G20 turns G17!

A diplomatic duplicity feast is underway in India. The G20 summit meeting in the insurgency-hit occupied Kashmir, nonetheless, stands diminished to a G17 affair. China, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye by exhibiting their principled stand over the dispute of Jammu and Kashmir have boycotted the summit, and there are also reports that many other countries of the elite club have limited themselves to local diplomatic representation. This must act as a Clarion call for India, as its efforts to showcase its might by ignoring morality has backfired. The fanfare on the shores of Dal Lake in Srinagar is nothing but a grand get-together in complicity as member states often prefer sticking to multilateralism over bilateralism.

India, the G20 president for the ongoing year, acted smartly by hoisting a tourism summit in the held Valley. Its intention was to portray an image that decades of warfare and crisis have normalised, and its political stunt of abrogating Article 370 and 35A is working. This is a crude drama enacted behind the excuse of the G20 chair in Delhi, and is devoid of ground realities. It's no surprise that journalists...