Between Rewards and Risks: India as Host of the 2023 G20 Summit

Abstract

India’s hosting of the 2023 G20 summit presents a number of serious tests. Taking on the presidency of the G20 offers India the prospect of enormous rewards related to an enhanced role in world politics. As this article lays out, however, the hosting function exposes India to risks of three types relating to organisational capacity and status. The highest profile of these risks comes from the changing external environment under which the New Delhi G20 will meet, set against a background of complicating geopolitical tensions. Moreover, beyond the highly charged stakes attached to this shifting external context, the basic organisational responsibilities of holding the presidency of the G20 in New Delhi present a second serious challenge. The hosting function comes with enormous logistical issues that are especially sensitive for India in terms of peer status. Hosting a global summit of this type—that is to say, an institution constructed without the cushion of legitimacy attached to formal international organisations—is also complicated by India’s self-identity. Performing the role of host conveys a message of India’s equality of peer status vis-à-vis the other structurally important members in the G20. Nonetheless, in playing up this (insider) side of India’s identity, the other side of India’s (outsider) identity that privileges India’s solidarity with the Global South and the privileging of aspirational multilateralism through the United Nations (UN) is potentially compromised. My article has two intertwined purposes. On the one hand, it examines the major tests that exist for India regarding the contextual, procedural, and institutional meaning dynamics of the G20, analysing the differentiated nature and implications of each of these challenges in turn. On the other hand, the article offers some insights concerning the techniques of how India has either addressed (or could address) the three tests and so ensure a positive reception for the summit process.

India’s time in the spotlight has come with respect to global summitry. Given the narrative of a ‘New India’ with an enhanced profile in world politics, hosting the G20 in September 2023 has several significant rewards. Most notably, this type of activity is at odds with the familiar depictions of India as both a risk-averse and constricted actor in terms of capabilities (Mishra, 2023). Taking on the role of the presidency for the G20 allows India to magnify its image as a ‘rising’ power in the world, with a cluster of projected diplomatic and economic benefits.

To signal that India’s hosting the G20 in New Delhi on September 9–10, 2023, is an important sign that India has a growing confidence about its place in the world; however, it is not to suggest that India can completely overcome imposed limitations. To grasp these ample rewards, in effect, three serious risks regarding the contextual, procedural, and institutional meaning dynamics of the G20 need to be mitigated if not overcome completely.

The highest profile of these risks relates to the context of India’s presidency, reflecting the changing external environment under which the New Delhi G20 will meet, set against a background of complicating geopolitical tensions. While Indonesia, as the host of the November 2022 Bali G20 summit, was able to paper over these stresses, it will be a more onerous task for India to do so with the intensification of the rift between Russia, China and the West.

Moreover, beyond the highly charged stakes attached to this shifting external context, the basic procedural responsibilities of holding the presidency of the G20 in New Delhi present a second serious challenge. The hosting function comes with enormous logistical issues that are especially sensitive for India in terms of peer status. Indeed, organising the G20 in New Delhi presents a particularly difficult test in terms of planning in that it deviates from the established model of G20 hosting in non-Western countries away from the capital city: China (Hangzhou in 2016) and Indonesia (Bali in 2022) being the stereotypes. As such, India’s own performance capabilities come under scrutiny. If the spotlight of the global audience on the Indian capital is highly attractive, this choice of venue adds immense pressure.

Moreover, with respect to institutional meaning, there is a third type of risk in terms of how India’s own national self-identity is presented via the G20: with membership within an informal self-selective summit created initially amid the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC) by the dominant Western countries. Hosting a global summit of this type—that is to say, an institution constructed without the cushion of legitimacy attached to formal international organisations (IOs)—conveys a message of India’s equality of peer status vis-à-vis the other structurally important members in the G20. However, in playing up this (insider) side of India’s identity (Cooper, 2021; Cooper & Stolte, 2019), the other side of India’s (outsider) identity that privileges India’s solidarity with the Global South and the privileging of aspirational multilateralism through the United Nations (UN) is potentially compromised.

