India must be more assertive at UNSC

India has been a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council (UNSC) seven times. The challenge is in making its eighth term distinct. India launched its campaign this time soon after wrapping up its seventh term in 2012. The first concrete step taken publicly was in 2013 when Afghanistan withdrew its plans to run for a non-permanent seat in favour of India. None of the other 54 members of the UN’s Asia-Pacific Group came forward to challenge India (not even

Pakistan, which has churlishly refused to welcome India’s election). The group unanimously endorsed India as its nominee in 2019, setting up the emphatic victory on Wednesday with 184 of the 192 votes polled.

This is a hard-won victory. And it comes with several happy coincidences. India’s two-year-term starting January 1, 2021, will coincide in its final year with the 75th anniversary of its Independence and its first time as host of the G-20 summit of the world’s leading economies. So, how about completing that package with a promotion to permanent membership of the council? Or another shot at it, better prepared this time?

India used its seventh term, starting 2011, to not only burnish its claim to a permanent seat but to also make it happen. Some Indian experts had called it a “rehearsal for permanent membership”. India tried, and though its efforts did not result in any immediate outcomes, it may have contributed significantly to advancing the torturously sluggish process from inter-governmental negotiations (a formal process abbreviated to IGN) to the next phase of text-based negotiations in 2015.

India plans to start its eighth term on January 1, with the same intent, described as priorities under an overarching theme of “New Orientation for a Reformed Multilateral System”. This is just another way to package the same quest for permanent membership.

There are other priorities as well, such as depoliticising UNSC’s sanction regime for terrorism. But SC reform is rightly at the top.

This time around, though, India must use the temporary membership to show what it is and what it is not. A “Yes” or “No” vote on a UNSC decision carries more substance and more character than the self-justification of an “Abstain” vote.

There may be some virtue in not aligning with any of the permanent five — the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China — in a lingering hangover of decades of non-alignment, which served India well at the time. But there is immense strategic advantage to be mined from assertive alignments based on the simple premise of India taking a stand.

The building standing at 235 E 43rd St, New York City — the Permanent Mission of India since 1993 — towers over the Manhattan neighbourhood not because it’s the tallest, but because of the character of the late architect Charles Correa’s quietly bold and assertive architecture. It’s time now to flaunt that swag at UNSC.