When India hosted the foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Goa on May 4-5 to thrash out the outcomes of the leaders’ summit, it was assumed that they would be back in India with their bosses in a couple of months. It was a legitimate assumption since the golden age of Zoom summits had categorically ended nearly a year ago, with all major multilateral meetings having returned to physical since the waning of the Covid-19 pandemic.In fact, on April 27 the official Twitter handle of the Russian embassy in India announced that the SCO leaders’ summit would be held on July 4. This was the first time that the date had been publicly confirmed by any SCO member state. The usual protocol is for the host to announce the date after official confirmations are in place.The Russian embassy also specified that the summit would take place “in New Delhi”, which signified an in-person meeting. Therefore, it was a bit surprising when India announced on Tuesday that the SCO summit would be in virtual mode, contrary to the prevailing trend.“Lots of international summits in recent years have taken place in virtual mode. Taking all factors into account. There is no single factor, it is a totality of various factors,” the MEA spokesperson said today when asked why the physical meeting was junked. “There were queries that we had announced that it would be in a physical manner. We never made such announcements,” he added. This assertion is a white lie, since India may not have announced a physical meeting, but Russia certainly had.There had been a bit of muttering inside SCO when India had earlier changed the date from the earlier circulated and agreed upon June 25. The June date had seemingly been locked in as early as January. Even Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was confirmed to visit as Iran was going to be inducted formally as a full member of the SCO.But then suddenly India requested a postponement. The new date was July 4. After some ruffled feathers – many members said the schedule of leaders couldn’t be changed quickly – the July date was confirmed in principle, with China reportedly being one of the most vocal in its dissatisfaction.While it is not clear what reason India gave to SCO member states for the change, they had already joined the dots. In the Indian media, reports of PM Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States had emerged ― his first state visit there, and the schedule would include a state banquet. The US visit is set to end on June 24. It was surmised that India was changing the SCO summit date to accommodate Modi’s.With the next Lok Sabha election less than a year away, the PM’s managers must have decided a ceremonial toast between Modi and Biden in the White House dinner would be politically useful for the ‘vishwaguru’.By the same token, a meeting or photo op between Modi and the Pakistani prime minister, or with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the SCO summit, was likely deemed politically unhelpful.India had already taken pains at the SCO foreign ministers’ meeting to ensure that there was no handshake in public with Pakistan’s Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. This was ensured right at the welcoming ceremony of foreign ministers at the airport.The official photos sent out by the MEA of a senior official greeting Bilawal and state councillor Qin Gang at Goa airport was a study in contrast. With the former, the senior MEA official was only standing side to side with a considerable gap between them. However, with the Chinese minister, the photo was of a handshake.When external affairs minister S. Jaishankar stood at the door of the meeting hall to greet his foreign guests one-by-one, it was with folded hands – while cameras clicked away. Two months ago, when Jaishankar was doing the same duty for his G20 counterparts, he had offered everyone a polite handshake.While elaborate measures were taken to avoid a handshake in Goa, it was not clear that the optics could be managed as well at the leaders’ summit in Delhi. Since India would be the host, Modi would have had to have a bilateral meeting with all his guests, including the Pakistan PM.The signals were there that Shahbaz Sharif was still likely to travel to India, despite the verbal tiff between the Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers at Goa and after. After all, Pakistan has framed the trip domestically as a sign of its commitment to the SCO – and China.While a Modi handshake with Xi would not be as loaded politically, it would certainly be new ammunition to an opposition that has been asking the government about its alleged concession of territory to the Chinese at the Line of Actual Control during disengagement at several stand-off points.The visit of Russian President Vladmir Putin for a SCO summit would also have thrown up challenges for India. Even before the Ukraine war, the US looked at the SCO as an anti-West mechanism led by China and Russia, trying to create a parallel global order.Therefore, India’s attendance at last year’s SCO summit at Samarkand in Uzbekistan had led to a lot of questions in the Western media. But Modi’s reported line to Putin about this being ‘no time for war’ helped to quell some of this chatter, at least in public. The PM’s phrase was then also projected by the establishment as India’s main contribution to trying to find peace in Ukraine.If Putin had come to India for the July 4 SCO summit, and all indications are that he was likely to, New Delhi would have to again do a balancing act. A ‘Samarkand 2.0’ script would have to be written for the PM containing some pithy (if ultimately meaningless) phrase for Putin. But Delhi today does not have much of an appetite to draft a stronger message to Putin. With the click of a mouse, the decision to hold a virtual summit has ensured there will be no diplomatic awkwardness for the Indian PM.This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
