India is non-permanent Member of United Nations Security

Council
India was elected as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council on 12.10.2010
with an overwhelming number of countries endorsing its sole candidature from the Asian group.
After A gap of 19 years, India will once again be at the UN high table the Security Council as a
non-permanent member, in what is expected to give a fillip to its bid for a permanent seat.
In polling for 10 seats that took place at the U.N. headquarters in New York, as many as 187 countries
in the 192-member UN General Assembly voted for India, the largest support received by any country
for a non-permanent seat in the past five years. India has been on the UNSC six times in the past.
Five votes that didnt come to India, one country backed Pakistan while another rooted for Swaziland.
Another member wasnt present, one abstained and the fifth voted against India. Since it is a secret
ballot, the identities of these countries are not known.
Other non-permanent members elected today were Germany, South Africa, Colombia and Portugal.
To win, India needed support of two-thirds of the 192-member General Assembly. After Kazakhstan
pulled out of the race early this year, India was the lone candidate from Asia. Its two-year term at the
Security Council begins on January 1, 2011.
It is of significance that, for the first time, the Security Council will witness the simultaneous presence
of all BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) countries, and three of
the four G4 countries (India, Brazil and Germany). The Council will also include a number of
developing countries with which we have close ties as well as some of our global strategic partners.
India had no competitor from Asia group after the withdrawal of Kazakhstan earlier in 2010.
The last time India was part of the UNSC was in 1991-92. It suffered a shock defeat in 1996 when it
lost to Japan despite banking on solidarity among developed countries. India will take over as a UNSC
non-permanent member from Japan on January 1, 2011, for the seventh time.
The UNSC has five permanent members the United States, Russia, China, France and the United
Kingdom who have veto rights. There are also 10 rotating members who have the right to vote, but
cannot veto a resolution.
This resounding endorsement of Indias candidature at the United Nations reaffirms the overwhelming
support India enjoys in the international community, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna said at a
press conference in New Delhi soon after the results were known on 12.10.2010.

While thanking all the member states who supported Indias candidature, Mr. Krishna said the country
would have to live up to the responsibility entrusted by such a large number of countries. He also
hoped Indias objective approach would pave the way for its entry as a permanent member. India will
demonstrate to the world that India is good for the world, he added.
UNSC - Indias non-permanent membership and the road ahead
Indias latest election, with the highest number of votes cast in the United Nations General Assembly,
to serve a two-year term as non-permanent member of the Security Council commencing in January
2011 is a worthy development that should prompt informed appreciation of its importance. On the one
hand, the election, no doubt, is a clear recognition of the long and rich reputation our country has
earned in the U.N., besides being an acknowledgment of the growing importance India continues to
gain in matters of multilateral governance. On the other hand, it could be dismissed as being too little
too late a development to quench Indias vexatious thirst for status of a permanent member. What are
the opportunities and challenges awaiting India in its new role? How is the non-permanent
membership relevant to pursuing our aspiration for permanent membership? A useful basis for such
speculation should be a stock-taking of the patterns in Indias performance in the United Nations
Security Council (UNSC) on the occasions when it served as a non-permanent member previously.
At the San Francisco Conference where U.N. structural architecture was finalised, India not only
supported the need for permanent members in the UNSC, but also persuaded the powerful countries
to accept an eligibility criteria for election to the non-permanent membership category. No comparable
criteria guided the selection of permanent members, while the non-permanent members are to satisfy
tough criteria of contribution to peace and equitable geographical representation. Our approach to the
U.N. is characterised by, to borrow Jawaharlal Nehrus words, wholehearted co-operation through full
participation in its councils to which her geographical position and contribution towards peaceful
progress entitle her. How tough, nevertheless, is the route to non-permanent membership became
clear from the fact that, after establishment of the U.N., it took four years for India to enter the UNSC
through the election route. Inclusive of the ensuing stint, India has to its credit only seven terms
(mostly) representing the Asian region in a span of 65 years.
Between the first two terms it had during the 1950s-1960s, there was a gap of 15 years, while India
will assume its seat now after a lapse of 19 years since its previous term ended in 1992. The years it
served in the Council coincided with testing times for the Security Council and the U.N. at large.
Major conflict situations occurred during the time India was a member, the Korean war during 195051, the two Arab-Israeli wars in 1967 and then in 1973, Israels first invasion of Lebanon (1977), and
the first Gulf war against Iraq (1991). During the time of its non-permanent membership of the UNSC,
the Indian delegations had espoused certain fundamental principles that should govern relations
among Member States. These are the principles of non-use of force, the respect for the sovereignty,
independence and territorial integrity of States, and the peaceful settlement of disputes. The principle
of the inadmissibility of territorial acquisition by force is absolutely fundamental to Indias approach.

