India has underlined that its G20 presidency is about bolstering the voice of the ‘Global South’. But the broader question is this: is the North-South division still relevant?

The term, Global South, has been around since the days of the Cold War when
bipolar alliance politics was the standard mode of international activity. However, the spread and the stupendous success of globalisation have raised questions about the relevance of the Global South. Historically, Global South refers to the post-colonial, developing or underdeveloped countries, which are striving to develop themselves on their own terms rather than follow a particular development paradigm. The Global South is typically associated with the notion of Non-alignment that was pioneered by India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, along with his compatriots in Indonesia and the former Yugoslavia, among others.

Global South has a moralistic underpinning. It argues that Western European countries, which colonised nation-states in Asia, Africa and Latin America and are responsible for their economic pauperisation, owe them either reparations or resources to help them grow.

A new element within the Global South’s argument is that the West was the first to industrialise and is, hence, responsible for climate change and global environmental damage. Therefore, the West must do the heavy lifting in terms of environmental protection. A key provision of this assumption is the transfer of technology for the development of green energy as well as the principle of common but differentiated responsibility outlined in the Paris Accord of 2015.

The concept of the Global South remained in vogue till the 1980s. But once communism collapsed in eastern Europe, followed by the disintegration of the Soviet Union, it lost traction. There is a line of thought that argues that there never was a Global South. The world was divided, during and after the Cold War, along ideological lines, and the so-called Global South was a part of this ideological Iron Curtain. It is argued that the economic logic underpinning the idea of the Global South is irrelevant because in the aftermath of the Cold War capitalism has reigned supreme and nations have tilted towards a free market economy.

But there isn’t any doubt that the Global South will continue to remain relevant. India’s success story — a country where poverty was the norm in 1947 is now the fifth-largest economy of the world — is a testament to not only India’s leadership of the Global South but also to the latter’s criticality. Further, global imbalances in the distribution of economic resources and the vociferous calls to renegotiate the terms of global agreements highlight the importance of this fraternity.

The Global South is an important reminder of the historical responsibility that richer nations owe to other underprivileged sections of humanity so that the latter can grow and prosper.