India’s principal achievement as the chair of the Group of Twenty (G-20) last year was to emerge as a bridge between the developed countries of the Global North and the Global South.
New Delhi: The present volume under review is slim in size, but is packed with star contributors who seek to analyse the issues related to the Global South and lay out guidance for the future trajectory of Indian efforts. The volume has essays from a galaxy of former officials and specialists— among them are former minister Shashi Tharoor, former NSA, Shivshankar Menon, former vice-chairman Niti Aayog, Rajiv Kumar, as well as a number of former ambassadors, Kanwal Sibal, Lakshmi Puri, Gurjit Singh, Mohan Kumar, scholars like Srikanth Kondapalli and C. Rajamohan, journalists Suhasini Haidar and T.K. Arun and commentator Seshadri Chari.
The less developed parts of the world have been described in different words. Sometimes they have been called the Third World, at other times designated as the Group of 77 and seen as being represented by the Non Aligned Movement. But in recent times, the term “Global South” became increasingly prominent and the focus has been on the importance of improving the instruments of global governance to change things.
Just what is the dividing line between the Global South and the Global North is not easy to determine. While the G-20 provided a cutting edge platform for presenting Global South issues, it is not by itself an institutional representation of the idea. The Global South is a more amorphous grouping, which according to the UNCTAD broadly comprises of Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia (minus Israel, Japan and South Korea) and Oceania (minus Australia and New Zealand). It is characterized by countries that have lower incomes and standards of living as compared to the Global North. They suffer from inadequate housing, limited educational opportunities, deficient health care systems and poor infrastructure. Yet they have a breadth that spans from, say, China, to the poorest countries in sub Saharan Africa.
Yet, as Rajiv Kumar points out in this volume, that defining what is Global North and what is South is not easy. China despite its huge economy and defence budget is not considered and, indeed, does not want to be considered part of the North. Within the so-called South there is a huge disparity, say between Brazil, South Africa and China and the benighted countries of sub-Saharan Africa.
Perhaps a sharper and more political definition comes from the essay of journalist T.K. Arun, who also raises the definitional issue and concludes that the prime differentiator between the Global South and Global North is more likely the criterion as to whether a member state is a rule setter or rule taker where the rules relate to the global financial architecture, the trading and taxation system and access to dual use technology.
In his essay, Shashi Tharoor says there are four crises that plague the current structures of global governance. There is the crisis of legitimacy born from the fact that large sections of the world population have been left out of the current structures of global governance. The second is the crisis of sovereignty where some nations cling to sovereignty while others are willing cede it in an effort to enhance their bargaining power. The third is the crisis of the collective where a number of organisations like BRICS, RIC, G-20 and G-77 emerge but nations remain bilaterally hostile to each other. The fourth is the crisis of identity arising from the cultural and economic backlash against globalization.
Shiv Shankar Menon points out that great power rivalry has provided geopolitical space for the South, which often manifests itself in a refusal to accept simplistic notions of “democracy versus autocracy” kind of formulations favoured by the Global North. He also points to the fact that the North has not been particularly helpful in helping the South to deal with fundamental crises such as the one arising from the enormous burden of debt. He notes that the world is only multipolar in name not in the real attributes of military and economic power.
India’s principal achievement as the chair of the Group of Twenty (G-20) last year was to emerge as a bridge between the developed countries of the Global North and the Global South. Prime Minister Modi has sought to stamp India’s leadership role in Global South issues. This has been the reason for hosting annual Voice of the Global South Summits in India. The first summit was held on the run-up to the G-20 summit with a view of channeling the concerns of the Global South into the G-20 agenda. At the most recent summit in August 2024, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for the creation of a Global Development Compact to facilitate trade, sharing of technologies and concessional financing.
India has been an active leader of the process of promoting development in the Global South. This was manifested at one level by giving the African Union membership of the G-20. Another country seeking to project its leadership has been China, which has come up with a Global Development Initiative. Yet, when it has confronted major issues like that of Global South indebtedness, China, which holds a considerable amount of the debt, has proved to be unhelpful as was evident in the case of Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka.
Manoj Joshi is a Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi.