The stage is set for India to host its biggest diplomatic extravaganza in 40 years as leaders from more than two dozen nations gather in New Delhi for the G20 Summit and meetings on its sidelines. With the world’s attention firmly on India, this is an opportunity for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government to demonstrate the country’s growing geopolitical clout and showcase its potential as a leader of the Global South. Yet, at a time of deep global divisions, India’s presidency of the G20 is in many ways a crown of thorns, and the next two days will pose some of the toughest diplomatic challenges Mr Modi and his diplomats have confronted in several years. Already, three leaders have opted out of the summit — the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. No previous G20 summit has been given a slip by as many leaders. While their absence is not necessarily a reflection on India, it weakens the authority of the discussions held at the summit.

Far more worrying is the prospect that for the first time since the G20 leaders started meeting in summits 15 years ago, the group might fail to come up with a joint communiqué at the end of the conclave. During Indonesia’s presidency of the G20 in 2022, the group adopted a declaration that spelt out how most member nations were critical of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but that some nations disagreed. This
time, Russia and China have made it clear that they are unwilling to agree to such language, while the United States of America and its allies have also been firm that condemnation of Moscow in the text is mandatory for them to sign off on it. By all accounts, a meeting by the lead negotiators of G20 nations — known as sherpas since they guide their leaders to the summit — held on the outskirts of New Delhi recently failed to secure a breakthrough. A failure to deliver a joint declaration would show India’s limitations in bridging the chasm between leading powers and call into question the effectiveness of the G20 as a body capable of shaping the global agenda.

For Mr Modi and his government, that could prove embarrassing, especially as they have turned the summit almost into a part of their campaign for next year’s Lok Sabha elections. Hoardings all over New Delhi carry Mr Modi’s photo, while the government has chosen the ruling party’s symbol — the lotus — as the emblem for the G20. All this is undoubtedly being done keeping in mind the Bharatiya Janata Party’s domestic electoral campaign. This is not unprecedented: Mr Modi’s regime is known to prioritise domestic electoral imperatives above all else. But success or failure at the G20 summit will be much more about than the BJP’s poll prospects or, indeed, about India. A deeper cleavage within the world order is not in the interest of any country.