Chacko, P.Thakur, V.2025-09-222025-09-222025The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 2025; 20(3):636-6631871-19011871-191Xhttps://hdl.handle.net/2440/147480This 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.en© 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.Indian diplomacy; G20; Critical Caste Studies; Narendra Modi; authoritarianism; BrahminismJournal article10.1163/1871191X-bja10219860033Chacko, P. [0000-0002-4636-1683]