The article highlights India’s challenges at the UNSC in its 2 year stint.

India’s agenda at the UNSC

• India’s two-year non-permanent stint at the UNSC should be viewed as a once-in-a-decade opportunity to clearly identify and pursue its national interests regionally and globally.
• India’s entry into the UNSC coincides with the emergence of a new world order.
• Under new world order, there is systemic uncertainty, little care for global commons, absence of global leadership, the steady division of the world into rival blocs, pursuit of narrow national interests.
• Efforts by Biden administration in the United States may go on to ameliorate some of the harsh impact of this global order.
• The UNSC has also reached a point wherein its very relevance is in serious doubt.
• India too is no longer an ardent believer in the fantastical claims about a perfect world at harmony with itself, nor is it a timid observer in global geopolitics.
• India’s pursuit of its interests at the UNSC should, therefore, reflect its material and geopolitical limitations, and its energies should be focused on a clearly identified agenda.

Factors determining India’s agenda at the UNSC

1) Rivalry with China

• India’s tenure at the UNSC comes in the wake of its growing military rivalry with China.
• China’s opposition to having India chair the Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) in 2022 was a precursor to the things to come ahead.
• The next two years will be key to ensure checking further Chinese incursions along the Line of Actual Control and building up enough infrastructure and mobilising sufficient forces in the forward areas.

2) Relations with Russia

• Greater Indian alignment with the West at the UNSC, an unavoidable outcome, could, however, widen the growing gulf between Russia and India.
• It might not be possible for India to sit on the fence anymore.
• Fence sitting would bring more harm than goodwill in an international system where battlelines are sharpening by the day.

3) Terrorism issue

• Terror is likely to be a major focus for India at the UNSC.
• External Affairs Minister’s statement at the UNSC Ministerial Meeting on the 20th Anniversary of Security Council Resolution 1373 and the establishment of the Counter Terrorism Committee has set the stage for New Delhi’s approach on the issue.
• India recently assumed the chair of the Taliban sanctions committee which assumes significance given the fast-moving developments in Afghanistan.
• India must formulate its policy towards terrorism with far more diplomatic finesse and political nuance especially given that it is chairing the Taliban sanctions committee while courting the very same Taliban.

4) Coalition of like-minded states and setting the agenda for next decade

• India should use the forum and its engagement there to build coalitions among like-minded states and set out its priorities for the next decade — from climate change to non-proliferation.
• India should use its bargaining power at the UNSC to pursue its national interests in other forums and domains as well.
• India’s UNSC strategy should involve shaping the narrative and global policy engagement vis-à-vis — the Indo-Pacific.
• Given India’s centrality in the Indo-Pacific region and the growing global interest in the concept, New Delhi would do well to take it upon itself to shape the narrative around it.
• In doing so, it should, through the UNSC and other means, court Moscow once again and assuage its concerns about the Indo-Pacific.

Way forward

• India’s pursuit of its national interest at UNSC must also be tempered by the sobering fact that the UNSC is unlikely to admit new members any time soon, if ever at all.
• A glance at the recent debates on UNSC reforms and the state of the international system today should tell us that bending over backwards to please the big five to gain entry into the UNSC will not make a difference.

Consider the question “What agenda should India pursue at the UNSC in its two year non-permanent stint? What are the challenges in pursuing such agenda?”

Conclusion

India must focus its energies on what it can achieve during the short period that it would be in the UNSC rather than what it wishes happened.

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