India at G7 : From guest to strategic partner

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be attending the G‑7 summit next week in France. This will be his seventh consecutive participation and 14^th for India reflecting its growing importance in global affairs. India’s association with the G‑7 began in 2003, when Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee attended the group’s annual meeting for the first time. His successor, Manmohan Singh, was invited to the summit five times between 2005 and 2009. Modi has been attending the summit every year since 2019, except in 2020 when it could not be held due to covid. India is the only country to have the record of being invited 15 times to this group of world’s most industrialised nations.

The United States, United Kingdom, West Germany, France, Italy, and Japan got together to form G-6 in 1975. A year later, in 1975, Canada joined making it the G‑7. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia was invited to join in 1998 transforming it into the G‑8, until its expulsion in 2014 following the annexation of Crimea.

G-8 was an influential economic power controlling over 70 percent of global GDP. But in the last two decades, global economic landscape transformed significantly. Countries such as China, ASEAN nations, and India emerged as new major economies. By the 2020s, India overtook the UK and Japan to become the world’s fourth-largest economy. Within the G‑7, only the United States and Germany now have larger GDPs than India. Meanwhile, the G‑7’s share of global GDP has declined to roughly 40 percent today. However, the G‑7’s influence remains given its leadership in advanced technologies, defence capabilities, green innovation, and cyber and space domains.

For the G‑7, India is an increasingly valuable partner. It is a stable and non-threatening democracy with a rapidly growing economy competing with the group’s members. It has a vast domestic market and burgeoning middle class—one of the largest in the world—offering immense economic opportunities. In PPP terms, India ranks third globally in GDP, further enhancing its appeal. Additionally, India’s advancements in technology and its large pool of skilled manpower make it more attractive in a rapidly evolving global tech-economy. Most importantly, under Modi’s leadership, India has emerged as the leading voice of the Global South, adding diplomatic heft to its economic clout.

For India, in its plurilateral alignment strategy, the G-7 occupies an important place. India enjoys Comprehensive Strategic Partnership agreements with all the seven member countries of the group. Besides the four European powers – Germany, France, Italy and UK – the presence of leadership of the European Union at the summit makes this forum effectively dominated by Europe today. India’s new geostrategic priorities place a premium on its relations with Europe. It concluded an important free trade agreement with the European Union last year which is undergoing legal scrubbing to be prepared for final implementation soon.

After remaining on the backburner for decades, India‑Europe relations have gained significant momentum in the past decade, driven by a recalibration of India’s foreign policy under Modi. A defining feature of India’s new Euro-centric vision is the concept of the Indo‑Mediterranean – an emerging geostrategic framework connecting the Indian Ocean with Europe. This vision gained traction in September 2023, when India, as G‑20 chair, launched the India‑Middle East Economic Corridor (IMEC) in New Delhi in the presence of leaders from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, France, Germany, Italy, the EU, and the United States. The IMEC initiative seeks to advance India’s interests across the pillars of trade, technology, and energy.

This new formulation signifies India’s new vision and ambition. In May this year, during his visit to Rome, prime minister Modi, together with his Italian counterpart Georgia Melony, penned a joint op-ed, which exhorted that “we are witnessing the emergence of what might be termed the Indo-Mediterranean, an important corridor for trade, technology, energy, data and ideas, tying the Indian Ocean to Europe”. Historically, India maintained deep commercial and cultural ties with the Mediterranean and Arab worlds, trading in spices, textiles, and precious stones for centuries. The Indo‑Mediterranean concept is the 21^st century version of these ancient linkages with the Arab, North African and European regions, adapted to contemporary geopolitical realities.

India has the grand ambition to rise as a frontline economic and technological power in the world today. Modi is investing heavily in achieving ‘atmanirbharta’ – self-reliance in deep-tech and other frontier technology areas. India also needs massive industrialisation to address the growing employment needs of its bulging youth dividend. In realising those targets, its relations with Europe, which has the capital and technology, acquire enormous significance. Prime minister Modi understands this imperative and hence his efforts at engaging with various segments of the European community like the Nordic countries, Southern and Eastern European nations like Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Poland and Czeck Republic and others.

Modi also needs European powers on his side to tackle the restive Middle East. India’s IMEC corridor passes through UAE and Saudi Arabia. A new bonhomie is emerging among countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt – cryptically called the Islamic NATO – which could pose a challenge to that vision.

Modi’s Europe visit, that includes bilateral engagements in France and Slovakia and the G-7 summit, is his second visit to that region in a month’s time. It shows the enormous importance he attaches to the promise and potential that the Indo-Mediterranean vision holds. It is still at the inception level only and a lot needs to be done to realise that vision. Unlike the Belt and Road Initiative, which was singularly spearheaded by China, Indo-Mediterranean vision calls for different countries to play their respective roles. Modi’s persistent engagements with leaders in these regions are intended to motivate them for the same.

If successfully realized, the Indo-Mediterranean vision could eventually give rise to an “Indo‑Atlantic” region as a western counterpart to the Indo‑Pacific—reshaping global strategic dynamics. India’s consistent presence at the G‑7 is not merely symbolic. It reflects a broader transformation of the country from a peripheral participant to a pivotal player in the emerging geopolitics of the world.