Civilisation-Washing: Caste and Indian Diplomacy at the G20 Summit

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dc.contributor.authorChacko, P.
dc.contributor.authorThakur, V.
dc.date.issued2025
dc.description.abstractThis article analyses Indian diplomacy at the 2023 G20 Summit, which India hosted. It uses a Critical Caste Studies approach to foreground the role of caste in Indian diplomacy, focussing on four prominent discursive tropes at the Summit – the naming of India as Bharat, the promotion of a ‘Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas, Sabka Praya’ associated with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s philosophy of Integral Humanism, the philosophy of Vasudhaiva Kutumbatakam (the world is a family/ the world is home) and the portrayal of India as the Mother of Democracy. By analysing these tropes, we argue that Indian diplomacy at the G20 Summit constituted civilisation-washing: the external projection of an apolitical and antipolitical civilisational transcendence to obfuscate and naturalise an upper-caste Hindu supremacism. We suggest that civilisation-washing serves a tool of illiberal authoritarianism, justifying the undermining of accountability and individual rights in the name of cultural authenticity and moral superiority.
dc.description.statementofresponsibilityPriya Chacko, Vineet Thakur,
dc.identifier.citationThe Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 2025; 20(3):636-663
dc.identifier.doi10.1163/1871191X-bja10219
dc.identifier.issn1871-1901
dc.identifier.issn1871-191X
dc.identifier.orcidChacko, P. [0000-0002-4636-1683]
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/2440/147480
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherBrill Academic Publishers
dc.relation.granthttp://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP 230100257
dc.rights© Priya Chacko and Vineet Thakur, 2025. Published with license by Koninklijke Brill bv. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the cc by 4.0 license.
dc.source.urihttps://doi.org/10.1163/1871191x-bja10219
dc.subjectIndian diplomacy; G20; Critical Caste Studies; Narendra Modi; authoritarianism; Brahminism
dc.titleCivilisation-Washing: Caste and Indian Diplomacy at the G20 Summit
dc.typeJournal article
pubs.publication-statusPublished online

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