New Delhi lived up to its image of being a warm hearted and inclusive nation
A lot seems to have been achieved in the past week, with India hosting one of the greatest and most spectacular multilateral diplomatic events, the G20 summit. While India, which is Bharat, managed to resonate with almost every citizen domestically by organising the summit in the length and vast expanse of its geography, internationally it also sent out a vociferous message that it is a power whose time has come.
Chinese President Xi stayed away from the G20 summit, a first for China, since the inception of the G20 leaders’ summit. It was a message to the world leaders, about China’s monochrome view of geopolitics, where multilateralism is an afterthought. It didn’t want to engage with the US president in New Delhi, and it didn’t want to engage with India on critical bilateral issues and the military standoff, because it considers the forceful takeover of chunks of neighbouring nation’s sovereign territory as a path towards Chinese supremacy. China did send Xi’s junior Li Qiang to the summit, along with what Indian agencies suspect is surveillance equipment to one of the G20 delegation hotels in New Delhi. These conspiracy theories apart, the world leaders gathered at the Bharat Mandapam, in New Delhi, had a better plan to make India’s presidency a success.
They fully endorsed India’s appeal for the inclusion of a large chunk of humanity expressed through the African Union into the G20, signed on the need to Improve access to digital services and digital public infrastructure and leveraged digital transformation opportunities to boost sustainable and inclusive growth and finally came out with joint communique endorsed by all parties, a day before the closure of the summit. All this speaks a lot about the maturing Indian diplomacy, which worked for a gruelling 200 hours, constantly, redrafting texts, based on members' inputs and negotiating through sensitive topics for countries around the aisle, to finally produce a joint declaration, ahead of time.
Ukraine, the big deal breaker in the room, which had resulted in the chair’s statement from all the ministerial running up to the Delhi summit was tactfully handled by these young, confident diplomats. The preamble from the Delhi declaration of G20 read “Concerning the war in Ukraine, while recalling the discussion in Bali, we reiterated our national positions and resolutions adopted at the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly and underscored that all states must act in a manner consistent with the Purposes and Principles of the UN Charter in its entirety. The use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible,” thereby, accommodating almost everyone’s sensitivities. While staying in Ukraine, India did manage to echo its concerns along with Japan, Australia and many SE Asian countries by pushing the lines
India also managed to send a stern message to Canada, regarding secessionist groups supporting Khalistan operating from its sovereign territory, endorsed by a divine intervention of sorts, adding a twist to the narrative. The Canadian Prime minister received a strong message against the protests and free run of Khalistani groups running a propaganda war against India. The Indian PM also did not hold a bilateral meeting with his Canadian counterpart on the sidelines of the G20 summit.
The Delhi summit delivered on Bharat’s promise of a land of science and spirituality, and being the fourth country to land a spacecraft on the moon just a couple of weeks before the summit, helped. It would be important for Delhi to keep following up on the targets it has set for future G20 meetings as well.
(The writer is a policy analyst)