My article has two intertwined purposes. On the one hand, it examines the major tests that exist for India regarding the contextual, procedural, and institutional meaning dynamics of the G20: working backwards to analyse the differentiated nature and implications of each of these challenges in turn. While the contribution considers the contextual test in some greater detail, due to its salience as background to India’s relationship with the G20, the challenges procedural and institutional meaning are also compelling and merit scrutiny. On the other hand, the article offers some insights concerning the techniques of how India has either addressed (or could address) the three tests and so ensure a positive reception for the summit process. While the ability to do so is vital as a positive signal in the context of India’s standing, it also sends an important message from a wider perspective about India’s ability to transcend the limitations of the past associated with risk averseness and constricted capabilities.

India’s Foundational Ambivalence to the G20 Mode of Global Summitry

The engagement by India with the G20 has not been straightforward. Certainly, India joined the G20 with respect to its elevation at the leaders’ level in 2008 without a process of negotiation (Cooper, 2010; Cooper & Thakur, 2012). However, India remained ambivalent about membership in this summit process. In the context of the 2008 GFC, the hold of this attitude in terms of institutional choices loosened. However, the hold of the embedded sense of ambivalence with respect to the institutional meaning of the G20 was not broken completely. On the contrary, a form of balance was maintained between two traditional mindsets. In tandem with their repositioning as status–aspirational insiders in terms of the choice of engagement with respect to the establishment-created G20, India moved to refurbish its sense of apartness from the incumbents as outsiders by their embrace of alternative institutional sites. For one thing, India continued to declare its support for the superior claims of legitimacy with respect to the UN with full participation of the Global South. For another, India moved to support the autonomous BRICs summit process (which began with Brazil, Russia, India, and China and later added South Africa) (Cooper, 2016; BRICS; Stuenkel, 2020). Such a dualistic approach, if awkward at times, showed the sustained connection between the historically sensitive conceptualisation about India’s place in the world and the dualistic repertoire of statecraft as it played out in operation.

To understand India’s ambivalence, recognition must be given to India’s status deprivation in earlier institutional processes that privileged self-selected forums. Under the coercive weight of colonialism, India was kept out in terms of full membership of all the older foundational institutional models of this type. India did not operate as a privileged insider in the 1919 Paris Peace Conference or gain this status at either the various big power summits at the end of the Second World War or during the Cold War. Neither was India a member of the G7 as this hub summit process built momentum as an informal institution throughout the later part of the twentieth century. Whereas, Russia was embraced in this form of institutionalised summitry in the late 1990s (Salzman, 2019: 57), India (along with the rest of the Global South together with China) remained outside—and preferred to be on the outside—from this type of institutional standing. As Acharya accurately depicts, a common feature among the non-incumbents was their collective rejection of any institutional format associated with ‘the collective hegemony of the great powers over the weak’ (Acharya, 2018: 57).

With this resentment toward informal modes of global summitry as a binding element, the contrast between India’s attitude towards the G20 and the UN is striking. An entrenched resentment remained concerning India’s exclusion from the UN Security Council, with sustained frustrations with respect to the ability of the incumbents that ‘froze their superior status and built near-insurmountable hurdles to any future alteration attempt’ (Dabhade, 2017). However, this attitude did not in a way compromise India’s overall attachment to the UN.

On the G20, conversely, an entrenched attitude of wariness stood out, notwithstanding India’s inclusion. As one commentator put it:

The expansion of a self-selected Group of Eight (G-8) to a Group of 20 (G-20) selected by them is not quite what reformers have sought, and it does not constitute an advance in global democracy. It only reinforces an oligarchic system by socialising and incorporating potential challengers. There is an entry price to the club. The new members can no longer project themselves as victims in an unjust world. They will now be asked to temper their nationalist positions on trade, technology, finance, environment and health to accommodate western interests and global concerns (Desai, 2009).

