Modi to talk about gender equality at G7 with Biden attending after US abortion ruling

Gender equality and democracy are among the issues likely to figure in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s exchanges with other world leaders during the G7 summit, which will take place at Schloss Elmau in Germany on Tuesday.

US President Joe Biden is likely to take part in the summit, which comes close on the heels of the American Supreme Court’s ruling restricting women’s right to abortion. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, already called the ruling by the US Supreme Court “a huge blow to women’s human rights and gender equality”.

Officials in New Delhi and Washington are exploring the possibility of a bilateral meeting between the prime minister and the US president on the sideline of the conclave, although none confirmed it so far. It is not clear if Modi will raise the issue of gender equality in case of a meeting with Biden in order to turn the table on the US which has been expressing concerns over human rights abuses, assault on religious freedom and democratic backsliding in India.

Other issues likely to figure in his meetings with his counterparts are environment, energy, climate, food security, health and counter-terrorism cooperation, the prime minister said in a statement issued before his departure from New Delhi.

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A source told DH that the prime minister was unlikely to make a departure from India’s policy of not interfering in the internal affairs of other nations during his engagements with the leaders of the US and other western nations.

India earlier this month sought to turn the table on Biden administration and expressed concern over racially and ethnically motivated attacks, hate crimes and gun violence in the US – in response to Secretary of State Antony Blinken's remarks on religious intolerance in India. Blinken had stated that India, the world’s largest democracy and home to a great diversity of faiths, had seen rising attacks on people and places of worship. He had made the remark after releasing the US State Department’s 2021 Report on International Religious Freedom.

The Biden administration had been tacitly conveying to India concerns in the US over the perception that India was backsliding on human rights, freedom of speech and religion and democratic principles. The US president and VP Kamala Harris had subtly nudged the prime minister to protect the democratic principles of India, when they had hosted him on September 24 last year.

A White House spokesperson earlier this week told journalists in Washington DC that Biden, being a straight shooter, would have no problem talking to other leaders “about humanitarian rights, about freedoms, about the importance of democracy”.

She was responding to a question whether the US government had any comment on demolitions of the houses of people in India for protesting derogatory comments made by two leaders of ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in India against the Prophet Mohammed. A journalist had asked if Biden would press Modi harder to protect Muslims in India.