We are not welcome: Why PM Modi should stop chasing UN Security Council mirage

United Arab Emirates is a tiny speck on the world map. But it has just endorsed India’s candidature for membership of the United Nations Security Council! Thank you UAE – and good luck to India. There is nothing more pathetic than our honourable Prime Minister begging every country he visits to support India’s bid to become a Security Council member with veto power. And the hosts invariably oblige because it’s impolite to say no to a guest. Before UAE there was Mongolia, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal etc! Asking them for a favour is utterly demeaning for the world’s largest democracy which also happens to be a nuclear nation. [caption id=“attachment_2397474” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  PM Narendra Modi in Dubai. PTI[/caption] India has had a ‘Security Council itch’ for a long time. But with the arrival of the Modi government the itch has become a permanent twitch disfiguring Bharat Mata’s face. The obsession to sit at the global high table and sup with great powers has worsened since May 2014. It diverts public attention from our filthy and dirty cities, including the PM’s parliamentary constituency, Varanasi, which was very recently ranked 418 among 476 cities surveyed by the Urban Development Ministry for defecation under the open sky and solid waste management. Creating illusions of grandeur by invoking national pride is a fascist ploy to fool the common man – and Modi’s government is doing just that by creating an impression that India is about to become a member of the world’s most exclusive club. The truth is that there is no chance whatsoever of India becoming a permanent veto-wielding Security Council member like America, England, France, Russia and China. Not in the immediate, medium or long term future. The possibility simply doesn’t exist. Period. Let’s be realistic and stop fooling ourselves. Germany and Japan are not Security Council members because the Permanent 5 won’t let them in, despite Germany being the biggest economy in Europe, and Japan, the third biggest in the world. What’s India’s prospects in these chilling circumstances? The answer is pretty obvious. China’s opposition to Indian ambition is natural. But the US, Russia, France and UK have taken India for a long and costly ride by pretending to back India’s bid for a permanent Security Council seat. Among the four, the biggest sinners are America and Russia. The first hurdle is the ongoing debate over Security Council reform. The P 5 have differences among themselves on the question of expansion which will be put to vote on 15 September when the current UN General Assembly session ends. But there is unanimity among P 5 on one issue – new members, if inducted at all, will not have veto power. Is there any point in becoming a Security Council member minus the veto power? I call US and Russia the biggest sinners because they publicly support India’s candidature for a permanent seat — so that we place defence orders and throw open our markets for their firms – but have stated just the opposite in writing to the UN General Assembly. US and Russia, along with China, have blackballed Indi a in their letters to UN chief Sam Kutesa about expansion of the Security Council. The duplicity exposes President Barack Obama and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Both have broken promises made to India. They had been saying publicly that India deserved to be a permanent member. An editorial in The Hindu dated 18 August , 2015 nails the betrayal: “If the U.S. is keen on reforming the Council, why did it, in the first place, team up with Russia and China to oppose negotiations on reforms? And the assertion by these countries that the prerogatives, including the veto power, of the existing permanent members should remain intact even if there are reforms, is tantamount to pre-empting any major reform." New Delhi obviously feels that India is entitled to join the big boys’ club as it is the world’s largest democracy and Asia’s third biggest economy. Moreover our armed forces are the biggest contributor to UN Peacekeeping missions and our foreign policy is peace-centric. And as we are more than 1.2 billion people, as a permanent member of the Security Council we will be able to play a crucial role in resolving international disputes. But as things stand today we should stop chasing a mirage. Rather than banging our head at the Security Council’s gate to be let in, we should gracefully accept the fact that we are not welcome and focus on bilateral diplomacy to achieve our foreign policy objectives and expand our role on the global stage. Courting world powers is one thing. Every nation in the world does it. But to bow and scrape before small countries just to get their backing for a permanent Security Council seat – which will never materialize in any case – lowers India’s prestige in the eyes of the world. We should shun this long standing practice like the plague. SNM Abdi is a former Deputy Editor of Outlook