Nor was this attitude of wariness confined to the conceptualisation of Indian intellectuals. The experience from the Heiligendamm Process (HP), begun in 2007 and running for two years, as a pivotal part of an important ‘outreach’ model with the G8 had the unintended consequence of reinforcing the sensitivity of government officials about global summitry. Whether by design or default, the G8 navigated the process without much input from or consultation with its outreach partners, with the basic structure relying on a steering committee and four work groups focused on topics of vital interest to the G8. Reflecting the sensitivity of the operational process, India was prompted almost immediately to take umbrage over procedural matters that smacked of a culture of unequals. It moved to a position where it viewed these practices as constituting a return to older forms of arbitrary practices rather than a pathway to a recalibrated equitable order.

All this is not to downplay the fact that, when the 2008 GFC hit, the experience of the HP did not deter India (or others) from entering the G20 as a member. Sensitivity did not mean avoidance. Nonetheless, in retrospect, there is no question that the HP experience accentuated the already deeply inculcated wariness of India about involvement with any incumbent-led informal self-selective institutional format. As in the past, non-incumbents generally—and India, especially—remained suspicious of the operational mode of any informal institution that was not of their own making.

The extent to which India remained ambivalent to the G20 was signalled by its willingness to engage in other institutional options. The most visible of this ‘countermovement’ came from within the UN itself, as manifested by the Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development organised by the UNGA in June 2009, to which all the world’s heads of state were invited. As an alternative to the G20, this UNGA conference fell short of the convenors’ expectations. Still, what is striking is India’s willingness to attach to an initiative led explicitly by a distinctive oppositional cluster of countries from the Global South, notably Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua.

Moreover, inside the G20, India demonstrated a high degree of reluctance to engage fully vis-à-vis the G20. In organisational terms, India remained ambivalent about any high-profile participation, preferring to watch as other countries (initially those at the core of the old establishment, but over time, ‘new’ middle states such as South Korea, Mexico, and Turkey) took prominent roles. On a number of occasions, India possessed the opportunity to take on a leadership role but backed away. In the contest to take on the presidency role with respect to the 2018 summit, India deferred to Argentina. Moreover, again, in the lead-up to the 2021 summit, India allowed Italy to jump ahead of it, moving back in the queue regarding the hosting position. And again, in 2022, India gave way to Indonesia, only finally taking up the host position in terms of the 2023 summit.

Given the depth of India’s ambivalence about membership in an informal, self-selected and establishment-oriented forum, the G20 was not given explicit privileging up to 2022. Instead, consistent with past behaviour, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi endeavoured to balance G20 membership with support for the UN and aspirational multilateralism, with special reference to connections with the Global South. To give just one illustration from the 2015 G20, where the host nation, Turkey, wanted to expand the agenda to encompass issues beyond the ambit of a crisis committee, India held steadfast in its resistance. Not only did Prime Minister Modi maintain that the G20 should be subordinated to the UN on the sustainable development agenda, but his 10-point plan to combat terrorism privileged the UN as well (Singh, 2015).

It is misleading to argue that this attitude has disappeared. Rather, the effort to position the G20 in terms of strategic calculation as compatible with the UN—and the wider global community—has emerged as a dominant theme of India’s presidency. In declaratory terms, this has meant championing the mantra of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’—the world is one family—as its G20 theme. Moreover, in instrumental advocacy terms, India has given priority to a developmental agenda compatible with the UN.

Moreover, by both coincidence and design, India possesses several advantages in promoting the links between the agenda of the informal exclusive G20 and the formal inclusive UN. Diplomatically, on an exceptional basis, India’s presidency coincides with a G20 troika—the past (Indonesia), present (India), and next-in-line (Brazil) presidencies—that are all countries with Global South identities. Thus, India not only has the opportunity of being able to leverage extended influence through the G20 beyond the span of its presidency. It is able to do so in an environment that accents the G20’s association of the summit process with the Global South.

Under these conditions, in terms of technical expertise, India is able to play up in a confident manner that it is stepping up with respect to leadership in a number of domains. One is on the International Solar Alliance, with a focus on renewable resources. Another is the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), which aims to build resilience to climate and disaster risks. Still, another relates to India’s digital governance initiatives, such as the digital vaccine-identification program and unified payment interface (See, e.g., Kripalani & Bhatia, 2022; Prabhu & Ghosh, 2023).

