UN Security Council expansion in Indo-Pak media

 

 

 

 

Subarno Chattarji

 

In this part I look at Indian and Pakistani coverage of India’s bid for a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) seat.

 

Pretense towards global power:

The subtext of India’s desire for and negotiations towards acquiring power at a global level underpins most of the articles on the Indo-US defence pacts. The discourse of a pretense to great power status was perhaps best embodied in the reportage on India’s bid for a seat at the United Nations Security Council.

 

The Hindu carried seven reports on the subject. On 6 July Varadarajan reported the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation opposition to the G-4 initiative. The next day Varadarajan mentioned that the G-4 had decided to defer the vote on UNSC expansion. On 11 July a report, ‘G-4 favours U.N. vote around July 20,’ concentrated on the African Union (AU) factor and the importance of their votes. It ended with a quote that the expansion may not happen this year but did not comment on it. On 13 July there was a report on the G-4 introducing the draft resolution in the UN. This detailed the debates and the opposition of China and Pakistan to the proposed expansion of the UNSC. On the same day in the ‘National’ news section Amit Baruah virtually repeated the draft resolution report. On 17 July Baruah continued the coverage: ‘G-4 proposal: chances for compromise.’ On 29 July Varadarajan’s ‘G-4 remains focused on the African Union’ contained more details of the tortuous negotiations between the G-4 and the AU.

 

The frequency of these reports suggests great interest verging on the obsessive on India’s bid for a UNSC seat. The grouping itself - Brazil, Germany, India, Japan - places India on some sort of parity with Germany and Japan, which is flattering if inaccurate. It is interesting that The Hindu which was largely critical of the defence and nuclear pacts offered little criticism of India’s desire, effectively buying into the myth that India deserves a UNSC seat.

 

Sinking of the UNSC dream:

On July 14 The Times of India carried a report ‘India’s UNSC dreamboat sinks in US waters’. It cited US representative Shirin Tahir-Kheli: ‘"Let me be as clear as is possible: the US does not think any proposal to expand the Security Council - including one based on our own ideas - should be voted upon at this stage."’ The Hindu cited an unnamed official in its 11 July report: ‘"Africa is the weakest link. If a compromise is reached on the two resolutions, fine. But if at the end of the day there are still two separate resolutions, we might just have to accept that expansion [of the Security Council] will not happen this year"’ (‘G-4 favours UN vote around July 20’). This was not followed up and Tahir-Kheli’s clear rejection seems to have been ignored by The Hindu.

 

Blackmail:

The US rejection, however, did not prevent the Times from writing further stories on the G-4 saga. On July 28 it carried a bizarre story wherein the Italian ambassador to the UN, Marcello Spatafora, ‘alleged that one of the G-4 countries had threatened to halt a $460, 000 project in an unnamed country to gain its support for their resolution’ (‘G-4 blackmailing nations for UNSC seats, says Italy’). The G-4 counter to the Italian accusation was reported in the Times the following day.

 

Spatafora’s allegations were prominently covered by all three Pakistan broadsheets under survey. Daily Times and Dawn also reported Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura’s warning ‘that his country would face mounting domestic pressure to cut its contribution to the UN if it was denied a permanent seat on the UN Security Council’ (Daily Times, July 29). Given Japan’s status as the second largest contributor to the UN after the US, this threat carried some weight, but hasn’t been implemented as yet.

 

Critical analysis of India’s UNSC bid:

Praful Bidwai’s regular column in Frontline offered an analysis of India’s bid for a UNSC seat. Bidwai stated that India may gain a seat but it will have to strike untenable compromises with the US: ‘The Times of India (May 28) reported that Washington wants India to agree to amend the U.N. Charter to provide for the "right" of states to use military force in "anticipatory self-defence", presumably including both pre-emptive and preventive war. This is a terrible bargain. […] This is morally obnoxious, strategically irrational, and utterly repugnant to the spirit of the U.N. Charter’ (‘India’s global aspirations,’ Frontline, July 15).

 

Questions unasked and unanswered in general media reports:

Although Bidwai cites a Times of India report the Times did not contain the kind of pointed analysis that Bidwai offers. He asks questions that go beyond the ‘achievement’ of a UNSC seat: ‘What sort of India is it that goes to the Council? What does it stand for in regard to reform of the present unequal world order? And will India merely promote its narrow and parochial national interest as perceived by the ruling elite, or will it contribute to making the world a better place, less conflict-ridden, less violent, less dominated by hegemonic powers and more equal?’

 

These are not merely rhetorical questions and Bidwai traces differences in India’s policies from the 1950s onwards through to India’s pretensions at the present time. ‘This is not the India of the 1950s and 1960s, which championed decolonization, non-alignment, peace, nuclear disarmament and equity and balance in the world. It is not the India of the 1970s, which called for the New International Economic Order based on fair trade and correction of structural imbalances in the world economy. It is not even the India of the 1980s, which resisted Western pressure on intellectual property rights and which, despite having acquired a nuclear capability, still maintained restraint by not overtly crossing the nuclear threshold, a certain "discipline" as Amartya Sen called it.’

 

Nostalgia:

There is an element of nostalgia in this characterization, particularly for the non-aligned movement and a refusal to delve into the failure of that and other movements. Bidwai’s questions tap into a larger debate between policy makers who stress realpolitik, the necessity to deal with the world as it is, on the one hand, and idealists who wish to create a better world, on the other hand.

 

The divide is not as deep or irreconcilable as proponents of either side make it out to be, for the world as it is can be shaped by ideals. It is the absence of the latter that Bidwai points to: ‘Today’s India is driven by chauvinist nationalism, of the muscular, militant and misanthropic kind, and pressed by an obsessive desire to join the dominant rather than fight them. […] Its present policy is unbalanced, excessively focused on the U.S., and nearly always obsequious towards it.’

