India should Prepare Itself for Realpolitik over a Covid Vaccine

Context: Pandemic induced world’s political fault line has made it inevitable for India to accelerate its efforts to vaccine production in order to improve global public health and safeguard its geopolitical interests.

Why India needs to Develop Vaccine First

• Geopolitical Contest: China’s Aggressive approach and escalated military tensions, US’s Bipartisan “competitive approach" to China, and arms control arrangements with Russia.

• National interest overpowering moral sentiment: Vaccine if discovered will be categorised as a private good and not a global public good.
• Nationalist and protectionist approach: to production and manufacturing of vaccine (nationalize production and impose export controls).
• Cause and effect of the Nationalist and protectionist approach: will limit the universal availability and accessibility of vaccine (who gets access, when, and on what terms).

Options available to the country acquiring the vaccine first

• Freely license the technology and win the world’s gratitude.
• Commercial route, with non-discriminatory differential pricing to make it affordable to lower-income countries. 
• Pricing, quotas, and queueing as instruments of foreign policy, extracting concessions from both allies and adversaries. 
• Deny the vaccine to its adversaries and exploit the advantages of being the sole coronavirus-immune country.

Way Forward

• Promote Indigenous vaccine development over manufacturing partnerships (not secure).
• Large scale manufacturing for export and domestic usage.
• Substantial public investment in research and development grants to both private biotech firms and government research laboratories.
• Clear the decks for imports, logistics and clinical trials.

Conclusion: Partisan domestic politics, communal tensions and absence of social harmony should not obstruct India’s path to vaccine development.