Context

• Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s recent visit to the United States has set the stage for an expansive range of bilateral and multilateral diplomacy by India.
• The visit is unique as it seeks to achieve a vast list of objectives led by the Indian delegation’s participation in the High-Level Week at the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), held recently.

Background

• India also hosted the 10th Ministerial Commission of Foreign Ministers of the India-Brazil-South Africa Trilateral Cooperative Forum (IBSA), and G-4 meeting of foreign ministers on the sidelines of the 77th United Nations General Assembly.
  • About IBSA: The IBSA is a trilateral, developmental initiative between India, Brazil and South Africa to promote South-South cooperation and exchange.
  • About G-4: The G-4 comprising India, Germany, Brazil and Japan is primarily focused on U.N. Security Council (UNSC) reform, and permanent membership of the body for G4 members. It also stands support for African countries being represented in a permanent and non-permanent capacity on a reformed Council.
• India’s External Affairs Minister also met with members of the L.69 group on the sidelines of the UNGA summit.
  • About L.69: The grouping, which counts numerous African, Latin American and Asian countries among its members, was formed in 2007.
  • Its goal is to “achieve comprehensive reform of the Security Council and, ultimately, strengthen multilateralism and achieve more inclusive, responsive and participatory international governance architecture.
• The U.S. visit coming just after the recently concluded Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meet in Samarkand, and varied multilateral engagements showcase a road map for India’s renewed multilateral diplomacy.

Foraging new frameworks

• Beyond the UN, India’s participation in plurilateral meetings of the Quad (Australia, India, Japan, the U.S.), IBSA ,BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), Presidency Pro Tempore CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States), India-CARICOM (Caribbean Community) and other trilateral formats, such as India-France-Australia, India-France-United Arab Emirates and India-Indonesia-Australia underlines India’s search for new frameworks of global governance, amidst growing frustration with the extant multilateral order.

Developments at UNGA meet

• UNGA keynote: The theme of the 77th General Assembly, was “A watershed moment: Transformative Solutions to Interlocking Challenges” places India right in the midst as a strong partner of the UN.
• UNSC overhaul: For a global organisation such as the UN, growing stakes of developing countries in the Security Council could foster trust and leadership across the world.
• India’s standpoint: At the heart of India’s participation in the 77th General Assembly is the call for a ‘reformed multilateralism’ through which the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) should reform itself into a more inclusive organisation representing the contemporary realities of today.
  • India’s call for this structural overhaul of global multilateral institutions incorporates institutional accountability and a wider representation of the developing countries.

Convincing reasons

• Covid-19 crises: The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the UN’s institutional limitations when countries closed their borders, supply chains were interrupted and almost every country was in need of vaccines.
• Relief efforts and Vaccine upshot: Countries of the global South, including India, which stepped up through relief efforts, drug distribution and vaccine manufacturing, have highlighted for a more inclusive UN, particularly through UNSC reform.
• India bridge: As per EAM , S. Jaishankar at UN, India is a bridge, a voice, a viewpoint and a channel, at a time when normal diplomacy isn’t working that well.
  • This is owing to the fact that India has an ability to communicate, to find touch points with different countries that India mattered more in this polarised world.

UN faultlines

• Inability to prevent wars: The UN-led multilateralism has failed to provide strong mechanisms to prevent wars. For instance, the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has loomed over several deadlocks in UNSC resolutions.
• Redundant veto: With the West boycotting Russia, the veto provision of the UNSC is expected become inessential. Hence only a reformed multilateralism with greater representation could generate deeper regional stakes to prevent wars.
• Troubling China: China’s rise, belligerence and aggression in the South China Sea, the Indo-Pacific region, and now increasingly globally, have also underscored the limitations of the UN-style multilateralism.
  • Rising influence: Also China’s control of multilateral organisations, including the UN is increasing as evidenced in the unofficial pressure China exerted on the former UN’s human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, to stop the release of a report by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on the condition of Uyghurs in China.
• Rival ground: China’s unabashed use of veto power against India continues at the UN.
  • In the most recent case, it blocked a joint India-U.S. proposal at the UN to enlist Sajid Mir, a top Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative involved in directing the 2008 Mumbai attacks, as a ‘global terrorist’.
• Risk of disparate institution: China’s growing dominance could lead it to carve its own multilateral matrix circumventing the West, economically and strategically.
  • The international isolation of Russia and Iran could hasten these changes more rapidly than expected.

Way forward

• With starker divisions between countries as result of the Russia-Ukraine war and lingering pandemic-induced restrictions, the need for the UN’s reform is being felt more palpably than ever before.
• India’s emphasis on reinvigorated (give new energy) multilateralism coincides with a critical juncture in the UN-led multilateralism and UN could integrate burden-sharing within its institutional ambit.