 

UNSC bid - an elite obsession:

Echoes of earlier media debates on India’s obsession with America and anti-Americanism are evident here. Where Bidwai’s analysis is distinctive is in the way he characterizes the domestic fallout of India acquiring a UNSC seat as a triumph for a retrogressive elite. ‘Domestically, India’s entry into the Security Council will be seen as a great triumph by an elite which has psychologically seceded from the people and looks westwards. The top one-tenth of the population will see it as vindication of its own hubris and a sign of India’s "arrival" as a Great Power - no matter that it remains a cesspool of poverty and deprivation, in which rank casteism rules, the majority is condemned to economic bondage and social servitude and female foeticide is acquiring epidemic proportions. Worse, a Security Council seat will be seen as license to ignore these terrible realities.’

 

A counter argument would state that Bidwai ignores the social and economic progress that India has made since the 1950s which in itself is justification for the UNSC bid. This counter-truth has some value and Bidwai tends to dismiss it. However, his critique highlights the ways in which the English language media in particular erases questions of inequity, deprivation, and servitude when it reports on and analyses issues such as the UNSC race. While media covered the UNSC negotiations in tortuous detail, none provided as scathing or deep an analysis as this piece.

 

Conclusion:

Reportage in the media under consideration saw India’s bid for a UNSC seat as an inherent good and offered little or no analytical comment. The only exception to the above was in a sister publication of The Hindu indicating perhaps that there is little coherence within media publishing groups or that such groups allow for considerable difference and autonomy.

 

Pakistan media on UNSC expansion:

It is interesting that Aziz-ud-din Ahmad cited Proful (sic) Bidwai’s piece but only to score a point over India (‘Will India take the bait?’ The Nation, July 14). Pakistan media covered the UNSC bid with equal obsession and general lack of analysis. The Dawn carried 7 pieces, The Nation 10, and Daily Times 10.

 

Pakistani ‘superiority’ over India in the UN:

Dr. Akhtar Hasan Khan’s ‘No need to back India’s bid’ (Dawn, July 5,) compared the two countries’ records at the UN: ‘The parity of Pakistan’s election to the Security Council with India is because of its effective performance. Otherwise India should have been elected more often. […] The UN system has not seen a more impressive writer and speaker of English than [A. S.] Bokhari.’

 

This banal comparison was followed up by the obvious: ‘India has been defying Security Council resolutions on Kashmir for more than fifty years. Pakistan has no such stigma.’ Dr. Khan ignores the fact that the UN has all but jettisoned those resolutions as a means of solving the Kashmir issue and seems relieved that there are no skeletons in Pakistan’s closet (in contrast to its nuclear proliferation, for instance).

 

Non-partisan pieces:

Karl F. Inderfurth’s ‘UN needs a real change’ (Dawn, July 14) moved away from the one-upmanship of Dr. Khan, arguing for change which is balanced and reflects current political realities.

 

Thalif Deen’s ‘US push for global democracy excludes UN Council’ (Dawn, July 17) was the only non-Pakistan centred article and scathing about the politics and hypocrisy of Council expansion. It referred to the P-5 (Permanent 5) as the ‘H (Hereditary) 5’ and cited Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies, Washington: ‘The United Nations has always faced a difficult imbalance between power and democracy.’ In quoting Annan’s statement that there is a ‘democracy deficit in the UN governance’ Deen indicated the skewed power equations that dominate the so-called fountainhead of democratic plurality.

 

A Daily Times editorial, ‘UN-war of contending drafts’ (July 29), was suitably cynical about all the proposals but offered no overarching analysis a la Bidwai.

 

Pakistan opposition to India’s UNSC bid:

Apart from these two pieces Pakistan media carried detailed reports on the nitty-gritty of negotiations in and between various camps without much comment, just like the Indian media. Unlike the Indian media, all Pakistan articles under survey displayed a steadfast opposition to G-4 and, by extension, India’s bid for a UNSC seat. As a Daily Times front page article put it, ‘Pakistan is adamantly opposed to India securing permanent membership of the Council’ (July 23).

 

This adamant opposition was diplomatically framed by Munir Akram, Pakistan’s UN Ambassador, speaking on behalf of United for Consensus (UfC): ‘The seekers of special privileges and power masquerade as the champions of the weak and the disadvantaged’ (Iftikhar Ali, ‘G-4 seeking compromise with Africans on UNSC expansion,’ The Nation, July 16). UfC comprising Canada and Italy amongst others portrayed its resolution as more just and equitable.

 

Akram’s phrase was repeated in the Pakistan media and while it occupies the moral high ground, it is essentially aimed against India. S. M. Hali’s column, ‘Indian bid for UNSC seat’ (The Nation, July 20), expresses this anti-India bias: ‘India’s dream to achieve a coveted permanent seat at the UNSC appears to be coming to naught […] India has been going from pillar to post to realize its aspiration. It has manouevred (sic), begged, cajoled and even bullied some members of the United Nations to help it secure the highly sought-after position.’ India’s desperate bid for a UNSC seat, as Bidwai points out, camouflages problems in India’s domestic and international policies, and Hali is accurate in his representation of the begging and cajoling. His point, however, is to express satisfaction at India having been stymied.

 

Conclusion:

India’s failure in the UN arena serves as a sort of compensation for Pakistan’s foreign policy failures vis-à-vis the US. Sadly this myopic concentration on India in Pakistan media did not allow for in-depth analysis of the issues surrounding UNSC expansion, barring the exceptions mentioned.