Permanent membership not for India

Instead of seeking the abolition of permanent membership of the Security Council, India wants to join the 'club' to show that it has 'arrived'

Many years ago, India wanted to join the 'nuclear club'. India worked towards that goal and one day it did join the 'nuclear club'. It is a matter of immense pride that the country is acknowledged as a nuclear power.

Now India wants to join what is perhaps the most exclusive club in the world "" She wants to become a permanent member of the Security Council of the United Nations. As Jesse Jackson once put it during a bid for the US Presidency, India thinks it is 'qualified'.

Of the five current permanent members of the Security Council, Britain, France and Russia are reported, at least in the Indian media, to be favourably inclined towards India becoming a permanent member. China is silent on the question, but perhaps that is only to be expected, given the Chinese way of doing things and Sino-Indian relations.

Indians seem miffed that the United States has not come out enthusiastically in favour so far. The support of the sole superpower would be vital to the realisation of India's ambition.

But what exactly is this ambition resting on? For a while India had seized upon the alleged judgment of the Secretary-General of the UN, Kofi Annan, that India was a 'natural choice' for permanent membership of the Security Council. The term 'natural choice' has a nice ring to it, suggesting as it does that the qualifying criteria are somehow inherent to India and beyond debate.

However, at this fall's session of the UN General Assembly, while discussing the possible expansion of the Security Council, Kofi Annan suggested during a press conference that countries which had outstanding issues before the Security Council might not be eligible for membership.

Such a criterion would disqualify both India and Pakistan whose long-standing dispute over Kashmir remains unresolved before the Security Council.

There is no doubt at all that the present structure of the Security Council is indefensible. The five permanent members "" United States, Russia, Britain, France and China "" are still enjoying the fruits of being on the winning side of the Second World War.

Each has veto power, which means that a single permanent member's disaffection makes it impossible to get anything through the Council. There is no justification for these five countries to hold such extraordinary power over the rest of the world.

There is also little disagreement over the need to expand the size of the Council. When the Security Council was formed with the five permanent members and six non-permanent members, the total number of member countries in the UN was 51.

Today, the Council has fifteen members "" five permanent and ten elected for two-year terms "" but the UN has grown to 191 countries. It could do with greater representation.

However, what justification could there be to continue to allow a small group of countries to wield permanent veto power over everyone else? The very division of permanent and non-permanent members creates a world of 'haves' and 'have-nots' that defies any notion of fairness and equality.

A fair and representative system would eliminate permanent membership altogether and create an elected body with certain criteria for eligibility which would ensure reasonable representation of the diverse membership of the UN. In such a system India would have to compete to be elected to a seat, if it met the eligibility criteria.

But India does not want to compete. It wants to be named to the high table of veto-wielding permanent members.

The argument that India is a 'natural choice' for joining the 'permanent' elite is fairly incoherent. Some seem to think India qualifies on the basis of numbers, as one out of every six people in the world is an Indian. Why population size should serve as a qualification is not clear.

Should countries aspiring to the top table start multiplying at a fast rate? The fact that a large proportion of India's burgeoning population still groans in grinding poverty makes the claim based on population all the more grotesque.

Another claim is that India 'qualifies' as a great economic power. Thanks to its size, the Indian economy is indeed the eleventh largest in the world in terms of total national income as per World Bank reports. However, in terms of per capita income, India's rank is 159th out of 208 countries.

In terms of Purchasing Power Parity calculations of per capita income, India ranks 145th out of 208. No amount of rhetoric about the size of India's economy can hide the reality that it is actually a poor, developing country.

An even better measure of how countries have performed in terms of looking after their people is the Human Development Index compiled by the United Nations Development Programme(UNDP).

According to it India is 115th out of 162 countries. How shameless does a country have to be to claim the mantle of leadership of the poor and deprived of the world with such a miserable record of human development after 56 years of Independence?

The latest source of Indian pride is its achievement in information technology. However, the UNDP has recently started to compile a 'Technology Achievement Index' and according to it India's rank is 63rd out of 72 countries. Asian countries among the top twenty are Japan, Singapore and Korea. A handful of clever people in Bangalore and California do not make India a 'technology superpower'.

Far from being a "natural choice", India's very ambition to become a permanent member has a rather 'unnatural' twist to it. Why does a country that shows utter disregard for numerous resolutions of the Security Council pertaining to itself, wish to become its permanent member?

A principal task of the Security Council is peace-keeping around the world "" India has proved itself unable to keep the peace with any of its neighbours. As Kofi Annan let slip, it is unthinkable that one or both parties of those engaged in bitter and dangerous conflicts such as exists between India-Pakistan or Israel-Palestine be allowed to sit permanently on the Security Council.

However, India's aspiration to join the privileged elite in the Security Council is consistent with its conduct as an independent country. Its ruling classes did not demolish the colonial apparatus when the British left, but simply took it over. It condemned the nuclear weapons of bigger powers but strove to acquire them too.

So it is but 'natural' that instead of seeking the abolition of permanent membership of the Security Council as a matter of principle, what India really wants is to join privileged few and feel it has 'arrived'.

sarmilabose@yahoo.com