelligence operations by their nature leave incomplete paper trails scattered across different countries and agencies. What remains clear is that the dismissal of Kerala's first Communist government represents a watershed moment in Indian democracy – a moment when the principles of federalism and electoral sovereignty came into conflict with Cold War imperatives and domestic political calculations. 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