FRAGRANCE OF IDEAS
The 51st G7 Summit, the 57th annual meeting of G7 was held in a hilly resort in Canada known as Kananaskis-Alberta last month on 16-17 June 2025. Besides the permanent existing seven members of the Group (which was eight before the exclusion of Russia), the Summit was also attended by some other important nations of the world.
The Group of Seven that is called G7 is by and large an informal grouping of the global advanced economies like UK, US, Germany, France, Japan, Italy, Canada and European Union. In order to discuss the international economic and geopolitical issues, the members of the Grouping meet annually and formalize their collective position in this regard.
India was invited to attend the G7 Summit for the first time in 2003 and from its first attendance, India was invited 12 times till date to participate in this global elite group high level meetings, primarily sponsored by the advanced countries. India is being invited reflecting its rising global influence and responsibilities.
It is the third largest international defence spender; and India’s GDP equals the UK’s and exceeds those of Canada, Italy and France. India’s vibrant democratic framework makes it a very important strategic partner for G7 in addressing pressing world affairs and the other connected global issues of concern.
The invitation to India and the renewed bonhomie between India & Canada need to be seen in the background of the last year’s hard relationship between the two due to Justine Trudeau’s immature and un-diplomatic approach towards issues concerning both Canada and India. The Prime Minister Narendra Modi, attended the Summit this time in Canada in the background of the Pahalgam terror incident followed by ‘Operation Sindoor’ and the military escalating acts of Pakistan which got a befitting reply from India.
In fact, India’s responses to the reactionary moves of Pakistan were technically of a higher intensity making it clear to the world and especially Pakistan that every terror act will have a very high price to pay. India’s proactive approach paid very rich dividends in favour of India in the narrative building domain.
The narrative built over the last two months consistently by the Indian nation-state brought a very interesting picture to the fore on behalf of India. The state of India maintained that it recently came across a number of developments affecting geopolitics in a big way. Islamic terrorism in Pahalgam-Kashmir was an important negative development in the context of India and the Indian interests & assets throughout the globe.
The state of India responded to the terror unleashed by the state of Pakistan in the most befitting manner under the name of ‘Operation Sindoor’. However, Pakistan made it sure that the action taken by India was reacted to; but by its unwarranted escalation, India responded disproportionately to its attacks and thus incapacitated Pakistan’s worth to prolong the unwanted action taken by it. Lessons learnt by Pakistan led it to plead for ‘de-escalation & ceasefire’ before some world powers and its DGMO made a request to his counterpart in India to stop further military hostilities which continued for 3-4 days.
Though the military hostilities stopped, what gained the ground were the diplomatic and political narratives and the connected action incidental thereto. India went ahead very fast and sent seven teams of parliamentarians to more than 30 countries to make India’s position in relation to the whole gamut of ‘Operation Sindoor’ amply clear.
The government of India also changed some important doctrines in relation to its foreign policy affairs during and after Operation Sindoor. The biggest change that the nation-state of India took was ‘to treat all acts of terror as an act of war’. The earlier doctrines like ‘terror and talks won’t go together’ was essentially a major positive policy doctrine consolidated in and after 2014 which continues to guide India unabated. Then the new doctrine that inspired the state of India to suspend the Indus Water Treaty is known as, ‘water and blood don’t flow together’.
These major policy shifts particularly in relation to Pakistan have a deep impact on our position in regard to geopolitics. We continue to be guided by the policy adopted earlier by our nation-state not to permit any sort of external intervention in any of the matters related to our domestic or external affairs.
The Prime Minister himself and the External Affairs Ministry made it crystal clear that the deescalation of the military hostilities between India and Pakistan had nothing to do with anyone’s intervention; and thus they dispelled the artificial notion that some third party was involved in any way in the scenario. The teams sent by India to various nations also reiterated this position everywhere to bring facts to light along with the actual and factual position in regard to the Pahalgam terror incident in which 26 Hindus were butchered after making it sure that they were non-Muslims.
When US President Donald Trump left the G7 Summit in between wanting India’s Premier Narendra Modi to pay a visit to the US after the G7 Summit, Modi politely refused to do so due to his earlier engagements in Croatia and at home. In a phone call from the US while PM Modi was in Canada, Trump talked to him on some very important issues including the Indo-Pak issue.
PM Modi made it very clear to Trump that India doesn’t accept any sort of intervention in its affairs by anyone. Immediately after the phone call, the External Affairs Ministry came out with its version publicly in relation to the phone talk between PM Modi and President Trump making things known to the world in an unambiguous manner. This was indeed a very smart move diplomatically and politically speaking.
Vikram Misri, the Secretary in the EAM in a televised broadcast in New Delhi explained the matter on behalf of the government. The Al Jazeera news channel carried the following report in this connection on 18 June 2025:
“Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made it clear to United States President Donald Trump that a ceasefire between India and Pakistan after four-day conflict in May was achieved through talks between the two militaries and not US mediation, a top diplomat in New Delhi says”.
“PM Modi told President Trump clearly that during this period, there was no talk at any stage on subjects like India-US trade deal or US mediation between India and Pakistan,” Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said in a press statement on Wednesday. “Talks for ceasing military action happened directly between India and Pakistan through existing military channels, and on the insistence of Pakistan”.
“Prime Minister Modi emphasised that India has not accepted mediation in the past and will never do,” he said. Misri said the two leaders spoke over the phone late on Tuesday on Trump’s insistence after the two leaders were unable to meet on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada, which Modi attended as a guest. The call lasted 35 minutes. Trump had said last month that the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours agreed to the ceasefire after talks mediated by the US, and that the hostilities ended after he urged the countries to focus on trade instead of war. There was no immediate comment from the White House on the Modi-Trump call”.
“Pakistan has previously said the ceasefire was agreed after its military returned a call the Indian military had initiated on May 7. In an interview with Al Jazeera in May, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar rejected claims that Washington mediated the truce and insisted Islamabad acted independently”.
The above report and the similar ones have been published and publicized all over the world media and the social media extensively over the last one week or so which placed at rest the speculation President Trump had initiated in this regard. After his failures to implement truce on the fronts of Israel & Hamas and Russia & Ukraine, Trump went for a gamble on the Indo-Pak sector which India’s PM punctured at the right time. He probably expected India to remain mum on the development which didn’t happen on the ground.
However, Trump is Trump; he repeated his ‘claim’ in this regard 18th time since the suspension of the conflict till date making it sure that what he couldn’t achieve in his three earlier attempts might be achieved in the scenario between Iran and Israel war. His fourth gamble in a row, probably or apparently, is for a Nobel Prize. The good thing is that he recently announced a possible ‘big trade deal’ with India in a televised programme.
The lead taken by the government of India in regard to its position needed to be taken to the new level internationally by taking certain social initiatives having their socio-political impact. In this connection, the Indian diaspora throughout the globe has started to play a pivotal role keeping in view the current scenario involving the Indian global interests.
The developments in this regard are expected to bear results in the very near future. What is important to emphasize is that PM Modi has put the records straight keeping in view the whole geopolitical scenario and has done it well and effectively.
(The author is a senior BJP & KP leader, Human Rights Defender, author & columnist and can be reached at [email protected])
