When leaders of nineteen countries and the European Union fly into India’s capital, between them they will represent most of the major economies of the world, 80 percent of the gross world product, and two-thirds of the entire world’s population.
Although it is routine for the presidentship of this commanding global forum – the Group of 20 or G20 - to pass from country to country by rotation, in India its presidency this year has been projected by a staggeringly expensive publicly funded publicity campaign as a ringing global endorsement of the statesmanship of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and of India’s rise as a vishwaguru or guru of the world.
At the time of this summit, despite a 24 percent contraction of its economy during the country’s punishing covid lockdown, the Indian economy has crossed the 3 trillion- dollar threshold, and is the fifth largest economy of the world. India is home to the third largest population of dollar billionaires in the world. The lockdown and the COVID pandemic were no deterrent to this. The number of billionaires in India increased from 102 in 2020 to 166 billionaires in 2022. The combined wealth of India’s 100 richest people (mostly men) was 54.12 lakh crore rupees. The wealth of the top 10 richest stood at 27.52 lakh crore – a 32.8 per cent rise from 2021.
But behind the blinding glitter of India’s mounting wealth is the dense darkness of India’s stubborn and desperate poverty. What India’s government would not want its powerful guests from around to recall is that of all the G20 countries, India has the lowest per capita income and the lowest ranking in the Global Hunger Index, and that indeed India is home to the largest numbers of poor and malnourished people in the world.