A permanent seat in the UNSC remains a pipedream

2010 was a landmark year in India’s pursuit of a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council. It was the year that saw leaders of all the five permanent members of the Security Council or P-5 coming to India and four of them – British prime minister David Cameroon, US president Barack Obama, French president Nicholas Sarkozy and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev – explicitly supporting New Delhi’s bid for a permanent seat on the horseshoe table.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao too went slightly beyond the communist country’s traditionally cautious approach and, during a visit to New Delhi, asserted that Beijing “understands and supports India’s aspiration to play a greater role in the United Nations, including in the Security Council.” It was also the year when India won an overwhelming 187 votes in the 193-member UN General Assembly to win a non-permanent seat in the Security Council.

Yet, as we enter 2013, India – with its billion plus people – is nowhere near realising its ambition. Its two-year term as one of the 10 non-permanent members of the Security Council concluded on December 31. Given the tardy pace of the complex negotiations on UNSC expansion, India’s aspiration to get a permanent seat in the council is unlikely to become a reality anytime soon.

Between 1950 and 1991, India earlier had six two-year non-permanent terms in the Security Council. Its role in the first five terms in the council was largely a reflection of what it was doing in the UN General Assembly those days – either defending its sovereign claims on Kashmir, Aksai Chin, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh or representing the developing world or Non-Aligned Movement and espousing the cause of democracy, human rights and disarmament.

New Delhi, however, woke up to the realpolitik of global governance during its stint in the Security Council in 1991-92 – a time when India went through a transformation and started opening up its economy to the world. Its sixth term in the council saw New Delhi supporting the US-sponsored moves against its old NAM partners – be it for extension of sanctions on Iraq or initiating tough economic measures against Yugoslavia.

Two decades later, when India returned to the Security Council in January 2011, it entered the majestic ‘Norwegian Room’ at the UN headquarters, not only with new aspirations to play a more significant role on the world stage, but also with a new zeal to take its rightful place in global governance architecture.

Changes and crises

Its 24 months’ tenure in the council saw major changes and crises around the world – from Tunisia’s ‘Jasmine Revolution’, which swept through Egypt, Yemen, Algeria, Bahrain and Lebanon to turn into ‘Arab Spring’, to armed uprisings in Libya and Syria. And, notwithstanding the new warmth in India-US ties over 2008 civil nuclear cooperation agreement, New Delhi did not always go with Washington in shaping the Security Council’s response to the crises in West Asia and North Africa. India steadfastly opposed the US policy on Libya, even abstaining from voting on the UNSC resolution that imposed a no fly zone over the country in March 2011, and publicly criticised Nato intervention to overthrow Muammer Gadhafi’s regime.

India – along with Brazil and South Africa – also opposed moves by the US and its allies to follow the Libyan model to intervene in Syria and abstained from voting on a resolution that sought to put a deadline for president Bashar al-Assad’s government in Damascus to stop its military crackdown on protesters.

“It’s been a very interesting opportunity to see how they (India, Brazil and South Africa) respond to the issues of the day, how they relate to us and others, how they do or don’t act consistent with their own democratic institutions and stated values,” Susan Rice, the US envoy to the UN, said in September 2011, adding: “Let me just say, we’ve learned a lot and frankly, not all of it encouraging.”

If Uncle Sam was unhappy with India, it was because New Delhi had not left it to Washington to define its global responsibility and role. In February 2012, however, in the wake of reports of large-scale massacre of civilians by forces loyal to Syrian government, India voted in favour of a UNSC resolution against Assad’s regime in Damascus, albeit after intense negotiation that led to dilution in the language of the draft.

Some saw India’s support to the resolution, which was vetoed by China and Russia, as a result of sustained pressure from the US, while others hailed it as a shift signalling New Delhi’s desire to get rid of its dogmatic approach against intervention in any other country.

Throughout its two-year term in the Security Council, India – again much to the disappointment of the US – also strongly opposed misuse of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine’s controversial ‘Pillar Three’, which focused on the responsibility of international community to take timely and decisive action to prevent and halt mass atrocities when a state is manifestly failing to protect its populations.

So one can wonder if India’s latest stint in the Security Council diminished its chances of getting active US support to its bid for a permanent seat. But then did New Delhi ever expect Washington to go out of its way to help? Officials argue that if India ever gets into the ‘Norwegian Room’ as a permanent member, it would happen only as part of a larger reform and expansion of the Security Council.