Has the spectacle of the G20 announced the arrival of India as an “impresario” of the international system, much like the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics heralded the emergence of China? “Too early to tell!”, would probably be the niggardly response of the Chinese leadership — most to gain from continuing uncertainty about India’s presence. In suggesting as much, Beijing would approvingly echo popular apocryphal stories about how an ageing Chinese Premier responded, in similar faux Confucian fashion, to the impact of the French Revolution, nearly 200 years later, while on a visit to Paris.
Beyond an obvious need to be patient and take a long-term view, but not a Chinese-chequered one, the reality is that any semi-objective assessment of India’s presidency, the summit and the events over the last year, would be a no-brainer: the benefits overwhelm the downside. In sum, the Presidency of the G20 has given New Delhi the weight and influence that India has rarely experienced in its contemporary history. Contrarians can often miss the tree for the forest: For example, Oman’s delegation, perhaps, should have been greeted with a shehnai rather than the Garba or we didn’t have enough haute culture, but these awkward moments pale into insignificance if you move from the granular detail to a view with greater perspective. For India seems to have demonstrated both wisdom and cleverness (bordering on the crafty), and fortunately, in increasing its gravitas, it has still not lost its soul.
Most importantly, the G20 Summit demonstrated India’s convening power, and its ability to generate a consensus at a platform, whose genesis may have been in the financial crises, but today is arguably the most important forum engaged with the world’s most consequential problems.
While China’s Xi Jinping, increasingly delusional, wanted to snub India by not turning up, and Vladimir Putin of Russia was absent because of the war in Ukraine, neither was particularly missed.
We may quibble over words and a sentence here and there in the Delhi Declaration, and bureaucratic gobbledegook (and, for me, the standout on obfuscation is the sentence on the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons as being “inadmissible”) but the outcome was a consensus communique that found comfort with all the 20 members. How many other countries in the world can get the Russians, Americans, Chinese, Saudis and even the self-righteous Europeans to sign off on a statement that includes a lengthy section on the Ukraine war, and addresses key global issues, including climate change, gender equality, SDG goals, financial inclusion as well as terrorism and money laundering?
Second, the Summit and 200-odd meetings held all over India brought the diversity, colour and genius of the Indian people on to the world stage with a new frenzy and confidence. Soft power is too vulgar, too belittling a term, to describe the most resilient source of India’s power, a civilisational strength often suppressed by a lack of self-confidence. This has changed, and changed in a way that India will be perceived as the key destination for dialogue and debate over the most contentious of issues, while experiencing the most breathtaking hospitality.
Third, the New Delhi summit will go down as the one where much of the rest of the world recognised India as an if not the alternative to China. The announcement of the economic corridor connecting Europe with the Middle East and India through a combination of rail and sea routes during a session at the G20 Leaders’ summit in Delhi, was clearly a response, if still an early idea, to the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (which seems to hold the main stakeholder countries in a debilitating debt trap).
Finally, despite the seductive force of realpolitik, India seemed to retain its core values, and its space as well as its conscience. The theme of India’s presidency Vasudhaiva kutumbakam — “one earth, one family one future” — signalled this and is fleshed out in the preamble and the text of the Declaration: “We meet at a defining moment in history where the decisions we make now will determine the future of our people and our planet. It is with the philosophy of living in harmony with our surrounding ecosystem that we commit to concrete actions to address global challenges.”
Whether the Global South is a useful analytical category will be decided in the years to come, but India has clearly become the voice for an alternative vision. The staggering possibilities, for instance, offered by the Indian Stack (described as “the moniker for a set of open APIs and digital public goods that aim to unlock the economic primitives of identity, data, and payments at population scale”) for much of the world is obvious and India may make it available as open-source software. Released just ahead of the summit, the World Bank’s G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion document endorsed the transformative impact of DPIs in India. It pointed out that the JAM (Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile) Trinity has propelled the financial inclusion rate from 25 per cent in 2008 to over 80 per cent of adults in the last six years, and it could do so for much of the world. India’s insistence on the African Union’s inclusion in what is now the G21 was also rooted in this “alternative” vision of not losing your heart even while being dictated by your head.
There can be no denying that this was Modi’s summit. It was his leadership, once demonised, that was lionised by most of the world’s top leadership. It required remarkable chutzpah to benchmark the presidency at a level that will be difficult to emulate. Few remember the previous presidencies of the G20 — India’s will be impossible to forget. For this, and for generating the most talented team of organisers, including the outstanding sherpa, only the Prime Minister can and must be credited.
The writer is professor of international relations at JNU and the University of Melbourne
