Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar on Wednesday said that India not being a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) was not good for the global body.
Speaking on the reforms at the UN, particularly in the Security Council, Jaishankar since the five permanent members —P5— are crucial to the current world order, seeking a tranformation of the UNSC means India is also seeking a deep and fundamental transformation of the world order.
"I was serious when I said I'm working on it," said Jaishankar when asked how long it will take for India to be a permanent UNSC member.
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Jaishankar was in a conversation with Columbia University Professor and Former Vice Chairman of NITI Aayog Arvind Panagariya at the Raj Centre at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.
India has been at the forefront of efforts at the UN to push for urgent long-pending reform of the Security Council, emphasising that it deserves a place at the UN high table as a permanent member. At present, the UNSC comprises five permanent members —USA, UK, France, Russia, and China— and 10 non-permanent member countries which are elected for a two-year term by the General Assembly of the United Nations. Any one of the P5 countries can veto any substantive resolution. There has been growing demand to increase the number of permanent members to reflect the contemporary global reality.
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Jaishankar said, "It’s obviously a very hard task because at the end of the day if you say what is a definition of our global order. The five permanent members are a very crucial definition of what the global order is about. So it's a very fundamental, very deep transformation that we are seeking.
"We believe that transformation is overdue because the UN is a product that was devised eighty years ago. And 80 years ago by any standards of human creativity is a long time ago. The number of independent countries has quadrupled in that period."
He added within a few years, India will be the third largest economy in the world, it will be the most populous society in the world.
"To have such a country not there in the key global councils, obviously, it's not good for us, but I would also urge it's not good for the global Council in question. I do believe that with each passing year, I sense in the world greater and greater support for India to be there because we do command today the confidence and trust of very large parts of the world. I do not want to compare it with the current P5. But I would at least say a lot of countries perhaps think that we speak for them with a high degree of empathy and accuracy," said Jaishankar.
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India is currently halfway through the second year of its two-year term as an elected non-permanent member of the UN Security Council. India's tenure at the Council will end in December when the country will also preside as President of the powerful UN organ for the month.
(With PTI inputs)
