At first glance, it is an inopportune moment for India to be chairing the G-20 at a time when, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi said while addressing the ‘Voice of the Global South’ virtual summit last month, the “world is in a state of crisis.” From another viewpoint, and for the same reason, it is an opportunity and challenge for India to take the lead (something that most other G-20 nations would either shun or pass on) and help revive, if not recreate, a new global order on the lines of the UN, G-7, G-20, etc. This is besides the normative Indian initiatives, both within and outside the G-20, to what has become periodic and at times ritualistic talks with the leaders of the two warring nations, namely Russia and Ukraine.
The reasons are not far to seek. If the 21st century is Asia’s century, focusing on China and India, and the 22nd century is Africa’s, as is being predicted already, these two together are clearly centuries of the Global South. Of course, there are Latin American nations, too, that qualify. And until India has now taken, or re-taken, its informal founder’s position in the Global South, no other country has even offered lip service to its cause, especially in the post-Cold War era. That period also heralded a new global economic order, which had a mesmerising beginning but a messed-up middle, with no one knowing where it was going and how it would end.
In the interim, it will not be easy for India to readjust itself to the new role it has voluntarily assigned to itself. There has to be clear, if not better, appreciation that the G-20 chair is a one-year wonder. But the opportunity it has provided for India to reiterate its increasing concerns about the Global South could be the real takeaway. How New Delhi builds on it and how disruptive forces in the evolving global order seek to neutralise us through subterfuge could become a core element in the nation’s foreign policy in the coming years.
In doing so, India has to be careful not to confuse the Chinese dominance in the Third World with our security priorities in the immediate neighbourhood or end up communicating to the Global South that we are doing it all only to neutralise Chinese influence over them. This is where the nation failed in NAM and elsewhere, and ended up projecting those institutions as the Soviet-backed antithesis to the US and the rest of the West. The US chipped away at the sides of NAM, carefully and deliberately, and India ended up following suit, so to speak.
This time around, vis-à-vis the Global South, India may have to live down at least a part of its Quad/Indo-Pacific identity linked to the US if they all are to take our honesty and sincerity of purpose seriously. In context, the nation’s Covid outreach might only be a beginning, but in doing so, New Delhi kept regional and global politics out of the debate successfully. Sustaining such a temper will not be easy against rival pressures in a changed global scenario post-pandemic.
“Most of the global challenges have not been created by the Global South. But they affect us more,” PM Modi said at the Global South virtual summit. He mentioned the pandemic, climate change, terrorism and even the Ukraine conflict, all of them from only the recent past, in this context. India’s goal in 2023 is to represent the Global South, he said. “Your voice is India’s voice and your priorities are India’s priorities. … As India begins its G-20 Presidency this year, it is natural that our aim is to amplify the voice of the Global South,” he asserted.
“In the last century, we supported each other in our fight against foreign rule. We can do it again in this century, to create a new world order that will ensure the welfare of our citizens,” the PM said, indicating that under the changed circumstances, the Global South should unite and change the unequal “global political and financial governance” structures, and underlined a formula—Respond, Recognise, Respect and Reform—as the way to achieve the goals.
Ahead of the Global South summit, former Foreign Secretary and Chief Summit Coordinator Harsh Vardhan Shringla had pointedly referred to the Ukraine War entering the second year soon, and said that India would focus on “substance and not symbolism” of the outcomes. It says a lot about India’s goals and processes for the purpose, but a lot will depend on the political messaging, the constancy and the continuity accompanying it.
For this to happen, India should ensure that future G-20 chairs do not adopt standalone, silos agendas at the G-20 summit but ensure continuity, especially concerning the Global South. Before India, Indonesia, another member of the Global South, was the chair, but the Bali Summit last year was overshadowed by the Ukraine War. Thankfully, the next two summits will be hosted by Brazil and South Africa, two other members of the Global South.
India needs to think ahead and coordinate with them, given the commonality of the BRICS membership, to ensure continuity in thought, word and action—without giving the impression that together, Global South representatives in G-20 are seeking to hijack the agenda. The need of the hour is the institutionalisation and instrumentalisation of the Global South.
In the past, NAM served the purpose, but following economic reforms, India remained a mute spectator in that body. Maybe out of guilt and to avoid embarrassment, PM Modi has been keeping away from personally participating in NAM summits.
At least NAM is where the heart of the Global South still lies. As sovereigns, they have past memories of India—good, bad and indifferent. How India handles this reality, going beyond the symbolism of its pronouncements and not confusing the same with its constant demands for UNSC reforms, including permanent membership, will make the Global South work. It will also help India’s leadership ambitions and initiatives stick and stay on its own terms, not stopping with the Global South.
N Sathiya Moorthy
Policy analyst and political commentator