The world moulded by the Delhi Summit will be one of people-focused principles, and agile, trust-based partnerships
It has been 14 years since the world’s leaders met at Pittsburgh and declared that the G20 was the world’s “premier forum for international economic co-operation”. In all these years, the G20 has broadened its horizons and extended its mandate, but it has never, till India’s presidency, offered a new vision for multilateral economic governance. This is not surprising. The Pittsburgh Summit, held in the shadow of the 2008 financial crisis, had a single-minded focus on saving a financial system distant from the streets of Mumbai or Mombasa. An organisation built for crisis management could not be expected to advance a wholly new vision for global governance.
The Pittsburgh Summit, held in the shadow of the 2008 financial crisis, had a single-minded focus on saving a financial system distant from the streets of Mumbai or Mombasa.
In recent years, the G20 has been a lukewarm affair with political leaders largely being relegated to talking heads. Since February 2022, there has been a real risk that the G20 agenda would, given its crisis management lineage, attempt to become a forum for addressing the war in Ukraine. The New Delhi Summit has not only course-corrected, but it has also given this group a new lease of life. The “bankers’ G20” has been replaced, now and forever, with a “people’s G20”. India’s achievement in producing a consensus, and a communiqué, has rightly been hailed. The G20 may not be a politico-security forum, but as all the meetings preceding the leaders’ summit demonstrated, there was no getting around Ukraine. New Delhi and Prime Minister Modi were up to the task. The United Nations Security Council, with only five vetoes, has failed to simply reaffirm the basic values of the UN Charter. But with India’s stewardship, the G20—a body with 20 vetoes, not one—was nudged into reminding us that “all states must refrain from the threat or use of force to seek territorial acquisition against the territorial integrity and sovereignty or political independence of any state”.
The United Nations Security Council, with only five vetoes, has failed to simply reaffirm the basic values of the UN Charter.
But what is even more important than India’s ability to deliver a consensus is that India’s G20 has humanised global governance. From climate finance to women-led development, India has taken up issues that so many struggle with and championed their solutions. In an era where populism has been simply wished away as a residual by-product of elite globalisation, India has used that same channel of multilateral cooperation to try and help the world’s underserved.
India’s leadership, and the new direction it has given the G20, should come as no surprise. The world of 2023 is vastly different from the one in 2009. And India’s ascent to global deal-making has implications for the other great powers of the world: The United States (US), China, and India’s emerging-economy peers. The Pittsburgh Summit was hosted by the world’s only superpower. Since then, a generation has passed. Attitudes have darkened. The superpower that, with such enviable confidence, steered the Pittsburgh agenda has turned its back on internationalism. It has raised gates to trade and walls against immigrants, and it now forces its money and energy to stay home rather than travel the world.
The superpower that, with such enviable confidence, steered the Pittsburgh agenda has turned its back on internationalism.
But the global system abhors a vacuum, whether of leadership or ideas. Time fashions its own alternatives. And, so, another vast democracy has risen to shoulder responsibility. As Capitol Hill recedes, Raisina Hill has stepped in. To be sure, it seems the US is shepherding India’s rise. It is the rare succession in power in which its new wielder is welcomed by those who came before. But India’s vision for a renewed multilateralism is one that is welcomed by the US, for it is in America’s own interest as well. The tango amongst democracies was visible to all at the G20 Summit in Delhi. President Biden made it a point to be standing next to Prime Minister Modi at any and every opportunity. It is easy to see why. Trump’s assault on multilateralism offended the US’ oldest allies in Europe; his open contempt alienated the developing world. The US, still reeling from those four years, has been flailing to reach out to powers old and new. It appears now to have found a way.
The US will find it useful to work with India not just on new, 21st-century issues, but to manage some of its 20th-century relationships that have become more tenuous today.
