Unhealthy obsession

A Security Council meeting in progress. The jubilation expressed by the Ministry of External Affairs over India's recent election as one of the Security Council's temporary members was bizarre.-MICHAEL NAGLE/AFP

India's enduring preoccupation with symbols of power, such as a permanent Security Council seat, speaks of confused priorities.

WHEN will our policymakers and -shapers stop obsessing with gaining recognition for India from the five permanent members (P-5) of the United Nations Security Council and with India gaining that status in the near future? Going by recent developments, this seems to be an unending, unwholesome preoccupation and the main prism through which New Delhi insists on viewing its relationship with the Great Powers.

Thus, a significant priority for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his interaction with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in the coming East Asian Summit in Vietnam is said to be to get him to visit India later this year not so much because there is an urgent and unique agenda to be pursued with him but because that would complete the visits of all the P-5 heads of government in a single calendar year! (For good measure, India has also sent invitations to the Chinese President and Vice-President.) It is hard to see how this will impress leaders the world over. After all, nobody denies India's rising importance as an emerging power. India continues to be the Flavour of the Month. All that Wen's visit will confirm is our policymakers' fascination with mere symbols of success and power.

Similarly, in the preparations for President Barack Obama's visit to India, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has expressed concern that certain issues of importance to India are missing from the agenda proposed by the United States, including a closure of the U.S.-India nuclear deal, a clear exemption for the Indian Space Research Organisation and the Defence Research and Development Organisation from dual-use technology export restrictions, defence agreements, India's entry into the Nuclear Suppliers' Group and, of course, a permanent Security Council seat for India.

The MEA wants the U.S. to go beyond describing India as a natural candidate for the permanent membership. It wants a more categorical commitment in the form of an explicit U.S. endorsement of India's candidature for that position even though that may not result in a seat in the near future given the complexity of the power game around the famous horseshoe table in New York and the veto power against the Security Council's expansion held by each of the P-5.

Equally bizarre is the MEA's jubilation over India's recent election as one of the 10 temporary members of the Security Council for two years described by Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna as a big day for Indian diplomacy and a reflection of the expectations that the world has from us. Such exultation is unwarranted. There was no contest for the seat for the Asian quota after Kazakhstan withdrew its candidature at India's behest.

It would have been surprising if India had not won the seat after the Herculean effort it made lobbying for it. Krishna spoke to the Foreign Ministers of no fewer than 123 countries during the U.N. General Assembly session in September, and Indian missions the world over pulled out all the stops in canvassing support. Pakistan, a likely candidate for the seat in 2012, did not campaign against India and voted for it.

India did make a point by polling as many as 187 of 192 votes. But then, even Colombia, despite its puny size and minuscule lobbying effort, polled 186 votes. South Africa came third, with 182 votes. Krishna believes that the temporary seat will help India strengthen its case for a permanent seat because it comes with the simultaneous presence for the first time in the Security Council of all the major groupings/blocs that India is part of, including the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and the IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa, and three of the G4, comprising Japan, Germany and Brazil, besides India, with whom New Delhi is making a joint bid for permanent seats.

But membership of these groupings works at cross purposes rather than in synergy. For instance, China is allergic to making Japan a permanent member. Germany's candidature provokes demands for more developing-country representation. The IBSA is frowned upon by many industrialised states. And the G4 collective bid is opposed by another collective of middle powers the Coffee Club, which includes Italy, Spain, Mexico, Argentina and Pakistan.

The G4 bid collapsed in 2004-05 for a variety of reasons: Chinese opposition to Japan, U.S. vindictiveness towards Germany for voting against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and lack of adequate agreement on either of the two plans proposed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan. (Under Plan A, there were to be six new permanent members, including two from Africa, but without vetoes, and three more temporary seats for the developing countries. Plan B proposed eight new semi-permanent seats of four years' duration, which would be re-electable, and one more temporary seat.)

Ultimately, the G4 moved a version of Plan A, which called for a reconsideration of the veto power in 15 years' time. But the African bloc proposed a counter-resolution demanding veto powers for the six new permanent seats besides an additional temporary seat, raising the Security Council's strength to 25.

Very little suggests the G4 bid will face fewer obstacles this time around. In fact, Krishna himself admitted that the P-5 are not as enthusiastic as developing nations about expanding the Security Council. Expansion will be an uphill task unless the P-5 play ball with us, but we have not been able to drive the same kind of conviction with the P-5 as with many other countries. So India would be unwise to stake so much on a permanent seat, with or without veto power.

India must also shed the fond illusion that permanent membership of the Security Council represents power of the ultimate, total or unchallengeable kind. It does not. In 2003, it was not the permanent members such as France, Russia or China that blocked the U.S.-proposed invasion of Iraq, it was smaller countries such as Angola, Cameroon, Guinea and Chile, besides traditional U.S. allies/supporters such as Mexico and Pakistan. The U.S. found itself helpless in the face of that opposition despite recourse to coercion, cajolement and bribery.

The real question that our policymakers and -shapers need to ask is not how much India should exert itself to acquire status and symbols of power, but what India should do with its growing influence in the world. What kind of world power should India aspire to become? What causes should India advocate and endorse as an emerging great power? Whose interests should India seek to represent? What, logically and morally, are the purposes of India's power?

Here, the best guidance is offered by the Gandhi-Nehru perspective, which outlined an unconventional vision of India as a nation that does not seek to imitate the Great Powers or empires and rule by virtue of military force and economic clout but which seeks to exert a degree of moral influence on the world.

Thus, newly independent India would be a democratic beacon to the world. It would be an apostle of decolonisation, peace and orderly non-coercive relations between nations. India would exercise tremendous moral force, disproportionate to its economic, military and political strength, through the Non-Aligned Movement and the advocacy of North-South economic and political balance. It would demand a less skewed, more just, global order and a world free of the scourge of weapons of mass destruction.

Although the Cold War is long over, some of these causes and concerns remain valid. The world is still extremely skewed, with glaring North-South imbalances and unequal terms of trade. A large number of small, poor countries and their peoples remain disenfranchised. Hegemonism rules international relations. Climate change menaces the poor world, but the rich countries are loath to accept their share of responsibility to fight it. And the levers of economic and financial power remain the monopoly of corporations that are not amenable to democratic control. It would be only ethical and logical for India to seek to represent the interests of the weak, underprivileged and disenfranchised and fight for global justice and peace.

This demands a consensus based on a healthy public debate on the purposes and uses of India's power and an egalitarian vision that informs public policy both domestically and internationally. An India without such an enlightened vision will be an arrogant, domineering power, one that is feared rather than respected. An India that takes up universal and humane causes will be a great asset. If India can contribute to making the world a better place, it will be universally respected and admired. We must decide what kind of India we want to be.