Opinion | An India seeking gains from US-China rivalry is no guru to the world

India is growing in importance. But how much more important will it become? In the lead-up to the Group of 20 summit in New Delhi, major newspapers, billboards and bus stops in every Indian city proclaimed India as a “Vishwaguru”, or teacher to the world.

This is baffling. What would India teach the world? It has never been shy to describe itself as the world’s largest democracy. But the Indian government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is increasingly being criticised as authoritarian and repressive. On September 18, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the country’s parliament of “credible allegations” that linked the killing of a prominent Canadian Sikh to “agents of the government of India”.

While the advance of what is now the world’s fifth-largest economy has been impressive, even if India could sustain annual growth of 5 per cent, its gross domestic product per head would reach about 30 per cent of the United States’ levels, roughly where China’s is today, in 2050. Meanwhile, Beijing has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty in four decades. Needless to say, China has more to share with other developing countries on ways of achieving economic development.

India’s real advantage is that, as a middle power, it can capitalise on major-power competition. With regard to the war in Ukraine, while both China and India have adopted a studied neutrality, Washington has set aside its frustration at New Delhi because of its long-term strategic need to draw India closer and counter China. This is how India succeeded in persuading the US and Europe to agree to a softened G20 statement on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Clearly, such a consensus would have been harder to reach with China as G20 host.

However, India is unable to play a “central role” in facilitating an end to the hostilities in Ukraine, despite what Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggested. There are already several peace plans on the table, including one from China. None of them will work unless Moscow and Washington, rather than Moscow and Kyiv, can agree a deal. If Russia will listen to anyone, it is more China than India.