Old World Disorder

Does India deserve a place in the United Nations Security Council among its permanent members? There is no disagreement among the major political parties that on all counts --- economic, military, democratic, and whatever else one can think of --- Indian membership is warranted and justifiable. Not only are our own politicians certain of this, nearly every foreign dignitary who has visited India during the last decade or so has made approving noises to this effect as well. Even further, on every visit abroad by one of our leaders, whether to the United Kingdom or to the Maldives, similar endorsements of permanent Indian membership in the UNSC can be heard.

But here we are. Fifty-seven years from the founding of the United Nations, the largest democracy in the world, among the planet's biggest economies, and boasting a vast military, cannot crack the door open sufficiently. The drumbeating from our political class and the endorsements of leaders from Vladimir Putin to Big Chief Wamoo have yielded a collective goose-egg. Our foreign secretaries, their administrative coteries, and various politicians still travel the world marshalling support from every corner of it, but little has changed. As foreign policy achievements go, this must rate somewhere worse than catastrophic failure.

Why?

The most recent explanation is that the nuclear blasts of 1998 derailed progress towards this objective. The smaller nations we had lined up in our support grudgingly admitted the validity of our claims, but saw the explosions as a deviation from the past, when we had championed disarmament. The more influential ones, for their part, were more forthright in condemnation, and slapped sanctions on us, and later on Pakistan as well.

This reasoning has some merit, but it's mostly a sidelight. As many have noted, the powers-that-be on the Security Council are fully aware of the limited legitimacy of their positions, resulting as they are from victories in World War II. Nonetheless, other likely members are shrugged away under the thinnest veneer of reasoning, and the blasts merely provided such convenient cover. Nuclear test = irresponsible behaviour = not ready for global leadership.

As to the many tests UNSC members themselves have conducted, some in the backyards of small Pacific island nations or in Central Asian colonies, there is little mention. Even the actual use of a nuclear weapon is not grounds for disqualification, but the testing of one is clearly a reason to be denied! Brutal Chinese dictators who crush their civilian population with armed tanks are perfectly qualified for world leadership, but democracies that struggle with their internal contradictions and are prone to the occasional street riot aren't 'ready for the world stage'.

All this is just as well, for any effort to override the UNSC's self-enriching influence cannot be based on inclusion within its fold. Permanent membership in the Security Council is among the worst manifestations of international geopolitics. The United Nations, we must remember, followed in the aftermath of World War II, with the victors largely sharing the spoils and distributing authority amongst themselves. By co-opting some potential aspirants to similar power and muzzling others, the unchanging five on the council --- Britain, France, Russia, China, and the United States --- have wielded the colonial-era institution to their ends regularly.

There are two obstacles to the Indian quest. The first is the 'permanent' nature of permanent membership. Any additional members of the council would acquire a voice not in a few limited matters under the United Nations' auspices, but in every one of them. We could, for instance, insist on deciding whether Peru should arrive at a negotiated settlement with Ecuador over their border dispute. That this is of little or no significance to India would cease to matter. Equally, we could make unsupportive noises about potential Russian attacks on Georgia, Israeli bombing of Palestinian cities, or Chinese expansionism in Tibet, and these the current members cannot countenance.

The greater hurdle, however, is not mere opposition to the positions taken by UNSC members. That happens all the time, for the members have their self-interests to protect, and these regularly intersect. What truly alarms the current members is the extension of their ability to unilaterally hinder the interests of others, by use of the veto power that each permanent member holds.

By withholding assent, each member of the Security Council can direct the entire position of the United Nations towards a particular issue. This is why Israeli aggression is widely condemned by the members in the General Assembly of the UN, but is rarely acted upon by the council. An economically bankrupt Russia can still veto the grandest plans of the United States. An illegitimate Chinese government can still rule on the legality of actions against Serbia or Iraq, but is rarely subject to any censure of its own bloody-minded oppressions. The veto is the real prize, and any new claimants to it would have to be pacified by every current member. Witness the US envoys to Paris, Moscow, and Beijing as President Bush seeks okays for his war on Iraq.

