"The world is a family", says the Sanskrit motto of the G-20 summit. "A dysfunctional family", noted António Guterres, Secretary General of the UN, just arriving in India.
New Delhi, which was conceived as an imperial capital, is in its element this weekend, as host to a long list of heads of state and government. This disembarking of power (80% of global GDP), however, has returned millions of residents to the impotence of confinement, for security reasons.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had a "productive" conversation at his residence with US President Joe Biden yesterday, who reportedly promised support for India's inclusion as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
The landing of Biden, his British counterpart, Rishi Sunak, the Japanese Fumio Kishida or the French Emmanuel Macron, among others, almost concealed notable absences such as that of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
Today they will be in a building inaugurated last month for the occasion, presided over by a golden Shiva. This kilometer zero of the Indian State is, also from this year and forever, that of the most populous nation in the world and - for the moment - its fifth economy.
Spain, like the Netherlands, has been a permanent guest since the first edition, but Pedro Sánchez did not get to board the plane after testing positive for covid. To the political message of the faults of Xi and Putin we must add that of the Mexican López Obrador, who yesterday preferred to meet with his counterpart Gustavo Petro, in Colombia, before continuing the trip to Chile to celebrate Allende's 50th birthday Pinochet coup.
The Argentinian Alberto Fernández was expected instead. And who could not fail was Lula, since Brazil will receive India's testimony in the presidency of the G-20 in November.
It should be noted that India, which is throwing the house out the window as host of the G-20, chose to hold the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization by video conference two months ago.
The G-20 forum gained prominence after the crises of 2008, to discuss and face global problems that go beyond the framework of the G-7. A spirit of cooperation now in crisis due to the war in Ukraine and its consequences for food and energy security.
In any case, India has hosted, throughout the year, more than a dozen ministerial summits with the nineteen member countries (the EU is the twentieth) and guests, among which India has included Egypt, Bangladesh, Oman and Singapore.
The sherpa of this edition, Amitabh Kant, underlines the sectoral meetings in sixty cities, a record number that reflects "our diversity and federal character". This is the most attractive aspect of India's model, which aspires to project itself among developing countries, although it does not have the credit card holder of China.
The Indian organization is particularly proud to have "given voice to the Global South", bringing together a record number of 125 developing countries.
The legacy of this summit could be the inclusion of the African Union as a permanent member, along with the EU.
Kant – who led the Make in India consortium – has also regretted that only 12 of the 169 Sustainable Development Goals are on track to be met. And the measures to be taken to curb global warming are once again the subject of dispute.
In the meantime, the final declaration would have already been agreed upon, except for the sentences relating to the invasion of Ukraine. The condemnation of Russian aggression is an article of faith for the Western bloc. But others, such as India and Turkey, cultivate equidistance and increase their imports of Russian hydrocarbons. Something that the previous Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, defended yesterday as legitimate in an interview.
