Amit Kumar & Vanshika Saraf
Contrary to many expectations, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to skip the 2024 Head of Government Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit held in Pakistan is not surprising. While an invitation was extended, Modi typically attends the Head of State summits, nominating either the External Affairs Minister or Defence Minister to represent India at the Head of Government meetings. However, India’s decision to hold the 2023 Head of State Summit virtually, combined with Modi’s absence from this July’s Head of State Summit, highlights the SCO’s declining strategic significance for India.
India, along with Pakistan, became a full member of the SCO in 2017. Apart from the grouping’s mandate that underlined cooperation on counter-terrorism and deradicalisation efforts in the region, the forum promised several geopolitical opportunities. First, in the post-Doklam crisis period, the platform was believed to offer a new forum to broaden IndiaChina cooperation. Second, it appealed to India, given Russia did not want the forum to be Beijing-dominated. Third, the SCO offered India a platform to engage Central Asian Republics, which had otherwise proven difficult owing to the constraints of geography. Fourth, despite the suspended India-Pakistan dialogue in the aftermath of the Pathankot terrorist attacks, the forum provided the two countries with a less controversial means to hold talks on the summit’s sidelines. Fifth, with the Afghanistan question burning and still uncertain, it made strategic sense for India to join SCO, given the grouping had all the major stakeholders as members. In this sense, India did not want to be left out of the high table deliberating the Afghan question. Last but not least, by joining SCO, India wished to demonstrate its strategic autonomy and its ability to work with all sides based on interests.
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