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New Delhi: While Anthony Albanese denounced Russia’s war in Ukraine during his opening remarks at the G20 summit on Saturday, New Delhi taxi driver Sukhchain Singh was eagerly looking for someone, anyone, to take a ride in his cab.
The arrival of thousands of diplomats, journalists and security personnel for one of the biggest events on the global diplomatic calendar sounds like a boon for a host city, but any economic benefits for the Indian capital are not apparent besides booked-out luxury hotels charging premium rates.
The normally bustling streets of Delhi have gone silent as the G20 begins.Credit: Getty
New Delhi has gone into a three-day public holiday during the summit, with locals who live outside the downtown area banned from entering the zone unless they have a special pass. The restrictions span a 25-kilometre radius in the heart of Delhi, a metropolis of 30 million people.
The normally vibrant area is almost entirely deserted, with the fortress-like atmosphere bringing back memories of COVID-19 lockdowns. Cafes, handicraft stores and biryani houses that could be packed with visitors are shut. The streets are largely empty except for armed police, a few passersby, stray dogs and the occasional monkey.
The silence would be strange in any country, but in India, which draws its energy from its cacophony of smells, horns and people, it’s downright bizarre. Delhi police say the restrictions are necessary to stop flash protests from minority groups.
More than 50,000 police officers are now on guard, including in plain clothes at hotels to avoid giving the impression of heavy security.
Posters and billboards promoting the summit are plastered everywhere you look, with many featuring Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s face and the event’s slogan “One Earth, One Family, One Future”.
Modi has relentlessly emphasised the summit’s importance for India’s reputation as a rising superpower, telling Indians last month: “We need to show the world that Delhi can handle this responsibility without any glitches.”
The message has resonated with many locals, who are reluctant to undercut a moment of national pride.
“Delhi is good, everything is good,” Singh insists, even as he acknowledges his taxi business is way down on normal.
A para-military force soldier stands guard in front of a G20 banner with the photograph of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. Credit: AP
Atharv Gaikwad, a 26-year-old who works in medical manufacturing, says: “Before the G20 there were only some fields where India was well known.
“But the prime minister changed the perception of the world towards India. I think our prime minister has developed international relations, he has planned for the future of India.”
Gaikwad, like many Indians, remains unaware that the G20 is a rotational presidency. So successful has Modi been at marketing the summit, that many believe it has been won through his leadership alone.
For stallholders who live day-to-day, three days without work puts them right back on the poverty line, raising questions about the utility of an event that is now missing two of its most important players, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Xi’s decision to skip the summit for the first time since he came to power, without bothering to offer a reason why, has diminished the status of the event and undercut Modi’s message of global unity. Putin is absent for a second year running.
The G20 rose to prominence during the global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, providing a crucial forum for the world’s biggest economies to co-ordinate stimulus packages and financial sector reforms.
The summit is now increasingly straining for relevance, as geopolitical tensions in Ukraine and the South China Sea diminish opportunities for co-operation on economic and environmental issues.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres punctured the warm-and-fuzzy messaging as the summit got underway, telling reporters in New Delhi: “If we are indeed one global family, we today resemble a rather dysfunctional one.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomes Anthony Albanese upon his arrival for the G20 Summit.Credit: AP
“Divisions are growing, tensions are flaring up, and trust is eroding which together raise the spectre of fragmentation, and ultimately, confrontation.”
Russia and China are at odds with the other member nations over the war in Ukraine, raising doubts about whether a final joint statement can be agreed upon.
Albanese left no doubt where Australia stood on the issue in his opening intervention, saying a difficult past year had been “made all the more challenging, of course, by Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine, which I condemn in the strongest terms”.
The normally packed streets of New Delhi are deserted for the G20 summit.Credit: AP
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