Time to push for a permanent seat at the UNSC

India’s success in producing a consensus document at the recently concluded G-20 summit in New Delhi and the Chandrayaan 3 mission, making it the first nation to reach the south pole of the moon, along with the global acclamation of these two events, should prompt us to assert our claim strongly for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. Undoubtedly, India deserves a place at the table, despite growing doubts about the efficacy of the world body in promoting peace and security regionally and internationally. Those familiar with the issue are aware of the history surrounding India’s place at the UN head table.

Before delving into the justifiable reasons for India occupying a permanent seat at the UNSC, it’s worth briefly revisiting the issue. In academic and political circles, it is known that during Nehru’s 1949 visit to the United States, the US leadership offered to take up India’s case for a permanent seat in return for India’s cooperation against the communist Soviet Union. Documentary evidence shows that Vijayalakshmi Pandit, Nehru’s sister and India’s Ambassador to the US, conveyed the official thinking in the late US State Department in August 1950. However, Nehru rejected the offer, emphasising his support for Communist China’s entry into the UNSC. He was categorical in that he did not want India to be seated in the world body at the expense of China.

A less-known matter is the 1955 offer by Soviet Prime Minister Bulganin to include India as a sixth permanent member of the UNSC. However, Nehru, as noted in A G Noorani’s 2002 review of “Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru” (second series) (edited by H Y Sharada Prasad and A K Damodaran), rejected it, viewing it as a “feeler to test India”. Nehru’s biographer, S  Gopal, too, has alluded to Nehru’s principled stand on the issue. Going by the depth of China’s continued hostility towards India, it is difficult to counter the arguments of Nebru’s political and academic critics that rejecting the 1950 American offer and the 1955 Soviet offer were historic blunders. During the rest of the Cold War years, the issue did not come to the fore.

The question of India’s permanent membership was raised by the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi during his address to the UNGA in 1986. Russia’s decline and the US’ lukewarm response hindered India’s plea. Vajpayee raised the matter again after making India a nuclear-weapon State but to no avail. China, whose power has grown enormously over the years, is firmly opposed to India’s entry.

Given the growing Indo-US politico-strategic relationship in recent years, especially to counter China and India’s leadership in the Global South, it is time for India to renew its demand for a permanent seat.

Objectively, India is fully qualified for permanent membership due to its strategic importance, demographic advantage, financial support, and substantial contribution of about 195,000 troops to the UN Peacekeeping Force, the largest of any country with participation in more than 49 missions. 168 Indian peacekeepers have sacrificed their lives while serving on UN missions. India is also the second-largest troop contributor, with 7676 personnel deployed in 10 out of 16 active peacekeeping missions.

Flush from his G-20 success, where he passionately adovacated ‘one Earth, one family, and one future,’ Modi should have gone to New York to forcefully argue India’s case for permanent membership at the ongoing annual session of the UNGA. Jaishankar, deputising for him, in his otherwise good speech simply said, “Security Council should become more contemporary.” India should lobby for US and Russian support, and through Russia China’s acquiescence (Britain and France back India’s case), for permanent membership in the UNSC.

(The writer is a former Professor of Political Science at Bangalore University)