Still, balancing membership in the G20 and the UN remains tricky. As in the past, a major question remains whether or not India’s enhanced role in terms of the G20 (notwithstanding efforts to play down the exclusive side of this form of summitry) does, in fact, compromise its claim to be a promoter of inclusive multilateralism. In terms of global reputation, there were both advantages and disadvantages of India being brought into the inner circle. On one side, it meant that India had gained amplified recognition with respect to differentiated status. However, on the other side, it left India open to charges that joining the self-selective G20 meant separation both from the ‘rest’ of the Global South and the formal architecture of global politics around the UN (Deen, 2010).

Prime Minister Modi, in embracing more fully the G20, has tied this engagement with the notion of a crisis of IO-based multilateralism. In other words, the enhanced role of the G20 is justified because of the immobilisation of the UN and other formal bodies. As he argued at the end of the 2022 Bali summit, the G20 had become essential in large part because of the failure of the UN:

We should … not hesitate to acknowledge that multilateral institutions such as the UN have been unsuccessful on [a variety of important] issues. And we have all failed to make suitable reforms to them. Therefore, today, the world has greater expectations from the G-20, and the relevance of our group has become more significant (News18, 2022).

However, such an argument conveys a message that India represents the Global South, a claim that can be contested. By the very nature of its insider status in the G20, it is more difficult for India to convey the image of an (aggrieved) outsider as it did in the past, punctuated by its hosting role at the Non-Aligned Movement Summit in 1983.

While such issues surround India’s reputational credentials in terms of the G20, it must be added that they inevitably spill over into other informal institutions that India has moved to belong to as well: not the least the BRICS. Through its leadership on specific initiatives promoted by the BRICs, above all, the New Development Bank (NDB) (Chin, 2014; Cooper, 2017), India has enhanced its image by paying careful attention to maintaining connections with the less powerful. Whereas China has embraced the notion of expanding the BRICs beyond the original membership, India adopted a generally cautious stance (Laskar, 2022).

That said, it is noteworthy that India appears to have used the G20 to target countries that it might be open to with respect to BRICS membership. A prime case in point is Egypt. Invited as one of the guest countries to the New Delhi G20 (along with a number of others, including the UAE), Egypt is a country with which India has had a long connection via the NAM (Aljazeera, 2023). So, if India was not as initially enthusiastic about BRICS expansion as China, this attitude did not translate into a (blocking) position where its image as a champion for the Global South was jeopardised by its opposition to the entry of a wide number of countries desirous of joining an expansive BRICS grouping.

Logistical Obstacles to Hosting the G20

As two experienced G20 watchers have commented, it is misleading to suggest that the tests for hosting only relate to ‘substance’ as opposed to ‘logistics and location features’ (Chin & Dobson, 2015: 164). Confirming this point, India has long been sensitive to its performance as a host to global summits. Writing in 2019, Akshay Mathur, at the Indian think tank Gateway House, made a compelling case why the G20 should be viewed positively by a ‘rising’ India in line with a more inclusionary global system: ‘The G20 is unique. Here, developing countries can display their political, economic and intellectual leadership on a par with the most powerful countries. The G20’s rotating presidency ensures that no one country dominates the agenda’ (Mathur, 2019).

Still, even among the enthusiasts, there was ingrained a strong concern regarding procedural dynamics that India must step up in operational capacity if it is to deliver as an effective host. Accordingly, considerable attention was paid to the need for infrastructure that meets G20 criteria: ‘Unlike the Olympics and more like Davos, this effort is focused on a small but powerful group which expects good airports, accommodation, conference facilities, and communications infrastructure all year round’ (Mathur, 2019).

Moreover, beyond the physical tests, concerns came to the fore about a gap in human capital. For, at least in comparative standards, India continued to make do with a bureaucratic culture comparatively deficient in the context of the G20 process. For one thing, there has been a lack of coordination among the relevant (and understaffed) ministries. For another thing, the appointment of sherpas has retained an ad hoc image. In combination, these weaknesses were said to put India at a protracted disadvantage to the performance of the West and increasingly by China.

