Indian Press on Owaisi's Visit to Furfura Sharif and India's UNSC Engagement: New Age Islam's Selection, 6 January 2021
By
New Age Islam Edit Desk
6 January
2021
• Why
Furfura Sharif, Muslim Shrine Owaisi Visited in Bengal, Could Be Key to
Mamata’s Return
By
Madhuparna Das
•
Eliminate State and Social Interference in Matters of Conscience
By
Gautam Bhatia
•
Aesthetic Values, Environmental Concerns
By
Dr. Mumtaz Ahmad Numani
•
Dear Indian Filmmakers, Stop Showing Dalits & Minorities As ‘Weak’
By
Abhinav Mehrotra
•
Will India-Born Lawyer Make Biden’s US Senate Dream Come True?
By
Savita Patel
•
Delhi Must Integrate Its UNSC Engagement with Broader National Goals While
Adapting To Changed Realities
By C.
Raja Mohan
-----
Why
Furfura Sharif, Muslim Shrine Owaisi Visited In Bengal, Could Be Key To
Mamata’s Return
By
Madhuparna Das
6 January,
2021
Peerzada Abbas Siddique | Facebook
------
Kolkata: A
prominent Muslim cleric is all set to ensure that Furfura Sharif, an
influential shrine located around 45 km from Kolkata, will be critical to the
West Bengal elections scheduled to be held later this year.
Peerzada
Abbas Siddique, 33, told ThePrint that he will launch a political party and
fight the elections to take on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as “she has
divided the state on communal lines”.
In an
exclusive interview to ThePrint, Siddique accused the chief minister of
“appeasing, rather than uplifting Muslims”, and blamed her for “paving the way
for a communal force like BJP” to enter the state. All India
Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi had visited the
shrine and met Siddique Sunday.
“It is her
cheap appeasement policies that has created a divide between Muslims and Hindus
in Bengal. Our Hindu brothers think that we get favours from the ruling party,
and they are deprived,” Siddique told ThePrint. “It is this perception that has
allowed the ruling Trinamool to use Muslims as vote-banks. My Hindu brother now
hates me for no fault of mine. And this is the reason they rely on a communal
force like BJP.”
This is the
first time that a Muslim leader has accused the chief minister of adopting
communal politics, a charge usually hurled at her by her political opponents,
including the the BJP, the Congress and the CPI(M).
An
influential cleric
Furfura
Sharif is located in Hooghly district’s Jangipara. The shrine, which follows
the teachings of Sufi saint Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddique who is popularly known as
‘Dada Huzur’, is one of the prominent religious sites for Muslims in the state.
Peerzada
Siddique is a fourth-generation descendant of the Sufi saint. He will be the
first of the clerics to float a political party. Toha Siddique, his
higher-ranking uncle, had endorsed Mamata in the 2011 assembly elections but
never formally joined politics.
The shrine
is believed to hold command over Muslims in Howrah, Hooghly, South 24 Pargana,
North 24 Pargana and Dinajpur districts in the state. These five districts are
spread over at least 90 assembly constituencies where Muslims are a dominant
force.
Over the
past decade, political leaders from all parties including the CPM, the
Congress, the Trinamool Congress and even the BJP have made a beeline for the
shrine.
Siddique
told ThePrint that the political patronage has not benefited the community.
“Every
political party, including Congress and CPM, used us but Trinamool brought the
maximum damage by being the self-pronounced saviour. They, in reality, did not
do anything for upliftment,” he said. “We appealed to the chief minister in
2019 to fight the National Register of Citizens (NRC) at the Supreme Court. But
that day, she sent police to our holy shrine, levelled criminal charges against
us and put many of us behind bars. This is her politics.”
Siddique
said he will be the face of the alliance that he has formed with the AIMIM and
“eight other organisations”. “We are talking to several tribal, Dalit and other
Muslim organisations. We have also appealed to the downtrodden Matua
communities to join hands with us,” he said. “As of now, we have nine
organisations that have agreed to join us. We will announce the name of the
front next week.”
Siddique
said his party would field candidates in at least 44 seats, while other
constituents of the new front may field candidates in another 45 to 50 seats.
TMC could
face the heat
Political
analysts ThePrint spoke to said the new front could hurt the ruling Trinamool
Congress’ prospects as the party holds all the 90 Muslim-majority seats in
South Bengal.
