New Delhi, April 22 -- The recently concluded WTO Ministerial Conference (MC-14) in Cameroon reaffirmed commitment to a 'rules-based trading system.' Yet, in a world where trade rules are increasingly bent, bypassed or selectively enforced, that reassurance feels more ceremonial than convincing.

The proceedings made one thing clear: multilateralism is still alive, but only just. It resembles a patient in intensive care-kept stable by routine and rhetoric rather than genuine recovery.

Familiar fault lines-agriculture, fisheries, development and now digital trade-remain unresolved, layered one over the other like old arguments that refuse to fade.

What this means in practice is not particularly comforting. India's agricultural exports, n...