IA few months from now, India will head the G20, the world’s most representative power club – where leaders like Joe Biden, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi sit around the summit table – giving New Delhi the life of a lifetime. will provide opportunities. Not only to exchange ideas but to marshal them and make sense of years to come.
India has never done anything like this before, not in terms of logistics and certainly not in terms of treading a delicate middle ground between world powers, who otherwise can’t bear to talk to each other. It would be a dream role – a role that many nations with enormous wealth would turn a blind eye to.
A dream role for India
This would be a role the Prime Minister would be called to play with panache, and would allow him to put many ideas into full exercise-Vasudhaiva Kutumbkami, Or the world is one family. Or, as he told Putin long ago, dialogue, even with your enemy, is always better than choosing conflict—forever in the parlance of millennials, “jaw-jaw, war- not war.”
India’s presidency of the G20 for a full year from the morning of 1 December 2022 will not be remembered by the world, as it leans in one direction or another – in favor of or against the US, Russia or China – rather So that it can hear all sides in this highly fragmented multipolar world.
India will take over from Indonesia, which is the presidency of the current G20 year and where all world leaders are expected to come together on 15 November. I say “likely” because it’s still unclear whether Putin will show up, or whether Biden will want to sit around the same table as Xi and the Russian Bear.
This is where India’s famous negotiation skills will come into play next year. This past weekend, it’s been interesting to see two of India’s able-bodied politicians – both former diplomats who probably absorbed the cut and rapier emphasis of conversation with their mother’s milk (or at any rate, ever since they were almost 40 years ago). Joined the Indian Foreign Service) ) – Explaining to your counterparts how India thinks.
foreign Minister S Jaishankar Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas while in New Zealand and Australia Hardeep Singh Puri was in the US, talking to his counterpart as well as others in the US energy industry on how to best address the scourge of the energy-cum-economic crisis that has been on the world since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Read also:
put india first
Jaishankar was once again asked about this in Australia India’s dependence on Russia, particularly its defense industry, being part of India’s pro-Western Quad Grouping; While in the US, Puri once again clashed over why India buys so much oil from Russia.
Both the answers are valid for India’s self-image after 75 years of independence, that is, New Delhi will do whatever it has to do keeping in mind its selfishness.
In Australia, with Foreign Minister Penny Wong standing next to him, Jaishankar pointed out that India views the Quad as a grouping in the Indo-Pacific. As far as India continues to depend on Russia for its defense needs, it would help if the West remembered that during the Cold War, it refused the sale of military equipment to India, while next door Liked to give arms to the military dictatorship – that is, Pakistan.
Why India refused to cooperate with the rest of the West on a UN resolution criticizing China for its treatment of the Uighurs – especially as India has been facing off recently against Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control . Of course, the next day, India issued its own statement against China).
As far as Puri is concerned, he clearly explained why India continues to buy oil from Russia (“We import 85 percent of our oil needs”) and in a headline speech, explained, Wherever India has to buy oil, it will buy it from there. It served to convey to everyone in Washington DC that whatever more India could do to cooperate with the Americans – especially for alliances in green energy – it would speak to every dictator or crusader, as the case may be. if it fulfills its national agenda.
Derek GrossmanRAND Corporation, a senior defense analyst at respected American think-tank, has described it as a “sacrifice-rules-for-money”, pointing to India’s “hyper-realistic” foreign policy approach. He said that it has served the Modi government well to carry out this policy.
Nevertheless, it would be a misinterpretation of India’s approach to characterize today’s policy as a simple continuation of the “non-alignment” of the past. Perhaps, it would be more accurate to say that “Non-aligned” served India well during the Cold War years and the time has come to replace it with a 21st century version of “strategic autonomy”.
Whatever one may call it, today’s performance of “India First” is accompanied by a constant engagement with all the major players in the West – from Washington DC to Wellington and Canberra, the last two very large parts of the US nuclear umbrella.
So Puri and Jaishankar travel the world to explain why India is doing what it is doing; In fact, Jaishankar in Australia pointed out that India’s military strategists will focus on how well Russia is conducting its war against Ukraine (very badly, one might add).
So what is the message of Jaishankar-Puri’s voyages, other than the laudable purpose of running several thousand oft-flying miles? Moral of the story: Don’t hold back, but engage, engage, engage from all sides.
This is why India’s presidency of the G20 promises to be an interesting next year. When Biden, Xi, Putin and others sit around the round table, they will be forced to assume that even if they don’t like each other, the rest of the world expects at least one- will listen to the other.
The author is a consulting editor. She tweets @jomalhotra. Thoughts are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)