Pratap Mehta is president and chief executive of the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi.

Perceptions of the G20 Summit are not independent of broader ideological and theoretical commitments of commentators and their sense of causes and effects of this crisis. It would be, particularly for a country like India, hard to pretend that there is a unified perception. Indeed, the debate is quite vigorous, and is also overshadowed by two contexts. Since it is election season in India, the amount of sustained attention a summit like this can get is limited. While India has also been hit by the global downturn, there is, domestically, not quite the same sense of crisis as there is globally. The summit was probably also helped by low expectations; after all the pessimism leading up to the summit, the communiqué came as a relief. However, the following points stand out.

Economic Interests

In a narrow sense, India's performance is being judged by three concerns. The first was warding off incipient protectionism in the world trading system. On this measure the summit is being seen as something of a success, but there is some skepticism regarding whether countries will walk the talk. After all, even after meetings in November, serious commitment was expressed in this direction, but protectionist measures are increasing. The second core interest was eliciting a series of measures to restore confidence in the world economy. On this measure the summit is being seen as, at best, a partial success. While the figure of injecting a trillion dollars into the global economy grabbed headlines, most commentators seem to believe that this injection is somewhat notional. It includes 250 billion dollars already committed; most of it will be in the form of Special Drawing Rights, etc.  Although there is some appreciation of the commitment shown to developing countries, there is also some skepticism that the commitment will turn out to be less substantive than promised. In short, the total fiscal stimulus is still smaller than might turn out to be necessary.  India is being given high marks for making this point. The third core interest was reform of international financial institutions. This is also seen as a partial success -- a work in progress whose outcome is yet not clear. There is widespread sympathy over the clamping down on tax havens. It has even become a point in the political campaign. On this point, it is felt, India could have been more assertive, and sought stronger action against illicit money flows.

Broader Issues

But in a broader sense there is a great disquiet about the summit. The Hindi media in India particularly highlighted the crisis of authority facing the financial community and economics profession. There was a sense that the main "intellectual" protagonists in the summit, whose views national leaders reflect, whether in the US or in India, have lost all credibility. To put it crudely, the people whose ideas and performance caused the crisis in the first place, are still running the show. This suggests that many of the leaders are still unwilling to countenance more radical steps; they are prisoners of past points of view.

This point is a serious one because there is a sense that the summit did not manage to convince people that there is even a consensus around the root causes of the crisis. Almost everyone agrees that the architecture of financial regulation had a lot to do with it. There is some skepticism, however, about whether merely fixing the financial sector can address deeper long-term challenges of systemicglobal imbalances and a crisis of overproduction.  The debate over the summit is, in part, a debate over whether this is merely a crisis of finance, or something deeper.  There is still a sense that global leaders exude - with the exception of Angela Merkel - an undue faith and deference to financial capitalism. In short, the real challenge for the G20 is yet to come when it really begins to negotiate deeper structural imbalances in the global economy.

Political Assessment

It would be difficult to deny that many people see this summit in the context of global geopolitics.  In some ways, in India, "exclusive" clubs now have more prestige than the United Nations, and the G20 is seen as a long overdue grouping. There is a paradox also in Indian attitudes to leadership in the summit. Barack Obama still generates enormous interest, and his persona almost overshadows discussions of deep structural issues. He is the source of much of the remaining confidence that the G20 can be a source of leadership. There is great appreciation of the fact that he does not seem to have pushed the US line too hard and seems to listen.

But the summit is being read as an example of the decline of American authority, and the true emergence of China on the world stage. While India's performance is seen as quite satisfactory, there is deep interest in how China now drives the global debate.  Prior to the summit, there was a great deal of debate over the implications of China's suggestion that the dollar no longer act as a reserve currency. There were two readings of this. First, this was as a marker of Chinese power. But it was also, implicitly, a vote of confidence in the American economy. The dance of "G2" within a broader "G20" is a subject of considerable interest, but there is no determinate view on how this will turn out.  In this context, it was recognized that India is not as big a player as it would like to think itself. On the whole, though, there was satisfaction that India acquitted itself in protecting its own interests. The summit was a success in that it calmed the nerves and is keeping the conversation going. But the real hard work is ahead.

New Delhi