Time for India to claim its seat at UN's top table: Why and how

In Surat, Gujarat, recently, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar asserted that ‘India will get a Permanent UN Security Council seat this time, but we will have to work hard’. Clearly, he expressed determination in the matter and was also pragmatic enough to concede that more needed doing, possibly implying that India needed to work even more on the P-5, as they stand now, and work with the General Assembly (GA), if it came to that.

Minister Jaishankar’s aggressive ways of ticking off the West have been visible more frequently in the months and years since the commencement of the Ukraine War. From the subtle and suave diplomat that he was known to be, he has emerged as the voice of new India on the global stage, where India’s better-known pacifist voice, at times taken for weakness by others, has evolved into a global politician of his time, our time.

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With long years of experience as a career diplomat, he also seems to have concluded that for the West and the Rest (read: China) to hear, leave alone listen, you have to not shout incoherently and infrequently, but to be sharp and sure, and more frequently—all of it backed by a ‘national power’ steeped, not in the historic moral posturing but real-world comparisons like economic and political power, even if not a military power, per se.

Dividing lines

In the course of his Surat interaction with local intellectuals, the EAM also indicated how the P-5 has hijacked the Security Council (UNSC), which in turn used to be seen and accepted as a ‘super-government’ for the world at large. As he pointed out, the P-5 members chose themselves and ordained themselves as the guardians, though not the guardian angels of the world. That was because they were divided on many counts in many different ways, and their posturing and preferences in regional and global politics divided the UNSC first and the larger UNGA because of their competitive canvassing, campaigning, funding, and arming of member-nations.

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Yet, the dividing lines were clearly visible during the Cold War era. It began changing after that time, and today, we have Western Europe standing away from their one-time US ally or master on individual issues. China has not risen enough to replace Russia for them to fear a common adversary from a ‘commie background’, hence dictatorship, especially in terms of the political rights of its citizens, their thin dividing line to stamp-mark nations, big and small. Despite their re-union over the Ukraine War against Russia and on American bidding, today the US has finally been forced to fall in line with the rest of the world, starting with their West European allies on the Gaza imbroglio and their all-time favourite Israeli friend.

All of it has thrown up a multi-polar world where groups of nations, in multiple loose formations, have been asserting themselves in various ways in various fora. The UN is increasingly becoming one of those venues, with the focus deliberately kept on the Security Council and membership in it. It is another matter that the UNSC has lost most of its non-existing teeth, which it used to use for scaring away little nations, but which is not possible any more. It has also meant that the inherent differences and consequent deficiencies in the UN system have been showing up off and on, especially with the US-led ‘global war on terrorism’ targeting Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Today, the UN processes, both of the UNSC and the UNGA variety, have become ritualistic and non-binding. For instance, the refusal of the UK, a P-5 nation, to accept the ‘opinion’ of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to return possession and ownership of the Chagos Archipelago to the original Mauritian owner stands out. The British insult of the UNGA majority opinion, attesting to the ICJ finding, is still appalling. There are very many examples of this kind, including China’s refusal to accept the international finding and also opinion on its non-acceptance of the territorial water dispute with the Philippines. Such other disputes with a few other Southeast Asian nations in the South China Sea are hanging fire.

Taking the GA route

For decades now, India, Japan, Germany, and Brazil have come together to present their respective cases for permanent membership in the UNSC. There is a distortion in regional representation even here, as at least one more from Latin America, one from West Asia (not Israel), and two from Africa would be in order. Can the current group expand the global voice to do precisely as much? Incidentally, as Minister Jaishankar mentioned, Egypt has co-opted with Japan and Germany to present a new set of proposals to the UN. Does Egypt represent the Arab-Islamic nations, Africa, or both?

Whenever India and the rest have waved the reform flag inside and outside the UN, the three western members, namely, the US, the UK, and France, especially the former, have tried to scuttle the initiative by converting the proposed discourse into reforms of the administrative and economic kind within the UN system. It’s belittling the demands of reform. It is worse, of course, than the one that the US proposed for expanding the UNSC to include more permanent members, but without veto rights.

That’s the mischief that the US was playing, or ended up doing so. If you talk about permanent member status without veto, the other side would be divided, and their collective demand would whittle down and vanish, as it has happened close to half a dozen times in the last decade or two. So, taking the UNSC route to reforms and expanded membership is not a welcome way out, or so it seems.

Can the expanded group, as it exists now or with more representation, then go directly to the General Assembly, where a two-thirds majority could make a difference, starting with pressuring the P-5 to begin with. The GA members would then know that many, if not all, of the additional members belong to and/or represent the Global South, which is where the numbers rest, and so do much of the global problems, including massive cultural differences with the homogenised Western ways, but which is what has been pushed down their throats over the past decades—through the UN system and outside.

For the group or for India in particular, can it begin with rupturing the system, or otherwise, seek the office of the UN Secretary-General for one of its diplomats, preferably a woman, and get the person elected? If it happens, it would be the first time that a woman would be heading the UN, something that the US has yet to do with a prospective tenant for the Oval Office.

More importantly, if it happens, that would be possibly the second time after 1960 that the General Assembly would ‘veto’ the UNSC’s choice and recommendation—and the first time they ignore the P-5’s ‘straw ballot’ of match-fixing of sorts.

Of course, Jaishankar may not have meant such a course when he spoke about ‘hard work’, but it may be among the courses that India and the rest may have to consider before reviving their collective demand for expanding the permanent membership—with veto power or without veto power for any member. It means the current crop, which has proved to be selfish, self-centred, and more. That and that alone could help revive and restore the lost relevance and prestige of the UN system, after which member-nations should deliberate on ways to add functional teeth to the institution to enforce the ‘interim recommendations’ of the UNSC and the collective decisions of the UNGA.

Further, why not make the UNGA, too, a permanent institution without making its annual summit a ritualistic affair, where speeches are made and whose decisions are seldom enforced, whatever the vote count, other than those that are proposed and promoted by the West?

The writer is a Chennai-based Policy Analyst and Political Commentator. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.