The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) delegation led by president Rahul Bajaj, chairman and managing director of Bajaj Auto Ltd, is expected to strongly argue at the White House meeting that politics should not impinge on trade and commerce and point out that the prevailing sanctions have been a bane for American business as much as it has been to Indian industry.

Bajaj said the delegation would convey to the Vice-President as well as Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, Treasury Secretary- designate Larry Summers and senior US lawmakers that "CTBT, NPT, and all these are more in the nature of political situations, and we don't want to get involved in that."

Bajaj said the point that would be made is that "When there are sanctions, when wefind that there is anti-dumping, which is not always justified, and there are other non-tariff barriers, whether linked to the CTBT or something else, then these excellent relations that exist between the business of India and the US come under strain." "Then we start saying that this country, which is a great country, which is a successful country, in this unipolar world is becoming a military policeman and is deciding not only what's good for the US, but is telling us what's good for us, and that's not acceptable," Bajaj said.

Bajaj said the message to Gore and the other top US officials would be that Indian businessmen "like the US but when you start rapping our knuckles -- and we are not anybody's servant -- then we react with anguish and also with some anger."

The Clinton administration has linked the lifting of sanctions to progress in the non-proliferation dialogue between New Delhi and Washington, which includes India's signing of the CTBT before the entry into force conference inSeptember. But with the collapse of the BJP-led coalition government and with it the senior level talks between Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh, India's signing of the CTBT seems far away and so is Washington's lifting of sanctions.

The US section of the US-India Business Council (USIBC) has strongly urged the lifting of sanctions and supported the Brownback Amendment in the Senate that calls for a five-year suspension of the sanctions. The USIBC co-chair has written to Talbott urging that the administration endorse the Brownback Amendment, but Talbott has written back explaining the administration's opposition to the measure, which essentially is that the White House doesn't want Congress to usurp its authority to call the shots with regard to any decision on the sanctions.

Bajaj said, "Our basic point is that we don't want to be gagged because we are business. We don't want any interference in our work by anybody. We are not going to succumb toany pressure, either from the Indian or the US government."

According to Bajaj, the business community's contention is not to let other matters come in the way of business whether it is trade or joint ventures or investment or technology transfers. He said the CII took no issue with these objectives, "But the moment you start linking it with trade, CII believes you are giving rise to non-tariff barriers."

Bajaj said the discussion with Gore would also centre on environmental issues like climate control and clean development mechanism (CDMs), which the CII and American business would also attend briefings on. "We have come to understand and to listen. We don't want to pass judgement and we don't want to say to the developed world that they have been responsible for creating most of the pollution. That won't get us anywhere," he said.