India doesn't deserve a UNSC permanent seat

India's UNSC bid creates noise every time there is a UN session in progress. But sadly, it creates noise only in India. Thats the irony of this bid which needs 2/3rd of 192 countries around the world to vote for India. Nobody is talking about it and nobody cares. It is important to discuss whether India really deserves that seat.

Agreed that 1 out of every 6 people in this world live in India, agreed that India is the largest democracy, agreed that India is a major contributor to UN peace keeping missions, but is that enough to lay claim on permanent membership to UNSC? Just because you have been a loyal employee in a company and have worked honestly and diligently for it doesn't give you the right to lay claim to the Board of Directors. You should be in a strategic role to do that. You should have helped the company at a higher level to grow its business, to see through some crises situations, or to enter new relationships. You should have done something that was impactful to the whole company.

Also getting a UNSC membership is not just about national pride. Politicians, especially in the developing countries, have a habit of painting a Utopian picture for the general public, taking them on fantasy rides, one after the other. And low literacy levels and low awareness levels in these countries do not help the situation.

India has to prove its case to become a permanent member with veto power of such an influential body.

What is India's approach towards other countries, what drives India's global relationships, what are India's ideologies, what principles does India stand for, these are important questions that need to be answered. Nobody knows what is India's stand on important issues such as the situation in Darfur, the Palestine-Israel conflict, the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, and many other such issues. Indian government didn't consider them important enough to be commented upon. There are always more pressing domestic issues. And I haven't heard India's stand being discussed or covered by media for any major international conflict.

India fails to impress even in its neighborhood. It has remained silent on the Myanmar issue. It didn't take a lead in helping to solve important crises such as the Maoist rebellion in Nepal and LTTE issue in Sri Lanka. Even India's neighbors don't consider it their Big Brother, forget about other countries around the world.

India is unpredictable. Change in ruling party changes the way India engages with other countries. Who would have predicted that politics within the ruling party would derail the historic nuclear pact with US and in the process, deny energy-hungry India access to crucial nuclear technology, and send mixed signals to IAEA, France and Australia who were ready to help India build the nuclear plants.

India has inward looking policies that put national interest before anything else. Policies related to other nations are driven by domestic policy makers who don't have an international outlook. One of the reasons why India developed diplomatic relationships with some countries was to serve the interests of Indians in those countries and these relationships haven't evolved beyond fulfilling the requirements of the local Indians.

India is just a big country that has existed in isolation for decades and has recently shown some economic growth and integration with the global society. But largely, India is still not influencing any country's foreign policy.

All is not lost though. Consistency is the mantra India will have to adopt to become a permanent member of UNSC. India has to show consistent behavior in all the things that it does that involves another nation. It has to show consistency in its stand towards foreign conflicts, in its economic policies that impact other countries and in its internal policies that are related to human rights, child labor etc. That is when nobody can oppose India's bid and India can proudly say that it deserves a permanent seat on UNSC!

Can the world afford a China?

America is looking for a China! Or rather the whole world is looking for a China. Economists are predicting that inflation will rise faster in the near future, thanks to mortgage subprime financial crisis for bursting the bubble, resulting into a recession if a China that can manufacture goods at the same costs as today's China, is not found soon. Consumers will cut down on spending, slowing down the economy further and speeding up the arrival of recession, if a China that can sell goods at the same price as today's China, is not found soon. Rising oil prices, sky rocketing raw material costs, and increasing salaries are indicating that Chinese goods will soon become expensive for Americans if a China like today's China is not found soon.

This is a real and immediate threat to America and the world, unlike the chemical weapons threat from Iraq. Ironically, the unreal threat from Iraq cost US couple of trillion dollars (Refer to the article Iraq war costs could top $2trillion); it diverted America's attention and kept it busy while the real threat started to appear closer. In Indian epic Ramayana, a story goes that when Lord Rama went after a golden deer in a forest, his wife Sita was in real danger but Lord Rama's focus was hunting the deer down. The deer was actually Maricha, an obedient subject of Ravana, the King of demons. Maricha took the form of unreal golden deer at Ravana's behest. And Lord Rama fell to mistaken identity; Sita got kidnapped by Ravana when Rama was away. The moral of the story is that in dire situations, real and unreal threats are difficult to differentiate and even kings can fail.

(On second thoughts, maybe Bush saw the real threat of inflation coming, thought of countering it by controlling more oil, found Iraq to be the most legitimate target and ended up attacking it since Saddam wasn't handing over the keys to the oil wells and maybe it wasn't a case of mistaken identity? That probably makes every American smirk; democrats because they don't believe that Bush can think that far and republicans because they think that they weren't wrong after all)

Coming back to the topic of this post, India is touted as the China the world is looking for. According to a global survey done among 340 companies, over 50% of the respondents intend to move part of their manufacturing to India. Refer to the article Manufacturing India to challenge China.

This is great news for a country like India where more than 70% of over a billion people live on less than US$2 per day. Proponents of idea that only job creation can eradicate poverty may see this as a golden opportunity since only manufacturing can create jobs at such a large scale.

But can today's world afford a China? Chinese and people all over the world are paying a very high price in terms of the damage done to the environment by the way China has progressed. Only 1 percent of the country’s 560 million city dwellers breathe air considered safe by the EU. Although China holds fourth-largest freshwater resources in the world (after Brazil, Russia, and Canada), two-thirds of China's approximately 660 cities have less water than they need and 110 of them suffer severe shortages, all this because of overuse, and pollution. China’s cement factories use 45 percent more power than the world average, and its steel makers use about 20 percent more . The country consumed some 2.4 billion tons of coal in 2006 - more than the United States, Japan, and Britain combined and is the world's largest contributor of carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas, to the atmosphere. Can you imagine what will happen if India follows the same path! Knowing all the negative effects, would you still want India to become a China, for the sake of this world? Think again.