By Neelam Deo and Karan Pradhan
If India were to become a permanent member, could it influence the council’s ethos and make it relevant again?
In his address to the 69th United Nations General Assembly on September 27, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for a reform of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to “make it more democratic and participative.” It was a thinly-veiled call for India to be made a permanent member.
Modi reiterated that India was one of the founding members of the UN in 1945, and urged that the reforms be carried out in time for the international organisation’s 70th anniversary next year. He highlighted the fact that institutions must reflect 21st century realities or risk irrelevance—a challenge the UN is already failing to meet.
The UNSC is the most important organ of the United Nations. It decides issues of war and peace, and has a total of 15 members. Of these, the five permanent members wield veto powers: U.S., Russia, UK, and France—the victors of World War II—and late entrant China.
Since 1945, the UNSC has been reformed only once, in 1963, to expand the number of non-permanent non-veto empowered members from six to 10. This does not reflect even the most basic realities of a world in which the population has grown from 2.3 billion, when the UN was established, to over 7 billion now, and the number of UN member countries has almost quadrupled from 51 to 193.
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