“Malda and
Murshidabad are strongholds of the Congress. CPM also has a vote bank among
Muslims in these districts. Mamata’s forte is South Bengal’s Muslim-dominated
districts and that is close to 30 per cent of the vote share,” political
analyst Biswanath Chakraborty said. “If AIMIM and Abbas Siddique join hands,
Mamata Banerjee’s Muslim vote-bank in South Bengal may get fragmented.”
According
to Prof Abdul Matin of Jadavpur University, who has done an elaborate research
on Furfura Sharif, the shrine has at least 2,200 mosques across the state under
its command, and some of them are directly affiliated to the shrine.
“It has
remained a significant place for Bengal politics,” he said. “Senior politicians
across parties visit the shrine before elections to get blessings of the Pir
saheb and ensure support of Muslim community in their favour. This trend has
increased even more in the past 10 years.”
The
Trinamool Congress, however, feels none of this will affect its electoral
chances. “Muslims in Bengal are with Mamata Banerjee. They will not fall prey
to outsiders,” TMC MP Sougata Roy said. “They are aware of how the AIMIM works.
It is the BJP’s B team.”
https://theprint.in/politics/why-furfura-sharif-muslim-shrine-owaisi-visited-in-bengal-could-be-key-to-mamatas-return/579889/
----
Eliminate
State And Social Interference In Matters Of Conscience
By
Gautam Bhatia
Jan 05,
2021
Uttar
Pradesh (UP)’s Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion law —
colloquially called the “love jihad law” — has attracted controversy ever since
it was initially enacted as an ordinance two months ago. On the surface, the
law proclaims itself to be against “unlawful conversions”, which, in turn, are
defined broadly as conversions secured through coercion or other forms of
inducement.
To start
with, it is unclear why the State should be specially concerned with something
as personal as religious conversions, when the Indian Penal Code already has
provisions against both criminal intimidation and various forms of fraud.
However, as such laws have existed on the statute books for many years — and
have been upheld by the Supreme Court — their continued existence needs a
larger and longer debate.
More
specifically, however, there are two ways in which UP’s law contravenes
fundamental principles of the Constitution. First, it discriminates on the
basis of gender. The law provides for greater penalties if the unlawful
conversion is with respect to a minor, a member of a Scheduled Caste or
Scheduled Tribe, or a woman. Furthermore, the law also stipulates that an
unlawful conversion conducted for the purpose of marriage will be void in cases
where the woman has been unlawfully converted before the marriage. This
provision makes it clear that the law continues to be based on a patriarchal
mindset that views women as lacking agency and autonomy, and therefore in need of
“special protection.”
Such logic
has been strongly repudiated by the courts — most recently while striking down
the criminalisation of adultery, which had a very similar gender asymmetric
provision — and it has been made clear that the Constitution does not allow
ostensibly “beneficial” laws for women that are based on patriarchal or
stereotypical assumptions.
Second, the
law requires an advance notice of any conversion to be provided to the district
magistrate, who is then required to initiate an inquiry — through the police —
into the “real intention” behind the conversion. To this is added the fact that
the law places the “burden” of proving that a conversion is not illegal upon
the person who desires to convert (or someone who has facilitated the conversion).
Shorn of legalese, therefore, the effect of the law is that any person who
wants to change their religion must first convince the State and the police
that they are doing so for reasons that the State deems to be genuine.
It should
be clear that the law infantilises Indian citizens, reduces them to the level
of subjects, and authorises State intrusion into the most personal of domains,
that of individual conscience. Secular law already has provisions penalising
coercion, intimidation, and fraud, and there is no reason why coercion or fraud
deserves any special treatment where religion is concerned.
The
requirement of a public notice accompanying a decision of conversion also
requires a larger debate, as variants of it are found in many laws, including
the Special Marriage Act, which was ostensibly enacted to protect the rights of
inter-faith couples. Let us, for the purposes of argument, assume for a moment
that the State has some interest in regulating valid marriages and conversions.
This does not change the fact that both marriage and conversion are decisions
that lie firmly within the domain of individual choice, and individual privacy.
There is,
therefore, no justification for requiring people choosing to be married under
the Special Marriage Act — or individuals choosing to convert — to publicly
announce their intention to do so. In essence, this sanctifies social
interference with individual privacy, and goes far beyond any interest the
State may have to ensure that the laws are upheld.
