THE BIG STAGE
   Date :20-Jun-2020

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INDIA’s ascendence to the all-powerful United Nations Security Council (UNSC) as a Non-Permanent Member denotes an important development in the international realpolitik. It shows the growing clout India enjoys in the international arena. For, when India declared its candidature to the post, no other country from the Asia-Pacific Region, pushed its own nomination, giving India the fullest opportunity to sit in the forum for whose reforms India has been actively campaigning for the past so many years. Now, for a two-year term, India will be the most important Non-Permanent Member of the UNSC, making significant contribution to the global effort to create a peaceful world.
 
 
There is little doubt that countries like China had never liked the idea of India sitting with them in the Security Council. But in the past some years, India’s mature diplomacy won for New Delhi a lot of friends all over the world, mustering enough support from the Asia-Pacific Region. As the region becomes important from multiple angles that include even the global maritime interests woven around the all-critical Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean -- Indo-Pacific -- areas, India will have a major role to play to maintain geo-political balance in the top UN forum.
 
In the past some years, even though India was not a member of the UNSC, it harped on major reforms of the UN organ and pushed for a more accommodative platform that would accept representation of the developing world in a more empathetic manner. Now, as a member of the UNSC for two years, India will be able to push many ideas it has been propagating for several years. Of course, reforms of the United Nations are still a long way away. The global body has developed certain imbalances that make things difficult for the developing member-nations as they tackle their concerns and issues.
 
As a votary of developing world, India has done a lot of good work to promote togetherness among nations, thanks to its non-reciprocal assistance beyond politics and narrow-diplomacy. Thanks to all this contribution, India is being given a leadership status of the developing world, which it may be able to use to overall benefit. The next two years after India assumes UNSC membership next year, thus, will offer India much scope for genuine good work.