Some of the preparatory work to redress these problems has concentrated on exhortation, with a push for Delhi to put its ‘best face’ forward with respect to the G20. However, there has been some considerable effort to tackle the key issues of concern: for example, plans by local government authorities to spend $600 million over three years to electrify most of its public transport to improve air quality in one of the world’s most-polluted cities. And it must be added that the hosting function ties into the Modi government’s longer-term objective of projecting the image of a ‘New India’ via the Central Vista redevelopment project.

On the human capital side, an important move was the appointment in mid-2022 of former corporate (NITI Aayog) CEO Amitabh Kant as India’s sherpa for the G20 (Jayaswal, 2022). In doing so, Kant took over from commerce minister Piyush Goyal, whose ability to operate as sherpa was made difficult by the sheer scope of his domestic political responsibilities as they expanded beyond his ministries—he also heads the consumer affairs, food, and public distribution ministry—and as the leader of the Rajya Sabha (upper house).

Passing this test component relating to procedural dynamics is made much easier by Kant’s mix of skill sets: combining the knowledge as a former long-serving officer of the Indian Administrative Service with entrepreneurial competence. Not only was Kant able to communicate well the pivotal messaging of the government about the G20, but he was also able to engineer the demanding task of decentralising the G20’s activities in the lead-up to the New Delhi summit. Here, it is salient to note that while some of the preparatory meetings were held in New Delhi, others were scattered across India. Some of these events were highly innovative and attractive, such as flying G20 ambassadors to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands for the initial Ministry of External Affairs and Sherpa briefing on logistics for 2023. Others were met with some degree of contention, as witnessed by the refusal by China and Saudi Arabia to send representatives to a tourism working group meeting in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir (Wintour, 2023).

The New Delhi Summit Set Against a Background of Complicating Geopolitical Tensions

If the first two tests related to institutional meaning and procedural dynamics conditioned India’s attitude and capabilities with respect to the hosting of the G20, they represented challenges that India possessed some degree of autonomy in terms of response. By this standard, the third test centred on how the context vis-à-vis the intensifying geopolitical tensions complicated both the preparation and potential outcome of the New Delhi summit was very different. The impact of the relationship between the G20 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine—and for that matter, the relationship of China to the India-hosted G20—opened up possibilities of fracturing and immobilisation of a very different magnitude.

With some impressive diplomatic ability, Indonesia, as host of the 2022 Bali summit, was able to manage the relationship of the G20 to the Russian invasion. The G20, in its Leaders’ Declaration, depicted the ‘aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine’ in comprehensive terms not just as ‘causing immense human suffering’ but ‘exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy’. Nonetheless, in terms of projected visibility through the summit proceedings, the war was downplayed. Instead, Indonesia was given ample space to play up the themes of its presidency: ‘Recover Together, Recover Stronger’ with a push to accelerate achievements of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a general goal and the establishment of a new Financial Intermediary Fund for Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response (FIF-PPR) in particular. Indonesia did not want the war to define the Bali summit and largely succeeded in that goal.

India will likely have a harder time replicating Indonesia’s achievements. Akin to Indonesia, India’s approach has been to keep attention away from Russia-Ukraine by a focus on India’s own agenda, with a reliance on support from the Global South for the success of this strategy. Per se, the Indian sherpa has emphasised that the conflict is external to the G20 and its mandate.

In terms of the origins of the G20 at the time of the 2008 GFC, this point is correct. However, what must be accounted for is how the G20 has evolved over time, with geopolitical issues being privileged. Nor, for that matter, has this been a dynamic only promoted by the West. On the sidelines of the 2015 Turkish G20, for example, it was Vladimir Putin and Russia that worked with American President Barack Obama to reach a (potential) agreement on the sidelines of the G20 concerning a Syrian transition (Murphy, 2015).

