Modi’s G20 Victory Lap: The 2023 Moment That Defined His Global Image

Spread love

By NIRENDRA DEV

The unusual 2023 G20 moment when Narendra Modi walked out to face hundreds of waiting journalists — despite his long-standing avoidance of conventional press conferences — offers a useful throwback to how India’s G20 presidency was used to project Modi and India on the global stage.

New Delhi, September 12, 2026 — Three years ago, on September 11, 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi concluded India’s G20 presidency with an unusual “victory lap” around the convention centre in New Delhi that had hosted the leaders of the world’s major economies.

A mass of reporters, photographers and camera crews waited for almost two hours to catch a glimpse of Modi as he emerged after the G20 Summit and the adoption of the Delhi Declaration.

The moment was striking not merely for its symbolism but also because of Modi’s famously limited engagement with the press.

The prime minister smiled and waved at the journalists gathered at the venue, expressing satisfaction with India’s presidency of the G20, although he did not make any formal remarks.

The security arrangements before his arrival were exhaustive. A wide security perimeter was created to separate Modi from the media, while bomb-detection teams swept the venue.

“Modi, Modi, Modi,” hundreds of attendees reportedly chanted as the Indian leader walked through the door and came within a few centimetres of the press.

The scene, reported by French media outlet EFE, stood in sharp contrast to Modi’s usual posture towards the media. Since becoming prime minister in 2014, he has not held a conventional press conference in India.

And that remains broadly true even in September 2026. Modi continues to be one of India’s most effective political communicators, despite maintaining a highly controlled relationship with the press.

His only widely recognised joint press conference since becoming prime minister came in March 2023, alongside US President Joe Biden during his state visit to the United States.

Outside controlled settings, Modi has generally avoided taking questions from journalists. His interactions have largely come through selected interviews and carefully structured media engagements.

There was another unusual moment in 2019, when Modi walked into a BJP media interaction alongside then party president Amit Shah. Even there, he remained guarded while taking questions and allowed Shah to handle most of the political and election-related queries.

Modi joked that when it came to party and election matters, the BJP president mattered more than the prime minister.

His 2023 G20 “lap of honour” came hours after India handed over the G20 presidency to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, whose country was scheduled to host the next leaders’ summit.

The New Delhi summit itself ended with the adoption of a joint declaration — an outcome that had appeared uncertain before the meeting because of sharp differences among members over the Russia-Ukraine war.

For India, the declaration became a major diplomatic achievement and an important moment in its effort to project itself as a voice of the Global South.

The international attention surrounding the G20 also coincided with an important phase in Modi’s political journey.

The extensive makeover of New Delhi for the international gathering came ahead of India’s 2024 general election, as Modi was increasingly projecting himself as a statesman with a global diplomatic profile.

Earlier in 2023, he had made a state visit to Washington, where President Biden and the US Congress gave him a high-profile welcome.

India had also hosted the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation virtually in July 2023, bringing together a grouping in which China and Russia played central roles.

At the time, there was also speculation in Indian media about a possible Biden visit to New Delhi in January 2024 for Republic Day.

That did not happen. French President Emmanuel Macron eventually became the chief guest at India’s 75th Republic Day celebrations on January 26, 2024. Biden also did not visit India for the proposed Quad meeting.

The China-US contest behind the G20

A September 2023 commentary in China’s Global Times carried an old Chinese saying: “When the wound is healed the pain is forgotten.”

The saying suggests that once scars disappear, people can forget the circumstances that caused them and risk repeating the same mistakes.

With Biden in India for the G20 summit, the commentary looked back at the evolution of the grouping and the changing dynamics of US-China competition.

By 2023, Washington was seeking to use the G20 as an important platform in its broader contest with Beijing and to strengthen US influence across the Global South.

A Reuters report at the time quoted the US administration as seeking to offer developing countries alternatives for economic development amid concerns over China’s economic trajectory.

The argument was that Biden’s visits to Vietnam and India, along with his participation in the G20 summit, formed part of a broader American strategy to strengthen ties in Asia and compete with China for influence.

But what about 14 years earlier?

The G20 was established in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s as a forum for developed and developing economies to discuss global financial stability. It was elevated to the leaders’ summit level in 2008 following the global financial crisis.

By the time India hosted the summit in 2023, the G20 had become far more than an economic forum.

India used the presidency to showcase its technological capabilities, particularly its digital public infrastructure.

At the summit, a “Digital India Experience Zone” showcased India’s digital payment systems and digital identification architecture. Delegates were also given digital wallets containing a small amount of money so that they could experience some of the applications.

The 2023 G20 summit was therefore not merely another diplomatic gathering.

For Modi, it was a carefully choreographed moment of international recognition — and the final “lap of honour” outside the summit venue became one of its most memorable images.

Three years later, the episode remains relevant to understanding Modi’s distinctive political communication: highly visible, globally staged and carefully controlled, while still capable of generating a powerful media spectacle without a conventional press conference.