Democratic institutions aren't built on exclusive rights, and this isn't lost on anyone. For decades, past governments of India have routinely expressed their disgust with the exercise of arbitrary privileges by a small few in complete contradiction of the standards the UN itself professes to uphold. The eagerness with which we now seek permanent membership denies our own past conduct, and the pretence that our inclusion in this club somehow excuses its obvious shortcomings doesn't fly. The weaker states that are inclined to agree with us that wider representation is needed on the council aren't enamoured of another overlord dictating their lives, in addition to the five who already do. Their support is diplomatic nicety. The support of the permanent five themselves, on the other hand, is simply a lie.

There is also a third characteristic of geopolitics that affects India especially. We find ourselves possibly the only nation in the world that would likely satisfy broad criteria for permanent membership in the Security Council, but is not already a member. Other aspirants --- Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria, South Africa, etc --- are either not sufficiently representative of the constituencies they claim for themselves (Muslims, Africans, etc) or not economically and militarily influential beyond their immediate boundaries (eg Brazil). The legacy of actual and materialism colonialism has left other aspirants devoid of independent standing, forcing them into alliances against existing powers. We, having had the fortune of surviving both colonialism and the Cold War as one political entity without declared allegiances, must inhabit the never-never land of perpetual power-seekers.

Where does that leave India? Offers of support are disingenuous, and there is little reason to believe that the council will actually see the light of reform. The foundations of the United Nations and the Security Council presuppose a world dominated by a few nations, and being not among them our aspirations to a greater standing in the UN are easily defeated. For too long, we have understood this, but refused to accept it, arguing vehemently that the council must be more representative of the world at large and India in particular. That line of thinking has clearly failed. The alternative is clear --- we must question the foundations that deny our claims.

Declare the United Nations irrelevant, and plan to withdraw from the organisation unless fundamental changes are made.

Before you denounce this as an over-reaction, pause to remember how the United Nations has actually treated India. We contribute the most troops to peacekeeping missions of any nation in the world, even though we have little say in deciding where the UN should intervene. And in response our soldiers are underpaid in comparison with soldiers from developed nations. We have been hostage to the Security Council's interpretation of resolutions on Kashmir. One of the Security Council's members is currently occupying tens of thousands of square kilometres of Indian territory, and may be actively supplying Pakistan with advanced weapons technology. Another member is blind to the mindless slaughter in Kashmir, because its own interests require an alliance with dictators next door.

Brusque treatment apart, there is a second reason to downplay the UN's usefulness. Although membership is portrayed as engaging the global community, this isn't particularly of good character. Many UN member-states are run by unelected leaders, some of them brutal dictatorships. Is it reasonable that an open liberal society like Sweden, say, should have the same membership status as an intellectually bankrupt monarchy like Saudi Arabia? Is it respectable that North and South Korea are both members of the General Assembly? Hardly. But the UN makes no such distinction, accepting Gandhis and Idi Amins alike into the same fold. That may be flattering to Amin, but surely it taints Gandhi.

The unprincipled exercise of power in defiance of the will of the overwhelming majority of the world's nations is inexcusably undemocratic; we have ourselves stated this repeatedly. Being co-opted by the mighty, while it may pass for political justice, is not the human interest. Worse still, the doublespeak that it permits is ruinous. A nation so rooted in the memory of past injustices must be especially wary of rewriting the egregious history of colonialism and domination in a different hue.

What is needed is an effort to gather the strengths of responsible nations and ostracise those who do not represent the interests of their people. Only elected governments should be permitted membership in the United Nations, and a time table to require all unelected governments to seek the confidence of their people must be instituted. Member states must be prohibited from joining trading blocs comprised of non-member states, and access to institutional loans from member funds must be limited to member states. No nation should hold veto powers; instead significant decisions must be made by larger, more representative, committees drawn from amongst all members.

Reform must address the flaws honestly. Despite small areas of success, the United Nations is largely a failure, mostly because it is an inherently contradictory body. A gathering of genuine leaders and tyrants alike, it has fallen prey to the dictum that in a world that makes no distinction between the two, co-operation for genuine improvements is unlikely. The few respectable leaders must compromise their morality to obtain the support of tyrants, and the despicable characters extract their pound of legitimacy in return.

Of such straws, we have made men, and worse still in the UN Security Council, supermen; the last thing India needs is a place of pride in this shameful gathering. What the organisation so desperately and obviously requires is a guardian of propriety and justice, a member that would respect the principles of representation and equality as much as it professed to when it was itself excluded. An India that claims to speak with the interests of many nations is not well served by membership in a club that so obviously excludes the consideration of the majority of humans.

Ashwin Mahesh