By Prof. Swaran Singh
The geopolitics of expanding East-West polarisation and persistent North-South divide provided an acid test for India’s leadership and it has come out quite successful in converting those challenges into opportunities as well.
The G20 Presidency has provided India with great opportunity to better engage with the world as also prepare its own citizens for its ever expanding role as global leader. For G20 as well, India has showcased its strong credentials to lead this most powerful body in global governance especially for the macro-management of global economic trends. The geopolitics of expanding East-West polarisation and persistent North-South divide provided an acid test for India’s leadership and it has come out quite successful in converting those challenges into opportunities as well.
To begin with, G20 is a group of world’s largest economies and India has come to be recognised as world’s fastest growing economy amongst these large economies. Looking at top five economies in year 2023, the United States has been growing at 1.8% followed by China at 4%, Japan at 1.7%, Germany at 2.6% while India has marked its current growth rate at 7.2%. Plus India’s demographic dividend — of median age of 28.8 years — has witnessed continuous rise in its trade and foreign direct investments that also posit confidence in India emerging as major contributor to global growth trends.
In wake of geopolitics increasingly circumventing consensus building in recent G20 presidencies, India’s policy of multi-alignment — that seeks to build partnerships in as many sectors with as many countries as possible while ensuring strategic autonomy — has witnessed India being one of the few that have been able to sustain position of neutrality in ongoing Ukraine crisis. India is among few nations that have been able to build strong partnership with most of the major powers, also with emerging economies and least developed nations. India remains continually engaged with both the United States and its friends as also with China-Russia and their friends. It is part of Quadrilateral Security Framework but also part of BRICS and SCO groupings. This makes India perhaps ideal candidate to ensure cohesion in increasingly polarising global governance.
India’s has accordingly demonstrated its heft in showcasing its vision, versatility and vigour by raising several benchmarks to make 18th G20 presidency of 2023 unprecedented by achieving several firsts. At the most visible level never before G20 witnessed so many and such large gatherings as this year: India’s presidency saw 220 meetings being convened in 60 cities across every province and union territory of India. It brought over 100,000 delegates debating on multiple themes at multiple levels while experiencing India first hand. These also resulted in adding a whole range of new themes in their parleys and in producing most voluminous recommendations.
This has provided India opportunity to further engage its own citizens and raise their awareness about India’s changing global role and stature; and responsibilities that will accrue from such transformation. This remains a prerequisite for any emerging power to build strong domestic constituencies for its global leadership. Foreign policy is nothing but an extension of domestic politics and voters must support their national leaders’ indulgences with issues that may have only an indirect impact of lives. As Indian leaders begin to invest greater attention and resources in addressing global challenges, G20 presidency provided an ideal opportunity to connect India’s foreign policy goals with aspirations of Indian citizens.
But India’s contribution to G20 in 2023 remains much deeper. The most salient has been India’s focus to bring ‘Global South’ issues and perspectives to the centre-stage of these deliberations. Within weeks of taking of G20 presidency in December last year, January this year saw India convene the Voce of the Global South Summit that was attended by delegations from 125 nations. This has ignited greater interest of several other international forums in engaging nations of Global South thereby contributing to term ‘Global South’ shedding its pejorative pretences and be seen as nomenclature for evolving solidarity of nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America. India also stands reassured of Global South continuing to stay at the helm with nations of Global South — Indonesia (2022), India (2023), Brazil (2024), South Africa (2025) — continuously holding G20 presidency in coming years as well.
G20 that had expanded from G7 grouping of most advanced industrialised nations has gradually changed its character. To begin with following the collapse of former Soviet Union, Russia was co-opted to make it G8 but that was soon replaced by G7 coopting some of the nations that later came to be known as BRICS as Observers. There were two milestones marking this transition. First, the East Asian financial crisis of 1997 had triggered finance ministers’ meetings of top twenty economies. Then these parleys were upgraded to its current G20 national leaders summit following the global economic crisis of 2008. Nevertheless, for long, the G7 had continued to define the essential character of G20 as market- and profit-driven, striving for material growth rates which now stand challenged as a sustainable model.
The fundamental change triggered by co-option of the nations of Global South in G20 has been in accelerating a fundamental shift from growth to sustainable development. This has also sought to make G20 more inclusive in its vision and initiatives. Most important, G20 parleys have emerged out of largely close-door confabulations of celebrated economists, policy wonks, national leaders into what Indian prime minister calls a ‘People’s Festival’ seeking human-centric development. In this piecemeal changing of the style and substance of G20, India has made a seminal contribution by accelerating this transformation.
This realisation has also gradually dawned on world leaders that urbanisation- and industrialisation-driven globalisation has accentuated the gulf between rich and poor within and between nations. What India’s foreign minister calls re-globalisation seeks to prioritise on sustainable development by making it inclusive of the nations of the Global South that have so far been on the receiving end of various emerging global challenges like climate crisis. Accordingly, the themes that 2023 has seen coming to the forefront include issues like millets, agriculture and food security, traditional medicine, biofuels, women-led development, climate finance, digital public infrastructure and so on. India has been able to generate consensus on large number these issues at various levels and many of these may also achieve consensus at the summit level.
Finally, true to its civilisation ethos, India sees its presidency as part of an ongoing process in which summit 2023 is but one important event. Also, India’s presidency continues for eighty-one days beyond the 2023 summit. Plus given the Troika Leadership format of the G20 — where preceding, current, and next presidencies work in tandem at all levels — India will continuing to be at the steering wheel for next year as well. From this perspective, India remains committed to continue to work on issues on which consensus may be built during India’s presidency or later in subsequent years. The fact that India is all set to emerge from currently being world’s fifth largest to world’s third largest economy is also bound to add to its influence and aura on global governance enabling it to make a seminal contribution in making G20 inclusive, representative and effective in its endeavours.
Originally published: International Affairs Review, September 8, 2023.
Posted in SIS Blog with the authorization of the author.
Swaran Singh is visiting professor at the University of British Columbia, fellow of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute in Calgary, Alberta, and professor of diplomacy and disarmament at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India