In terms of quality of participation, strikingly Indias contribution at the UNSC mirrors the larger
picture of Indias role at the United Nations, encompassing a good mix of maturity, moderation,
pragmatism and propriety. India not merely abstained in the vote on the resolutions adopted on the
question of Jammu and Kashmir, but also ceded its turn to preside over the Council meeting in March
1951 because the Kashmir question appeared on the agenda. Moderation was manifest in the total
absence of a negative vote, while abstentions remained few and far between. The characteristics of
flexibility and pragmatism were evident in plenty in terms of a willingness to work with others in
helping the process of drafting or refining texts that had the potential of obtaining the widest possible
support. It is naturally difficult to categorically assert whether such an undoubtedly enviable
performance decorated by the gifts of devotion and dexterity is a rarity among countries (developed or
developing) which have served on the Council as non-permanent members.
Again, India strove to be part of the democratic majority helping in the adoption of broadly acceptable
decisions and resolutions. On the one hand it was part of 59 per cent of the resolutions adopted either
unanimously or without a vote. Even in regard to the aggregate of 113 adopted resolutions (41 per
cent) which attracted division, India cast an affirmative vote on 101 (89 per cent). Only on no more
than a dozen occasions has it stood aside without joining the concurring majority. To be sure, India
had not voted against any resolution, but has resorted to abstentions only to signal its reservations.
Interestingly, India was never a loner as an abstaining country; it had the company of China, the
USSR, Yugoslavia, and Zimbabwe on many occasions. Six abstentions (50 per cent) pertained to the
last term during 1991-92. Those abstentions exemplified Indias sensitivity to negative implications of
the adopted resolutions for such important issues of principle as respect to state sovereignty, nondiscrimination among Member States of the U.N., unconditional and immediate ceasefire, recourse to
coercive action after exhausting all other options, respect for the jurisdiction of other organs, and so
forth.
India sought to take pains to bring Non-Aligned member countries together in the UNSC. Side by side,
India seemed to place high hopes in the potential of the non-permanent members in the Council to
play the role of constructive peace makers. Such a strategy was advocated, although in vain, during
the Gulf war soon after it entered the Council in 1991. Earlier in the mid-1980s, India moved a
proposal aimed at a long overdue increase in the non-permanent seats in the Council reflecting more
adequately the enhanced membership of the Organisation. However, the primacy of this move was
lost when it became a part of the larger demand since 1992 to expand the Council in both permanent
and non-permanent categories.
No doubt, Indias self perception is more robust than what it was in 1991-92. Whether India will make
a difference to the deliberations and outcomes in the UNSC during its upcoming tenure will depend
less on solo heroic propensity than on the effective partnerships and positive consensus it is able to
build and sustain involving, first, sister non-permanent members and then the permanent members. It
is encouraging that India, Brazil, and South Africa will be working together for a year in the Council
which could become a nucleus of a larger coalition on salient issues. Will these three countries make
history in the Council by being together or miss the opportunity as the Non-Aligned troika (India,
Egypt, and Yugoslavia) did when they sat in the Council when the Korean conflict erupted in 1950 will

be the moot question. If the past is a guide, India may not be keen to adopt a confrontationist posture
and vote alone against a resolution, but more keen to work to be part of legitimate, transparent,
effective Council.
(Professor C.S.R. Murthy teaches at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University,
New Delhi.) Courtesy: The Hindu