The second Bharat Summit opens in Hyderabad on Thursday, bringing together more than 1,000 delegates from around 70 countries for a three-day conclave at which Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is set to present an alternative foreign policy vision for India.
Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, will address the valedictory session on November 14, laying out a vision anchored in what organisers describe as principled multilateralism, strategic autonomy, peaceful coexistence and democratic values. The summit runs from November 12 to 14 at the HITEX Exhibition Centre.
The event is being organised by the Telangana government with support from Indian Overseas Congress chairperson Sam Pitroda and the Congress Foreign Affairs Department. The agenda spans 12 international sessions and eight Telangana Rising sessions, covering multilateral institution reform, South-South cooperation, climate justice, artificial intelligence, gender equity and democratic renewal.
According to the summit’s agenda paper, Gandhi’s foreign policy framework envisions an India that speaks with moral clarity and strategic confidence, that partners rather than lectures, and that carries the aspirations of the Global South to every table where the world’s future is decided. The framing is a pointed contrast to the BJP government’s approach to foreign policy, though the Congress leader has stopped short of naming the government directly in the pre-summit materials.
The summit draws explicitly on the legacy of the Non-Aligned Movement and Afro-Asian solidarity, and it comes immediately after the US midterm elections and landmark elections in Brazil, Hungary and Serbia. Organisers describe it as the first major international gathering of progressive leaders following those polls.
The closing session on November 14 is also expected to produce a formal declaration and to launch the Our World Institute, a think tank that will anchor the Congress’s foreign policy research going forward. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra have also been invited to the summit.
The event has already drawn a sharp political response. Telangana BJP president N Ramchander Rao has termed the summit an “Anti-Bharat Summit”, alleging it is aimed at providing a platform to foreign forces opposed to India, and the party has threatened a black-flag protest during Gandhi’s visit on November 14.
For the Congress, the summit is as much a 2029 campaign signal as a policy conclave, a platform to present its worldview to an international audience. Whether the foreign policy vision unveiled in Hyderabad gains traction beyond the gathering will depend on how clearly it is articulated on Saturday, and how the party carries it into the national debate in the months ahead.
