Wrong move

A great deal is being made of the fact that India has nominated an Indian to the post of the Secretary General of the United Nations. The post will fall vacant at the end of this year, when the current Secretary General, Kofi Annan, retires. The election to the post will be held in October. Even if the Indian nominee loses""as seems most likely unless the US throws its weight behind him (and perhaps even then)""he will become a household name in India in the four months that remain until the election. That would be a significant personal gain for the candidate but what would India have gained? Perhaps only a great deal of opprobrium.

It has been a tradition at the UN that the post of the Secretary General is usually occupied by an eminent person from smaller countries. Even in this election, there will be candidates from Sri Lanka and Thailand, to name just two Asian neighbours. The latter's candidate, in fact, is a former deputy prime minister. To date there is no record of anyone from a country as large as India having become the Secretary General. One can only wonder why India has chosen to depart from this time-honoured tradition. The candidate himself is saying that he wants to reform the UN, something in which India has a lot of interest of course. But its interest is mostly restricted to the Security Council, where it wants to become a permanent member with a veto. Whether an Indian as the Secretary General is the best way of achieving this aim is open to serious doubt. Everyone knows which country actually decides these things and what its preferences and strategy are. So UN reform as a reason for putting up an Indian candidate is a non-starter.

Could it be, then, that as Pakistan (which has said it will nominate a Pakistani to fight the election) has suggested India has given up hopes for the next couple of decades of becoming a permanent member of the Security Council? The Indian ambassador to the UN has said that the two are not linked. Technically, he is right. But diplomacy is not about technicalities. It is about deal-making. So the country is entitled to ask, what's cooking or what has been cooked? Why the sudden announcement? Is it linked to something else? If so, what? What does India expect to gain, especially if it means incurring the displeasure of Thailand, Sri Lanka and others? And if this be the case, was this the best candidate available? If so, why? Would India not have been better off supporting an Asian candidate from a smaller country? These are legitimate questions that spring to the mind of anyone who follows international diplomacy. In the absence of a satisfactory explanation""and none seems possible""everyone will assume the worst, that is, regard the Pakistani explanation as being the most plausible one. India should have acted differently. Sometimes, dignity and eventual gains lie in restraint.