Sparring Over
A Seat
By Praful Bidwai
23 September , 2004
The News International
As
we await the outcome of tomorrow's meeting between President Musharraf
and Prime Minister Singh, a discordant note has crept into India-Pakistan
exchanges. India's announcement of its plan to lobby concertedly, with
Brazil, Germany and Japan, for a permanent seat on the United Nations
Security Council has drawn a sharply negative Pakistani response. Pakistan's
ambassador to the UN, Munir Akram, says Islamabad "would do everything
possible to thwart India's attempts..."
Akram first reiterated
Pakistan's long-standing opposition to any expansion of the Security
Council's five-member permanent group (P-5), but then added: "If
we have to choose, we will support Germany and Japan against India".
Two factors seem to be at work: knee-jerk opposition to a larger global
role for India, and diplomatic pressure from Germany and Japan, whose
foreign ministers visited Pakistan in July and August.
Pakistan's stiff
opposition to India's search for a larger world role appears to be rooted
in instinctive rivalry and a "zero-sum" calculus: India and
Pakistan should logically cut each other down to size.
The operational
issue for the moment is: How valuable is a permanent Security Council
seat? Is it in the interest of global security that the Council be expanded
without being reformed? Is Tony Blair right in saying, as he did on
Monday: "For India not to be represented on the Security
Council is, I think, something that is not in tune with ... modern times..."?
Will India gain in stature and influence by acquiring a permanent seat?
Some sobering thoughts
are in order. Take first an interesting contrast between India's new
self-assertion and its just-announced reversal of its 2003 decision
to refuse bilateral aid from most countries. It will now accept assistance
from all G-8 countries, and the European Union,
including its non-G-8 members, provided they give an annual minimum
of $25 million. The earlier hubris, enhanced by peevishness at the EU's
demarches over the Gujarat pogrom, has given way to acknowledgement
that India needs external assistance.
This is unsurprising.
India has a rank of 127 in the United Nations Human Development Index
(HDI). Its per-capita income is a mere $487, or less than one-tenth
the global average. (Even in purchasing-power parity, it is one-third
the world average.) India's lofty ambition is not matched by its poverty,
general backwardness, and aggregate economic size, which in absolute
terms equals the Netherlands' (pop 16 million). A Council seat won't
redress this mismatch.
Nor is a Council
seat the best index of international standing. Britain, France and Russia
are declining powers despite being in the P-5. There is nearly as much
disproportion between, say, Pakistan and India's nuclear-weapons status
and their political weight, as between Council membership and leadership
in politics, economy or culture.
In today's world,
"soft power" probably matters than "hard" military
power. Nations are often respected more for their moral leadership and
for what they have done for their citizens than for their might. For
instance, Sweden, South Africa and Ireland - because they have endorsed
good
causes like peace. Norway (pop 4.5 million) commands prestige because
of its steady Number One HDI rank and conflict-resolution role in Palestine-Israel
and Sri Lanka.
Contrariwise, brute
power is no guarantee of effective political authority. The United States'
military superiority is unmatched in history. But the US is politically
failing in Iraq, as it failed in Vietnam. During the critical February
2003 debate over the "Second Resolution" on Iraq, the US's
powers of persuasion, coercion and bribery could not recruit it the
support it needed. Not just Pakistan, Mexico and Chile, but even Guinea,
Cameroon and Angola (all extremely weak) defied Washington!
This does not argue
that the Security Council is irrelevant - it proved relevant precisely
when the US threatened to consign it to the dustbin of history - but
that there are limits to its most privileged members' power. Wisdom
lies in working within those limits - not equating Council
membership with unbridled authority and legitimacy.
The Security Council,
it bears recalling, failed to stop French and US interventions in Vietnam,
the Korean War, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and many wars in Africa
and Latin America. After the Cold War, it also failed in Bosnia and
Rwanda. It is now disastrously failing in Sudan.
It has proved shamefully ineffectual in bringing justice to Palestine.
These failures are
largely attributable to lack of will on the part of the major powers
to enforce peace and security. This won't change unless the Council
is thoroughly reformed. Some elements of reform are obvious. The Council
must be democratised and enlarged by giving more representation to the
Global South. Vetoes must be eventually abolished. Its decision-making
powers must be restructured, so the General Assembly gets greater authority.
It won't do just to include Germany and Japan (which won't enhance the
Council's credibility), nor even large Southern countries like India,
Brazil, Nigeria and Indonesia. It would be better to have permanent
seats for different regions, which are rotated among their members.
Some interesting
proposals have also come from a Ford Foundation-Yale University working
group (whose members were drawn from both North and South). One calls
for enlarging the number of permanent (non-veto) members, while restricting
use of the veto by the P-5 "only to peacekeeping and enforcement
measures...[This] ... could be arranged by agreement among the P-5 and
without Charter amendment..."
One major merit
of this transitional idea is that it reduces the danger that the North
will altogether derail reform. It is an urgent necessity to expand the
General Assembly's role in security-related decision-making and empower
the Economic and Social Council to oversee the working of the World
Bank, IMF and World Trade Organisation. Other proposals have also been
made for creating a "Second Chamber" of civil society organisations.
India could play
a valuable role in promoting a dialogue for UN reform along these lines.
That would be a major contribution to global governance. But that means
returning to a Nehruvian vision of a peaceful and just world order and
seizing moral leadership, while abandoning a search for glory through
military-political-economic power.
Pakistan, too, should
promote UN reform. That would be in its own (and the world's) long-term
interest. By obsessively opposing India's bid for a Council seat, Pakistan
will have negated that possibility. The time has come for Pakistanis
to ask whether their main global preoccupation should be to seek parity
with India, or failing that cut India down. Size and location, as well
as the existence of a stable democracy, may have put India in a different
league. There is nothing wrong with accepting that in a spirit of generosity
and friendship - in order to promote a common global democratic agenda.