NEW DELHI, Sept 5: India has raised the stature of G20, giving it a certain recognition of its ability to influence people in the world and the forum will be inspired in future by what has been done in the country during its presidency, Maruti Suzuki India Chairman R C Bhargava said on Tuesday.
No other nation has taken the opportunity like India did to showcase its development, raise the profile of the country and also to use the G20 platform to make a lot of changes, and improvements in attitudinal differences in different parts of the country under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bhargava told PTI.
At a time when the world is facing a number of problems both economically and politically such as the Ukraine-Russia war, inflation, global warming and carbon footprint being everybody’s concern, India has taken the lead in trying to move the countries of the world towards recognising how they can deal with these problems, he added.
“On all these issues, India has taken a considerable lead over anybody else in trying to move the countries of the world towards recognising how they can deal with these problems and I think that opportunity has been strengthened by the fact that compared to most of the countries, including those in the G20, India has been very stable politically and its economy has done better than any other country,” he reasoned.
Further, Bhargava said, “We have the fastest growing economy today compared to the US, and China and all have been left behind. So I think that is really where we have even greater credibility in our efforts to influence the world because we are not speaking from a position of weakness.
“We are speaking from a position of some strength, strength caused by the ability to act…Because it’s one thing for your own to be in some sort of disarray and then you’re telling everybody else to put things in order. It is another thing when your home is shining and then you tell others these are some of the things you can do.
“India’s position to make an “impact on some of these major global issues, on the countries of the world is much, much better than it ever has been”, he asserted.
On the road ahead for G20, Bhargava said, “Brazil and whoever succeeds after that will be inspired by what has been done in India and will carry forward the kind of momentum which had been built for G20.”
It should not again become less important to the world in the future, he said, adding, “We have raised the stature of G20, we have raised the importance of G20. The G20 has been given a certain recognition of its ability to influence people in the world. I think that Brazil should carry it forward…I’m sure they will do their best.”
Reflecting on how India has been able to use the G20 platform to showcase itself and promote different parts of the countries, Bhargava said, “(while the G20 presidency rotates)…I have not ever seen any country take the kind of opportunity G20 apparently was offering but which only Mr Modi seems to recognise.”
He added the prime minister recognised that “G20 has certain opportunities for countries like India, at least to showcase its own development, to exhibit what is happening in this country, to raise the profile of the country and also to use the G20 to make a lot of changes and improvements and attitudinal differences in different parts of the country.
Giving the example of the way subcommittees of the G20 were organised in different parts of the country and what it led to, Bhargava said, “I think it’s quite remarkable that we took this kind of advantage of our presidency of G20 to completely raise the profile of the conference and what the conference would do for a country like ours.” (PTI)