Last week, President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan was in Paris for a brief stopover to meet with his French counterpart Jacques Chirac. The French press noted a certain coolness between the two compared to his visit to the French capital a year-and-a-half ago. They put this down to strong differences over France’s suggestion that India be given a seat on the UN Security Council. That reasoning sounds logical. Not much different must have been the reaction in Islamabad to Russian President Putin’s announcement of his backing for India’s bid during his recent visit to Delhi or to the support India seems to be collecting from many other capitals.
On the face of it, there is much to commend the suggestion. If China, Russia, the US, the UK and France can have one, then India ought to as well. It is the second most populous nation on earth, an economic giant in the making, and potentially a military one as well. Moreover, unlike the existing permanent members, it does not have political axes to grind. It does not see itself as a superpower whose views and opinions have to be heard, enacted and obeyed by the rest of us. Its presence would be refreshing.
But there are two major reservations. First of all is the continuing dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. Until that is resolved, it would be extremely unfair to give India a position that Pakistan would not only resent but see as grossly humiliating. It is precisely the sort of development that would intensify mutual distrust, trigger an arms race and open the door to renewed conflict between the two now-nuclear neighbors.
There is another, even greater, reservation — which applies to all other aspirants as well. Handing out ever more permanent Security Council seats is not going to solve the problems at the UN or increase its efficiency. With all those vetoes, it is going to make for gridlock. That cannot be the way ahead.
The suggestion to increase the number of permanent seats — Germany, Japan and Brazil are the other names being mentioned for the honor in case the council is expanded — raises the question whether any country should have a permanent seat on the UN or a veto. It makes for a two-class world — those with a legal right to always be at top table and be involved in making all the decisions that affect us all, whose “No” to things they dislike scuppers them altogether, and the rest who get invited once every so often and whose “No” means just that and nothing more.
It is ridiculous and offensive that the victors of World War II should still have such a controlling voice in the UN. Time has moved on. World War II is long over. The Cold War is over. Europe’s empires have gone. We live in a new world. India is very much part of it, but so too is the Arab world, so too is Africa. If there are to be permanent seats, then perhaps they should include blocs such as the Arab League, the African Union and the EU (having just one seat instead of the present two).
As for the veto, it should be done away with altogether.