That said, references to geopolitical tensions are not complete without coming back to the second strand: the relationship between China and the India-hosted G20. In Bali, there was some distance between Russia and China. A good deal of the engagement of Chinese leader President Xi Jinping with the G20 concentrated on the support for initiatives related to global governance. Crucially, the highlight of Xi’s meeting with American President Biden was the announcement of the resumption of their bilateral cooperation on global climate change mitigation efforts. While situated in a much stronger diplomatic position, China could only build on these advantages by, in effect, distancing itself from Russia and the war. Not only did Xi join with Biden in condemning any consideration of the use of nuclear weapons in the Russia/Ukraine conflict, he confirmed the message in his meeting with President French President Emmanuel Macron.

Forging consensus on the geopolitical tensions in New Delhi will be far more onerous, in part at least because of the polarisation of attitudes about the war not only between the West and Russia but with a spillover effect to China. At the March 2023 foreign ministers meeting, Russia was joined by China in refusing to sign the joint statement that criticised Moscow’s invasion, leaving India to issue a ‘chair’s summary and outcome document’ in which it summarised the two-day meeting and acknowledged disagreements (Mogul & Sud, 2023).

The Asymmetrical Nature and Implications of the Tests

Addressing the first two tests in an adequate manner—i.e., those concerning a shift in the privileging of institutional meaning regarding the identification of India with an informal, self-selected mode of global summitry and the successful managing of the practical logistics related to the hosting functions—are necessary if there is to a positive judgement about India’s presidency.

Coming to terms with India’s ambivalence about engaging fully with the G20 signifies a sense of confidence that India can take ownership of the summit process without a sharp departure from its ingrained identity as a leader of the Global South and a committed multilateralist via the UN and other formal IOs. In part, the ability of India to make this adjustment relates to the evolution of the G20. Delaying taking on the hosting function has meant that other countries with similar cautious instincts about such an institutional engagement have taken on the presidency role. The standout case here is China, which initially shared India’s ambivalence before breaking with this stance by the confident embrace of the G20 in 2016. Moreover, the shift in Chinese assumptions in thinking about the G20 not only related to symbolic benefits attached to the hosting role but an awareness that the G20 no longer was an institution that held disciplinary capacities. As such, instead of being defensive, the G20 could be recalibrated to focus on links with the UN system and solidarity objectives vis-à-vis policy initiatives.

Such a shift from its traditional sense of ambivalence has been eased considerably by the image of the G20 no longer being the possession of the established Western-centric elite. If China’s move to take host function in 2016 consolidated this change of perception, the line-up of Indonesia as president in 2022, followed not only by India in 2023 but Brazil and South Africa back to back in 2024 and 2025, made this point emphatically.

While it is necessary to highlight these structural changes, the agency of the Modi government must be factored in as well. Stepping up in terms of the presidency has been tied explicitly with claims to a deserved elevated status in the global hierarchical pecking order.

Having decided to take on the hosting function, India has gone big: playing up the role of host in terms of advocacy via the G20. Moreover, even if holding the summit in the capital holds some comparative disadvantages to the decisions of China and Indonesia to host the G20 summits in Hangzhou and Bali, these logistical issues are unlikely to be serious enough to cause major reputational damage.

The tougher test will come to the fore in the highly visible geopolitical context. Although the US and its allies will push hard for the G20 to accent its condemnation of ‘aggression by the Russian Federation’, India will be reluctant to endorse this theme as the crux of the summit. While an onerous task, at the same time, as host, it has several procedural advantages to deflect attention towards its own priorities and away from a G7-Russia plus potential China confrontation. Indeed, the difficulty presented by this geopolitical test in the context of worsening India-China relations is accentuated by the late decision of the Chinese President Xi Jinping not to attend the New Delhi summit (Kaushik et al., 2023).

The G20, as reinforced by India’s recalibration towards a full embrace of the hosting function, represents the one global institution that allows a meeting of equals, albeit with a restricted membership. Although the G20 no longer serves as the crisis committee as it did amid the 2008 GFC, the institution exists as an apex focal point for engagement between major structurally important countries and their leaders (Cooper, 2019). The primary test for India’s presidency, thus, will be to underscore that the G20 remains essential because of this central purpose. If the pressures have intensified, the combination of will and skill on display places India in a position where it is the rewards, not the risks, that should appraise India’s performance with respect to leadership over the 2023 New Delhi summit.