G20 Summit | The enigma of India’s arrival

There is no better way to understand some of the things that have happened since the G20 Summit than to pay attention to what the other leaders who attended the summit have been saying.

How do you measure the success of a diplomatic agreement such as the one we saw emerging from the New Delhi Summit of the G20? One way is to see how quickly the expectations set out in the declaration are met.

Four ministerial-level meetings that preceded the summit failed to produce any joint communiques. Expectations were, therefore, absent. Then it was pulled out like a rabbit out of a magician’s hat. The magician, of course, was the ubiquitous Prime Minister Narendra Modi. At 83 paragraphs, the New Delhi Declaration is 31 paragraphs longer than the Bali Declaration, of which only two were on the Russia-Ukraine situation. The New Delhi Declaration has eight paragraphs on this subject, a reflection of the political pre-occupation.

It is being suggested that by producing expanded ruminations New Delhi has taken pole position on the world stage, and has become not only an influencer but also a doer. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar exquisitely peeled away residual confusion, pointing out "Regarding the change in language on the Russia-Ukraine conflict from the Bali Declaration — Bali was Bali, New Delhi is New Delhi.” That is, of course, telling it like it is, a superior refinement of the law of identity but placed in the space-time continuum of international events. Jaishankar added an afterthought as an explanation: “Many things have happened since the Bali Declaration."

There is, therefore, no better way to understand some of the things that have happened since the summit, (where according to paragraph 10: There were different views and assessments of the situation.) than to pay attention to what the other primus inter pares have been saying. The Ukrainians haven’t begun jumping with joy at the Delhi outcome yet. A lot will depend on what Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who recently changed his defence minister to refocus war aims, is being told in private.

In public, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov drew satisfaction from his claim that the G20 failed to “Ukrainise” the summit. The New Delhi Summit called for “full, timely and effective implementation” of the UN-brokered Istanbul Agreements “to ensure the immediate and unimpeded deliveries of grain, foodstuffs, and fertilizers/inputs from the Russian Federation and Ukraine.” Russia pulled out of the agreement which allowed cargo ships safe passage from the Black Sea ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk, and Pivdennyi.

Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, told the House of Commons on September 11 that his purpose for attending the G20 was: “First, to increase the diplomatic pressure on Russia and call out their shameful disruption of global food supplies in the Black Sea.”

Here is Lavrov at New Delhi, after the Summit, making clear the Russian position: "When all the necessary actions for removing obstacles for our grain and fertiliser exports are implemented, the same day we will return to the collective implementation of the Ukrainian part of the 'Black Sea initiative'."

That could be shorthand for the removal of Western sanctions that have been placed on Russia. This is a bit of a no-go area. It is thus not clear where all this leaves a crucial portion of the New Delhi Declaration on Ukraine. Luckily, there is the statutory insurance cover in paragraph nine which recognises “the G20 is not the platform to resolve geopolitical and security issues.” It is a good thing that they can trundle this forward from summit to summit, emphasising the G20 is about economics, not so much about politics.

In the meanwhile, in a coincidence that can only be called curious but not significant, on the same weekend as the G20 Summit was underway in New Delhi, Russian Election Commission held elections in some parts of Russia and in Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia, and in the Crimean peninsula, previously part of Ukraine. Some of these areas became Russia a year ago. The turnout in these areas was, according to reports, higher than in other areas in Russia that had been Russia for far longer. No prizes for guessing the winners.

Yes, summits can be ironical. One of the most arresting and moving visuals from the summit was the G20 leaders, with silk khadi shawls draped on their shoulders, minus footwear, paying homage to that torch bearer of non-violence, who is reviled in some quarters, Mahatma Gandhi. It fed directly into a single line paragraph 14 in the Delhi Declaration: “Today’s era must not be of war.”

It cannot be a coincidence that this is exactly what Modi told Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in Samarkand on September 16. He said it in Hindi, the language of Bharat, “Aaj ka yug yudh ka hai nahin”. Unfortunately, in the Bali Declaration, though it was there, it was kind of tucked into the end of paragraph four, like a stubborn piece of chewing gum that sticks to a shoe. Now it has been prised away, and is there in all its stand-alone glowing glory, like a poem, which speaks to the superior drafting skills of our negotiating team over, say, the Indonesian one.

Lastly, Modi is not known for his press conferences. Not that he is tongue tied. But he can sometimes speak in riddles. (Example: “Na koi wahan hamari seema mein ghus aaya hai aur nahi koi ghusa hua hai, na hi hamari koi post kisi dusre ke kabze mein hain” (No one has intruded and nor is anyone intruding, nor has any post been captured by someone). This one, incidentally, remains insufficiently clarified except possibly by the Chinese who are known to publish maps that are oracular.)

So United States President Joe Biden had to wait till he got to Hanoi after the G20 Summit to inform the world, unprompted: “As I always do, I raised the importance of respecting human rights and the vital role the civil society and a free press have in building a strong and prosperous country with Modi,” He added, enigmatically, “and they have got a lot of important work done.” Now, perhaps, just perhaps, the path has been paved for Manipur Chief Minister Biren Singh to lay a wreath at Rajghat. Vasudhaiva kutambakam. Yes, that is what it is.

(V Sudarshan, a senior journalist who writes on foreign policy, is author of ‘Tuticorin: Adventures in Tamil Nadu’s Crime Capital’.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.