New Delhi: G20 heads of states will converge on New Delhi on 9 and 10 September to participate in the summit that will conclude India’s year-long presidency of the grouping.
As the main event draws nearer, public policy adviser Banu Nagarajan has said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, through the G20 events and working camps, has provided Indians with a lesson in foreign policy.
He writes in the right-wing magazine Organiser that Modi “is not only making Indians think of their place in the world but making them think for the world”.
Nagarajan alludes to the motto Modi detailed for the youth in his 77th Independence Day speech this year – “perform, reform, and transform” – and writes that the participation of the public in the G20 processes has been paramount.
Nagarajan also writes that getting an opportunity to host multiple delegates for the many events this year has allowed Indians to experience the global culture, and interact with foreign cultures as well.
He calls the G20 presidency of India a large “chintan-shivir” or a “brainstorming session” as both Indian and foreign participants got to engage and learn from each other.
“Instead of the Peloponnesian war as it is taught in copycat textbooks, PM Modi is teaching International Relations to Indians in his own way,” he writes. This lesson in foreign policy, Nagarajan says, was through hands-on experiential modules where Indians learnt about the world as they engaged with it during this one year.
The G20 theme adopted by the country is “One Earth, One Family, One Future”, which derives from the Sanskrit phrase “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” – the world is one family.
Nagarajan says Modi, the “outsider”, has shown the world how foreign policy can be taught with original thinking. The author calls upon foreign policy thinkers and writers to take lessons from Modi’s approach and reevaluate their role in the ecosystem.