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Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

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Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

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Why the G7 needs India

India is valuable to the G7 precisely because it is not Western.

Not long ago, the G7 was widely viewed as a relic of a fading era and an increasingly irrelevant gathering of established Western powers that failed to reflect the rise of non-Western states and the shifting balance of global influence. Yet recent geopolitical crises have breathed new life into the grouping. The Russia-Ukraine war, and, more recently, the conflict in West Asia, have thrust the G7 back to the centre of international diplomacy. A platform once perceived to be in terminal decline has re-emerged as a key forum for coordinating responses to some of the most consequential security and political challenges of the 21st century.

As leaders of the G7 gathered in Évian-les-Bains, France, alongside invited partners including India, attention was firmly fixed on the outcomes relating to two unfinished regional wars in which member states have significant stakes. Since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022, the G7 has been forced to confront a crisis that has fundamentally altered Europe’s assumptions about war and peace. The return of Donald Trump to the White House has further unsettled the fundamentals of the Western alliance. Yet the imperative of coordinating sanctions on Russia, financing Ukraine’s war effort, and expanding military assistance to Kyiv has injected the G7 with a renewed sense of purpose. The ongoing crisis in West Asia has only reinforced this trend, bringing issues of maritime security, nuclear non-proliferation, and energy resilience squarely to the forefront of the grouping’s agenda.

And India now matters more to the G7 than ever.

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G7 cannot be a lone ranger

The G7 emerged from the 1973 energy crisis, holding its first leaders’ summit at the Château de Rambouillet in France in 1975 with six members: France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and Italy. Canada joined in 1976, while the European Community (now the EU) has participated since 1977. Russia’s inclusion transformed the grouping into the G8 from 1997 until its suspension following the Crimea crisis in 2014.

More recently, one overriding message has emerged that the G7 cannot operate alone. It continues to face a legitimacy deficit stemming from the exclusion of non-Western powers that increasingly shape twenty-first-century geopolitics. The G7’s like-mindedness and collective influence give it considerable weight on questions of war........

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