Coming out of G7’s shadow

Nirupama Subramanian

Independent Journalist

INDIA snatched an improbable and creditable victory from the jaws of what seemed like certain defeat at the G20 summit held under its leadership this past weekend in Delhi. The heroic diplomacy that went on over the last eight months, the hours of negotiations through several weeks and months, all building up to the last lap of finding consensus on the all-important Delhi Declaration with the help of other like-minded members, had the flavour of a cricket win for India against Pakistan (which actually happened a day after the summit).

Under the Indian presidency, the G20 was seen coming out of the shadow of the G7, which had dominated it all this time, to reflect more accurately the majority members from the developing world.

The world, as represented in the G20, worked to make that victory possible. The US and the western alliance endorsed diluted language on the war in Ukraine — it got seven paragraphs, and was couched in the wordage of international principles, without a mention of Russia’s role in violating this in Ukraine — because India is an important partner. Delhi is crucial to Washington’s current geopolitical priority, which is to contain China.

India has enhanced its ties with both the US and Europe over the last year and a half as an economic and defence partner. A failure of the Delhi summit, and a consequent breakdown of the G20, would have been a diplomatic embarrassment for India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and could not have been allowed.

Across the great global divide, there was nothing not to like in the text for China and Russia, which projected it as not only as their victory, but of the entire Global South. An announcement for an India-West Asia-EU economic corridor, a projected rival to the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, restored the balance. It gave US President Joe Biden a handshake photo-op with the de facto Saudi ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, to erase the memory of the fist-bump rebuff he gave last year to the young Prince, who then spent the last few months getting even, showing he is not afraid to use the much-vaunted ‘strategic autonomy’ to forge closer ties with Beijing.

Everyone went home with their own doggy bag, including the African Union, which finally got a permanent place in the G20 after years of waiting. This may act as a much-needed boost to its leadership of 55 countries.

Host India’s plan to share its digital public infrastructure with the developing world also got a ringing endorsement. It was India’s moment out and out. From now on, Delhi will push determinedly for a greater role on the global stage. It has not let the grass grow under its feet.

As the summit drew to a close, Modi made a call for the expansion of the Security Council in which India seeks a permanent seat. The Prime Minister correctly demanded that the ‘new realities should be reflected in our global structure’.

Of course, a bigger global role will come with greater responsibility and greater scrutiny. This is also the new reality, and there is no escaping it, however high the green baize behind which the world’s fifth largest economy hides its poor — India has the lowest per capita income of all G20 members — or the wall of silence behind which its Prime Minister retreats after waving to the cameras, refusing to take unscripted questions from the media.

It is telling of India’s new global clout that one of the biggest international stories from the summit — other than the watering down of the text on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in the Delhi Declaration that allowed all sides to spin it in the way they pleased — was not of the Indian triumph, as many outraged Indians pointed out on social media. It was about the hapless citizens and stray dogs of Delhi that the host had equitably corralled out of sight; and the only too obvious election-campaign feel to the summit.

Modi’s’ visit to the summit media centre at the end of the second day, not to take questions but for a walkabout, generated euphoric TV coverage at home. The resolute refusal by the leader of the world’s largest democracy to address a press conference became a global issue with the reported denial of media access to cover his bilateral meeting with Joe Biden.

It was only after getting to Hanoi that the US President could hold a press conference and explain that he did raise with the Indian Prime Minister the importance “of respecting human rights and the vital role that civil society and a free press play.”

India’s claim as a global leader will also come up for scrutiny. In fact, it already has. Not just in faraway Ukraine that lashed out at the joint statement as “nothing to be proud of”, but in its own neighbourhood as well. The presidential election in the Maldives has opened up the possibility that the country’s foreign policy may not be as India-friendly as it was over the last five years.

Tiny Maldives is only an example of the daily tests that India’s claim to world leadership comes up against in South Asia, such as a sudden decision to stop exports of rice, affecting the food security of the region. Finding peace with Pakistan is the bigger challenge.

That President Xi Jinping decided not to rain on India’s parade does not mean India-China tensions have evaporated. The problem at the LAC remains, and its awaited resolution is the true test of what India has gained from its success at the Delhi G20 summit. 

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