New Delhi: As the leaders of the group of seven economic powers (G7) come on one platform in Schloss Elmau in the Bavarian Alps in Germany to discuss global issues including the Ukraine crisis, with India as the guest at the summit, India’s former ambassador Anil Trigunayat talks to ETV Bharat about why it is important to add India to the G7 to make it G8.
“India of course is virtually in a way seen as G8 because it has been consistently partnering in the outreach earlier and now for the last three years, PM Modi has been attending these summits and India gets pride of place in this," said Trigunayat.
He underlined that India’s position which is a sort of a "strategic autonomy" or "independent position" that was taken during the Russia-Ukraine war or its continuing purchase of the energy from Russia, are the issues that the Western countries don’t like but they have learned to accept because they understand from where India is coming, adding that "at the end of the day, they are mercantilist nations, they also look at the potential that the largest democracy and the fastest growing economy provides".
“Since 2000, India has been at the outreach of G7 events and participated at various fora. India also has had bilateral ties and strategic partnership with different countries and have been discussing the FTA (Free trade agreement) with the EU, US, UK, and Canada and has just signed recently with Australia. Therefore, India is an extremely important country from the market point of view”, said Trigunayat.
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He said that since the basic purpose of G7 initially was economy, so one cannot leave out the largest democracy in the world and currently, the second-largest market in the fastest growing economy. So, in that rationale and it has been already talked about by several leaders that India should be a formal leader of the G7+1 or G8- at one time was Russia, which has been suspended since 2014.
“Virtually, India exists there, whether you formally have it or not. Now that India is going to host the G20 summit as well, in which all the G7 would be participating among others, therefore, we will have to see how strongly India carries the mantle of the global sanity and global health economy, which is an important dimension that will be watched”, added Trigunayat.
Importance of G7
Commenting on the importance of G7, Trigunayat said, "G7 is a very important summit and this time, it is happening in the backdrop of the Russian-Ukraine crisis and the ill-effects of the pandemic. For the first time, we are seeing that the European countries themselves, as well as America, are suffering from hyperinflation as well as stagflation and recession. So those are the major issues that the G7 nations want to deal with, even though Germany and Olaf Scholz, would have liked an equitable world or focus more on global issues like climate change," he said.
"We have also seen that they are announcing 600 billion dollars worth of investments for developing countries to counter some kind of BRI. So we see China is very much in the room, even if it is not talked about so blatantly at the moment, as today Russia is the real villain for them,” he added.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday participated in the G7 summit at the invitation of host Germany. Besides India, Argentina, Indonesia, Senegal, and South Africa participated as the guests for this year’s summit. The G7 attempts to recognize the democracies of the global south as its partners.
This year’s summit comes in the background of the Russia-Ukraine war and India’s position has always been clear, urging for cessation of violence from the beginning of the conflict.
