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India’s Moment: The G20 Presidency and Beyond
HARSH V. PANT, NOV 09 2022
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi
unveiled the logo, theme, and website for India’s
presidency of the G20, which will commence in
December this year. Taking pride of place in the
logo is the lotus flower, of which the prime
minister said: “[It] is a representation of hope in
these times. No matter how adverse the
circumstances, the lotus still blooms.” Indeed,
India takes the helm of the G20 at an inflection
point in contemporary history, when the word
‘adverse’ seems only apt in describing the state of
the world order. “India’s G20 presidency is coming
at a time of crisis and chaos in the world,” PM Modi
said. “The world is going through the aftereffects
of disruptive once-in-a-century pandemic,
conflicts and lot of economic uncertainty.”
India is keen to play the role of a “leading
power”—one that sets rules and shapes
outcomes—and this Presidency could not have
come at a more opportune time for showcasing
India’s capabilities.
During the course of its G20 Presidency—from 1
December 2022 to 30 November 2023—India aims
to hold some 200 meetings involving 32 different
sectors in multiple locations across the country,
highlighting India’s development journey over the
last 75 years. India is keen to play the role of a
“leading power”—one that sets rules and shapes
outcomes—and this Presidency could not have
come at a more opportune time for showcasing
India’s capabilities.
The world is churning and the challenges are
aplenty: the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia-
Ukraine conflict, the US-China contestations, and
the withering away of the multilateral order are all
fracturing the world in unprecedented ways. Many
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of the assumptions that have guided our
engagements in the past three decades have fallen
by the wayside. The post-Cold War world—nay,
‘History’ itself, as we knew it—can truly be said to
be over. The world is grappling with the
fundamental transformations brought in by
shifting power balance, technological overreach,
and institutional decay. These underlying shifts
have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic
and the Ukraine conflict, resulting in global
inflationary pressures, food and energy crises, and
widespread economic downturn. Nations are
frantically scraping their coffers to provide for
their citizens’ basic needs, and we are standing
farther from achieving the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs).
At a time of this global fragmentation—and when
the very existence of Earth is being threatened by
a massive climate crisis—the G20 is perhaps the
only platform of its kind that can claim a degree of
legitimacy. Although it might be too much to
expect the G20 to deliver the world from its
contemporary challenges, its member states are
home to 67 percent of the world population, and
they account for nothing less than 85 percent of
global GDP and over 75 percent of global trade.
Therefore it has the potential to revive our faith in
effective multilateralism. And this tall task needs a
kind of leadership that India today is in a singular
position to provide.
The pressures of global disruption are being
absorbed most by the poorer economies and few
powers are willing to consider their challenges
with the seriousness they deserve.
The G20 is unique in so far as it brings together the
developed and the developing nations to discuss
and create solutions to global governance
challenges. India can effectively bridge this divide
by forging consensus on key global issues. New
Delhi has been vociferous in giving voice to the
aspirations of the Global South, at a time when few

global powers have neither the time nor resources
to cater to the most vulnerable—occupied as they
are with their own domestic woes. The pressures
of global disruption are being absorbed most by
the poorer economies and few powers are willing
to consider their challenges with the seriousness
they deserve. In recent years, India has taken up
their concerns more forcefully at multiple global
fora, be it the United Nations Security Council,
World Trade Organization or World Health
Organization.
For its G20 Presidency, India is poised to focus
attention on the following areas: “women’s
empowerment, digital public infrastructure,
health, agriculture, education, culture, tourism,
climate financing, circular economy, global food
security, energy security, green hydrogen, disaster
risk reduction and resilience, fight against
economic crime and multilateral reforms.” While
the G20 was initially formed to manage global
economic and financial challenges, its remit has
grown and with the current conflation of
geopolitics and geoeconomics, the group’s
centrality to the global governance discourse is
only likely to grow. New Delhi has long insisted
that the world needs to “redefine” its
conversations on globalisation to include social
and humanitarian issues such as terrorism, climate
change, and pandemics, as well as the financial and
economic impediments to genuine progress and
sustainable development.
India’s G20 Presidency will be aiming to move the
world away from polarisation towards a greater
sense of solidarity. Its own reality of being a
multicultural democracy should guide it well in
bringing together highly diverse stakeholders to
cogitate, and act, on global challenges. The theme
of G20 India 2023—Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam: One
Earth, One Family, One Future—encapsulates
India’s conceptualisation of the global order and its
own role in it. And New Delhi has shown that it
does not dwell merely on rhetoric. In 2020 as
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COVID-19 first surged, it insisted on the need for
the international community to work together and
help those struggling with the least resources,
even as developed nations focused inwards, some
of them hoarding enough vaccines to inoculate
each adult five times over.
By hosting one of the highest-profile
international gatherings ever at a time of great
turbulence, New Delhi is signalling its readiness
to think big and deliver big—something that
much of the world had long expected from India.
Amidst this extant crisis in the global order, India
can leverage the opportunities inherent in the very
same challenges. By hosting one of the highest-
profile international gatherings ever at a time of
great turbulence, New Delhi is signalling its
readiness to think big and deliver big—something
that much of the world had long expected from
India.
To be sure, the road ahead is a tough one. The G20
is not a panacea for the global governance deficit
and the constraints are significant. But with
effective leadership from India, this will be an
opportunity to reinvigorate the multilateral order
from the stupor it has sunk into in the past few
years. India’s push for “reformed multilateralism”
will gain greater credibility with its effective
stewardship of the G20. India today is willing to
shoulder its share of the global burden. How
effective it will be in shaping the global agenda at
the G20 will also depend on how willing others are
in reflecting seriously on the present-day disorder.
New Delhi, for its part, is pulling out all the stops
and aiming high.