On October 24, 1945, while the world was healing from the pains of the second world war, 51 countries came together to form an organization that would, in future, ensure that humanity was saved from the upheavals of war. With a resolution in mind and hearts, to maintain peace throughout the world, develop friendly relations among nations, help nations work together to improve the lives of the poor, conquer hunger, disease and illiteracy, to encourage respect for each other’s rights and freedoms and to be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations– UN and India, as one of its founding members, have come a long way.
As we celebrate 75 years of the United Nations, we also celebrate 75 years of India at the United Nations. In his addressing speech, made by Honorable Prime Minister of India, Mr Narendra Modi, we can absolutely not overlook the fact that India’s role in preaching and practising the objectives, resolutions and promises of the UN have been par excellence.
India, as a nation has proved time and again that it will always cherish the objectives of the UN, one of the most important one being the resolution to maintain peace and harmony between nations. PM Modi, very appropriately mentioned at the 75th session of the UN General Assembly, “When India strengthens its development partnership with a country it was not with any malafide intent of making the partner country dependent or hapless.”
Thus, reinstating the fact that if one country applauds another country or tries to achieve a strategic membership or signs any memorandum of understanding with another country, it, in no way means that the intent is to bring down a third country.
This is certainly very important to understand and reflect upon, considering that in today’s time the world order is subjected to changes at a pace which is far beyond in speed than it was, say, a decade or two before. If one country tops the export market, the other takes its precedence in the space achievements, while one country manages to become a hub of tourism, the other outperforms in the industrial sector and so on and so forth.
And for India, specifically, to make this statement at the moment particularly emphasizes the fact that we were, and we are a peace-loving nation, a nation that believes in friendship and dialogue to solve the most complex problems.
India’s election to the non-permanent seat of the United Nations Security Council with an overwhelming majority of 184 votes out of total 192 UN members, throws light on the goodwill and trust that India has garnered from the other developed, developing and under-developed nations. Achieving this feat for India has not been a day’s work, it has been a long journey of perseverance and judicious efforts in the right directions with the right decisions made at the right time.
Below are listed some of the major achievements and accolades that India could realize for itself, branding it as one of the most powerful democracies of the world:
- India was elected as the first chair of the Decolonization Committee where it made relentless efforts to put an end to colonialism, after all, no country, but India knew the taste of independence.
- India has contributed the greatest number of personnel for the UN’s peacekeeping missions, also becoming the first country to deploy an all-women contingent for Formed Police Unit to the UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia.
- India has always strongly advocated the process of reform and restructuring of the UN to include more nations in the decision-making process like the countries from Latin America, Asia and Africa to achieve inclusion and diversity, thereby strengthening the overall world economy and leadership.
- The international effort against terrorism has always been a priority for India in the UN. Many counter-terrorism efforts and discussions have been led by India along with other nations to combat the menace of terrorism as well as other illicit activities that are a major threat to humanity at large. Along with being a party to the 13 sectoral conventions on terrorism adopted by the UN, India also became a member of the Financial Action Task Force in 2010, which is an intergovernmental organization launched by G7, to combat terrorism and terror financing (money laundering).
- To foster the principles of human rights to achieve overall development of society, India has taken massive steps in this direction. Being a significant contributor to the core resources of the UN Development Programme – the UN Population Fund (UNFP), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme, India, along with over 60 countries, co-sponsored the resolution on Covid19 pandemic as well.
- Last but significantly not the least, one of the most talked about and discussed agendas in the world today– sustainability.
- United Nations adopted the sustainable development goals for the overall development of the society, thus interlinking 17 goals which would ensure a better future for all. India not only signed the Agenda but in September 2016, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation developed a National Indicator Framework (NIF) which was a consolidated list of possible national indicators consisting of 306 statistical indicators to serve as a backbone for monitoring of SDGs. And fast forward to 2018, NITI Aayog in collaboration with the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Global Green Growth Institute and United Nations launched the first of its kind- ‘SDG India Index’. This index classifies where a State and a union territory currently stands on each of the listed indicators thus presenting an incremental change in subsequent versions.
- 2 subsequent reports have been launched till now!
India is a rising nation, practising soft power, which has worked well for India up till now. United Nations on the other hand is an organization which ensures the goodwill of all its member as well as non-member states.
In such light of events, it becomes increasingly important for United Nations to ensure greater participation and run a couple of amends in its structure to include more and exclude less and to check the structure as per the changing world order today, considering that we are far ahead from where we were at the time of the World War 2.
As for India, it is deemed necessary to devise better ways to approach engagement in its policy matters to ensure its overall development so that it emerges as a powerful nation, thereby adding credibility to its commitment towards multilateralism.