As India wishes to enter the year 2025 as a responsible power in the international system, it will make sure that it is a part of the scheme of things of the United Nations.
To start with, as a part of its strategic outreach, India has astutely used regional forums to supplant its position in the United Nations. It shows that Indian policymakers understand that the world is increasingly multipolar. The country currently occupies important positions in the Russia-India-China triumvirate, whose foreign ministers meet twice a year. It is a key member of BRIC, which also includes Brazil. Along with Brazil and South Africa, it is one of the three great powers of the “south,” while the BASIC group brought together Brazil, South Africa, India, and China during the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen last year.
As countries like Brazil and India continue to rise, it will be difficult for the permanent five members of the Security Council to continue to dominate global security policymaking. “Power relations at the UNSC are skewed in favour of the veto-wielding P5 countries, the most exclusive club in the world, and others are reduced to wooing them to ensure that a particularly damaging resolution does not go through,” writes India’s former ambassador to the United Nations, Chinmaya R. Gharekhan, in the book The Horseshoe Table: An Inside View of the UN Security Council (2006). This situation is bound to change. The American predominance in world affairs is a fairly recent phenomenon, as the country chose to be isolated up until World War I. India feels that it is in a fairly similar position.
After India attained independence in 1947, it pursued its own version of isolationism. Under the banner of the non-alignment movement, it allied with decolonized countries in Africa and Asia and different states in Latin America to avoid becoming part of the Cold War. At United Nations conferences, India became known for its “moralistic” commentary on global politics. During the period of US-Soviet détente, it remained on the sidelines.
From the 1980s onward, India followed a policy of “defensive realism” and avoided being involved in issues that played beyond its borders. Only when the Cold War ended did India align itself with the United States. Watching China rise, it remains a partner of the West to maintain the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific.
On that note, India will outreach its strategic objective to the distant Pacific Islands. Many of these Pacific Island countries have benefited from the Third Wave of Democracy, which occurred from the 1970s to the 1980s, so they naturally have a greater attraction towards India rather than towards China. To an extent, some of the Western powers, which have not significantly helped them address issues such as climate change in the United Nations, also appear less attractive. Therefore, that mutual attraction is quite understandable. The Prime Minister happens to have styled himself as the one who is going to raise the issues of those Pacific Island countries to the highest table, such as at the United Nations. In return, the Pacific Island countries will vote for India’s formal membership in the United Nations Security Council. One of the prestige points for India is to have a position in the UNSC in a way that it can influence its relations with other countries, for example, China and Pakistan. That has been the basic reason why Narendra Modi has used this Pacific Island Countries Forum to give a subtle message to other countries, especially those among its immediate neighbours, that India is actually ready to look beyond them and not necessarily be swayed by some of the smaller countries in South Asia—for example, Pakistan or Bangladesh—pulling strings on India.
On the other hand, with the emergence of a multipolar world in which India is poised to play a major role in international institutions such as the United Nations, it will be interesting to see how India strengthens regional institutions.
Meanwhile, the Covid pandemic has exposed China’s credibility as a responsible stakeholder in the international system. Also, it has made the post-World War II era international system appear futile. Further, the end of the Cold War, which made the United States a sole superpower, has been questioned for its effectiveness as a provider of net security for its allies.
In that context, India will assume its role as a responsible player in the United Nations.
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