The UP conversion
law is unconstitutional. But the debate does not end with this one law, as it
also replicates many existing provisions from other laws, which have been left
standing for too long. India cannot call itself a constitutional democracy
until social interference in matters of conscience is eliminated from its laws,
once and for all.
----
Gautam
Bhatia is a Delhi-based advocate
https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/eliminate-state-and-social-interference-in-matters-of-conscience/story-scDL7PNaHRUarZS3isHebJ.html
-----
Aesthetic
Values, Environmental Concerns
By
Dr. Mumtaz Ahmad Numani
January 5,
2021
“Gardening,
as [an aesthetical] and/or cultural activity, matters deeply, not only to the
look of our landscape, but also to the wisdom of our thinking about the
[ecology] and environment.” Michael Pollan, Beyond Wilderness and Lawn.
Gardens of
any type are important to our ife on earth. These, particularly in our age (and
in future), act as a safeguard to the environmental crisis everywhere. And
scholars tackling the core environmental issues consider gardens as an
important discipline of study now. Therefore, the questions are: do Mughal
landscape gardens of Kashmir valley represent aesthetic, and environmental
concerns and values? And what makes them fit to obtain UNESCO world heritage
recognition?
An
established fact is that, “in this age or before, one can hardly think of a
natural system that has not been considerably altered, for better or worse, by
human culture”. The contemporary reports
so far documented are replete with references in this matter. And Mughal
emperors like other rulers (or human fellows) are no exception. They also have
brought immense changes in the landscape of what is now: India, Pakistan,
Bangladesh and Afghanistan. And if one has to look at regional level, these
changes are visible in Kashmir valley as well.
Therefore,
of many, but one visible vision of the Mughal emperors and their nobles, was
their keen interest of outlaying landscape gardens—designed with a sense to
command both: aesthetic, and environmental concerns and values. This cultural
act got the Mughal emperors and their nobles closer to the idea of preserving
the treasure of Kashmir landscape ecology. And if one has to observe it, such a
deep concern is visible in their choice of ‘selection, observation, and design,
planning and management’. For example, the landscape architectural design that
the Mughal architects have applied in the outlaying and maintenance of gardens
and springs is significant for more than one reason. One, it channelizes the
abundance of water with an appropriate momentum and direction. Two, it prevents
soil erosion. Third, the selection of plantation in the gardens arranged
technically around the water channels is truly phenomenal. And all these valuable
attributes and techniques thus serve an example of outlaying garden design—with
a sense to command both: aesthetic, and environmental concerns and values.
Here it
bears to mention that what garden historian James Wescoat has aptly viewed:
“although climate was not a major topic, which is a significant point of
negative evidence, some hydroclimatic incidents were recorded that led to
infrastructure and policy adjustments. For example, the first Mughal ruler
Babur complained bitterly about the climate, waters, and culture of Hindustan
immediately after the conquest in 1526 CE. To counter these deficiencies, he
ordered the construction of waterworks, gardens, and baths to make the capital
city of Agra resemble the landscape of Kabul. Three decades later, Mughal
documents began to present a favourable perspective on the climates of India”.
However, unlike other Subahs (provinces) of the Mughal empire, warm climate and
the deficiency of water although was not an issue with Kashmir valley, but,
despite that, the descendants of Babur showed a deep ecological and
environmental concern towards the Subah of Kashmir.
Since
climate change is a major issue of concern all over the world, it would be
wrong of us to assume that the Mughal emperors did look upon Kashmir valley
just as a pleasure ground, so far as traditionally underscored, rather their
persistent ecological engagement with its landscape provides a somewhat deeper
concern with what now constitute core environmental issues. And this act of
theirs serves one of the best examples of ‘human-earth-relationship’ in the
existence of life.
Tailpiece:
In view of the preserving cultural heritage, and the ecological and
environmental concerns in focus all over the world, it is therefore imperative
that the Mughal gardens of Kashmir be assigned ‘UNESCO world heritage
recognition’. Because, these historical
gardens: aesthetically, functionally, symbolically and ecologically, reflect
deeper ‘environmental concerns’. Therefore, any lapse in assigning the ‘world
heritage recognition’ on part of the decision makers and/or officials would
fail us to recognise the ‘continuity’ and ‘proximity’ of these historical
gardens in our age of ‘environmental crisis’.
-----
Dr.