This is, indeed, a Suez Moment. As, in 1956, an older power found it needed a newer one to make a difference in the world, the US today has understood that certain geographies and actors require that India play a leading role. In that sense, the Delhi Declaration presaged a tectonic transition in global affairs. Biden, at least, has concluded that India’s leadership is good for America. This will not be hard to sell back home. Some progressives in his party might carp, but India enjoys a wide spectrum of support in US politics. The US will find it useful to work with India not just on new, 21st-century issues, but to manage some of its 20th-century relationships that have become more tenuous today. Its relationship with Saudi Arabia is an excellent example; India plays a bridging role, allowing for new agreements on infrastructure and connectivity. And India’s presence in the room allows the US, Brazil, and South Africa to have a conversation among friends. Joe Biden is proving he can put into practice ideas from Barack Obama’s presidency that had remained merely slogans. The US is, indeed, “leading from behind” under Biden. Ten years ago, that phrase might have sounded patronising or might have been a façade for the exercise of imperial power. But today, as the world has changed, it is a real formula for effective international relations.
India’s formula for multilateralism has been welcomed by emerging economies from Brazil to Egypt to South Africa. They recognise that India can be trusted to steer the ship of multilateralism in the direction of their priorities. India’s leadership is not built on solitary, hoarded power. Nor is it the sort that Delhi demonstrated in the 1950s, while navigating between two brooding superpowers. Some thought the ‘Trump slump’ in multilateralism and America’s turn inwards would doom international cooperation. Instead, the sheer volume of cooperative activity has skyrocketed, albeit of a different nature from traditional multilateralism, and with novel arrangements.
India’s formula for multilateralism has been welcomed by emerging economies from Brazil to Egypt to South Africa.
The framework that time has fashioned and India has embraced is one that relies neither on the caprices of America nor on vassalage to China. It consists of multiple informal, mutually beneficial, and purpose-driven partnerships, built on agreements between sovereign governments that are based both on principles and on centring their peoples’ needs. In a sense, these attributes mirror India’s foreign policy approach over the last few years. Over the past decade, India has pioneered a multilateralism that is built around limited-liability, flexible partnerships: From the Quad to I2U2 to BRICS. After the Delhi Summit, the emerging world knows that India’s achievements are commensurate with the breadth of their shared aspirations. Look at the scope of the commitments taken on by the G20 under the Indian presidency—from biofuels to the reform of international development banks. There is not one that is not of great—in some cases existential—importance to the developing world. And in all these initiatives, India is either a catalyst or a driver. Global leadership today must take on the task of reshaping the world’s economy to the benefit of those who seek to still benefit from globalisation in a new avatar. Fortuitously, IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) will be in the chair of the world’s most multilateral grouping for another two years. And they have supported each other admirably. Just as India aided Indonesia in the last-minute scramble for agreement at Bali last year, the emerging market democracies came together to make a Delhi consensus possible.
Global leadership today must take on the task of reshaping the world’s economy to the benefit of those who seek to still benefit from globalisation in a new avatar.
But even among these nations, India is first among equals: With the largest population, greatest economy, and highest growth rate. It also has a geography that makes it impossible to ignore. The task of leadership cannot be avoided, and India has stepped up to do its duty. India matters. And India delivered. In that sense, the Delhi G20 is the intellectual and political successor to the Pittsburgh G20. In Pittsburgh, 14 years ago, China’s GDP was the same as India’s today. It was growing fast—a country increasingly open, reformist, and dynamic. What a difference a generation makes! Today, an unstable China, struggling with its own woes, is a source of concern for all. It is a cause of anxiety, rather than a source of strength. Few nations can look to it and expect a stalling China to power their growth stories in the coming decades. Another generation from now, the world would have changed again, but this time thanks to India’s rise. The world moulded by the Delhi Summit will be one of people-focused principles, and agile, trust-based partnerships. It will be one in which, for the first time in human history, global governance will be directed towards the needs of the majority of the global population. India’s foreign minister, Dr S Jaishankar, said it best. This G20, he told us, was making the world ready for India and India ready for the world. This article is an updated version of a previously published article in the World Economic Forum.
Samir Saran, President, Observer Research Foundation
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Samir Saran is the President of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), India’s premier think tank, headquartered in New Delhi with affiliates in North America and ...
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