DNA Edit: Big one eludes - India is due for permanent UNSC membership

India’s tryst for permanent membership of the powerful United Nations Security Council (UNSC) seat is getting closer — so to speak. In a significant diplomatic win, testifying to its growing standing globally, India’s candidature for a non-permanent seat at the UNSC for a two-year term has been unanimously endorsed by the Asia-Pacific group at the world body.

What’s more, the 55 backers included arch rivals China and Pakistan. Each year, the 193-member General Assembly elects five non-permanent members for a two-year term at the UN high-table. The five permanent members of the Council are China, France, Russia, UK and the US.

To be sure, this is not the first time that India has been elected as a non-permanent member of the Council; it has happened seven times before, the most recent one in 2011-2012. Important as this outing is, a permanent seat at the UN is what India aspires for, given its political standing and economic muscle.

New Delhi has long been at the forefront of the efforts to reform the Security Council, saying it rightly deserves a place as its permanent member, which in its current form does not represent the geopolitical realities of the 21st century.

In an age, when India aspires to be more than a regional power and given that today, it is the fastest growing big economy in the world, such hopes are not unrealistic. Among the permanent members, France has proved to be India’s staunchest ally for reform within the UN and a permanent seat in the Council. But the others have been lukewarm. In 2015, India’s bid for a permanent seat was opposed by the US, Russia and China.

The ‘cabal’ of permanent members believe that  UNSC “reform should not be carried out at the expense of the unity of the Member States, who should remain committed to the intergovernmental negotiations process,” a stand that India is opposed to.