Mumtaz Ahmad Numani has worked as chief coordinator of The Peace Gong (global
children’s Newsletter-connecting children for a non-violent planet) and is
currently working as faculty at higher education, Srinagar Women’s College
Zakura.
https://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/opinion/aesthetic-values-environmental-concerns/
------
Dear
Indian Filmmakers, Stop Showing Dalits & Minorities As ‘Weak’
By
Abhinav Mehrotra
05 Jan 2021
Even as
Richa Chadha-starrer ‘Madam Chief Minister’s’ first look — the release of its
poster — on 4 January caused controversy due to its tagline being
‘poorly-worded’ and a ‘Savarna’, ‘upper-class’ woman playing the role of a
Dalit (the film is loosely based on Mayawati’s life), a fresh debate began over
the use of the word ‘untouchable’.
What needs
to be understood is that ‘untouchability’, although banned, continues to
prevail, interestingly also among the marginalised Dalit community itself.
Also, the
group of people who have suffered even more among the Dalit community are the
Dalit women — being doubly ‘oppressed’ among the oppressed.
It is worth
noting that various legislations, programmes and policies do not specifically
deal with the atrocities committed against Dalit women per se, and they are not
given prominence in news media. However, many incidents of atrocities faced by
Dalit women have been highlighted through cinema. For example, the Tamil movie
Pariyerum Perumal (2018) highlights the impact of caste hierarchy on Dalits.
The
Dominant Caste Male ‘Saviour’
Historically,
it is the dominant caste protagonist in movies who protects the marginalised
communities and fights for their rights. This is how our visual imagination has
been shaped — seeing a dominant caste ‘saviour’. However, when cinema is seen
through the lens of a member of the Dalit community, the same imagination is
reversed because the difference between the story and storyteller is blurred.
For example, in 1928, a Dalit Christian woman named PK Rosy
became the first actress from the community in a Malayalam movie called
Vigathakumaran. In this case, the storyteller JC Daniel was a (disadvantaged)
Nadar caste Christian filmmaker, and was shunned — and had to leave the film
which threw him into poverty.
For
example, in the movie Sujata (1959), the
protagonist is from a Dalit family but is adopted by a Brahmin family . On
realising this fact, she begins to live a quiet existence and suppresses her
voice.
How Films
Like ‘Masaan’ & ‘Article 15’ Are Changing The Game By Showing Empowered
Dalit Characters
Further,
movies like Achhut Kanya and Ankur showed marginalised caste women as people
without agency or autonomy, and who could be sexually exploited at will. The
character of Kasturi in Achhut Kanya is — as the film’s title suggests — an
‘untouchable woman’ who falls in love with a dominant caste man but is not
allowed to marry him. Similarly, the character of Laxmi in the movie Ankur is a
marginalised caste woman who is unable to conceive, and her vulnerability is
exploited by Surya — a dominant caste man — who gets involved in an intimate relationship
with her but refuses to take responsibility for her child after impregnating
her.
For
example, the character of Gaura, who is a Dalit woman in Article 15, is seen
fighting for her sister in particular, and Dalit rights in general. Similarly,
the character of Devi in Masaan (2015), a Dalit, despite being blackmailed by a
dominant caste police inspector continues to chase her dreams to pursue higher
studies.
Maybe
scenes like these from the movies Article 15 and Masaan is the way forward —
depicting, for instance, marginalised caste women standing up for their rights
and fearlessly encountering obstacles.
-----
Abhinav
Mehrotra is currently working as Assistant Lecturer at Jindal Global Law School
and holds an LL.M. degree in International Human Rights Law. He tweets
@AbhinavMehrot13. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed are the
author’s own. New Age Islam neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/dalit-oppression-women-marginalisation-depiction-in-indian-cinema-bollywood-agency-autonomy-empowerment#read-more
-----
Will
India-Born Lawyer Make Biden’s US Senate Dream Come True?
By
Savita Patel
05 Jan 2021
This is how
Indian American Sachin Varghese describes his affirming of Joe Biden and Kamala
Harris’s win in Georgia. Sachin Varghese, a high-power lawyer, chosen as a
Democratic elector in Georgia, was honoured to cast his prestigious Electoral
College vote that formalised the Biden-Harris win in Georgia.
When
Americans go to the polls in the presidential elections, they are not directly
voting for the president. They are actually voting for a group of ‘electors’
like Sachin Varghese that make up the electoral college. They are party
loyalists, lobbyists, influencers, lawmakers, civil rights crusaders, who after
Biden’s victory in Georgia, were in charge of casting the state’s 16 electoral
votes for the Democrats on 14 December. It was a historic day for Sachin
Varghese who is also the General Counsel of the Democratic Party of Georgia.
Kerala-Born
Sachin Varghese’s Role In US Senate Race
Born in
Kerala, Sachin was 16 months old when his family moved to the US in 1983. He
grew up in Georgia, worked as a teacher for a year as part of the ‘Teach for
America’ program before joining law school, and is now a partner attorney at an
influential firm. As General Counsel, Sachin is the lead lawyer of the Georgia
Democratic Party. He monitors and advises the party in all legal issues,
litigation being a big part of that.
“Litigation
was designed to throw out votes in Democratic areas in Georgia. Our party had a
strong interest that litigation does not suppress the will of the people. The
party intervened even though it was not a defendant originally, but requested
the courts to be allowed to become a party to the lawsuits, which was allowed.
We moved to dismiss the litigations and our efforts succeeded,” he said.
Biden won
Georgia by an extremely narrow margin but the two Senate seats had to go in for
the re-election happening on 5 January, as no candidate won the minimum
required 50 percent vote.
It is
expected to play out a lot like November’s presidential election. High absentee
voting and near-record turnout could slow count. Both parties expect court
challenges to follow. Sachin Varghese believes that one doesn’t have to be a
skeptic to expect litigation.
Ensuring No
Ballot In Georgia Remains ‘Uncured’
With the
expected intense scrutiny over mail-in absentee ballots, both parties have been
running vote-protection programs. A lot more time is being spent on the ground
in explaining ballot paperwork to voters to ensure their vote and registration
signatures tally. ‘South Asians for Biden’, a civic advocacy group dedicated to
mobilising the desi vote, is doing extensive ‘ballot rescue’ canvassing.
With 48
hours of sending in a ballot, Georgian voters can check online if their ballot
has been rejected. This could be for various reasons including their signature
not tallying with voter registration documents. To ‘cure’ their ballot, voters
have to send an affidavit along with an identity proof document. Director of
the Georgia chapter of ‘South Asians for Biden’, Sonjui Kumar and her team of
volunteers ensures that no ballot remains uncured.
Georgia law
allows voters to fix errors on their ballots within 3 days after election day
on 5 January. Voting advocacy groups and local election commissions around the
state are working to make sure that absentee ballots rejected for technical
errors have a chance to be ‘cured’ and tallied.
US Senate
Race: Importance Of The Desi Vote In Georgia
The level
of diligence shows that each and every vote in Georgia will count. The state
surprised the country by flipping blue, but Biden’s margin of victory was just
over 14,000 votes. Biden could not have carried the state without winning the
Indian American vote. There are more than 150,000 desi voters in Georgia.
In response
to my questioning the significance of contribution of Indian American vote in
Biden-Harris victory he smiled and said:
The Asian
American organisers who support the Democratic Party are trying to make it
happen again in the Senate runoffs, using every possible canvassing style and
opportunity, in what is a turn-out election. Sonjui Kumar’s team has left no
voters un-contacted. “We have made multiple calls and there has been lots of
outreach. We did everything we could. We went all out. We have got a tremendous
response from volunteers and voters. At this stage if some are not going to
vote, it is because they don’t want to vote, not because they haven’t been called
or told about the election.”
Will Kamala
Harris’s Be The ‘Tie-Breaking’ Vote In US Senate Race?
Democratic
supporters from across the country, including desi teenagers and elderly, are
sending letters, texting and calling voters in Georgia requesting them to cast
their ballots in this crucial Senate election. Record funds raised, harnessing
relations and culture, digital and social media outreach, sign-waving on
streets – the energy from the presidential election is being poured into the
state.
The world’s
eyes are on Georgia as the special election will determine control of the
Senate, either enabling Biden to carry out his policy agenda in the early years
of his administration, or leave Republicans in control. Democrats would need to
capture both of the seats to secure a 50-50 tie in the Senate. Then Kamala
Harris’s could be the tie-breaking vote. Democratic challengers Raphael Warnock
and Jon Ossoff are running against Republican Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue,
in the Senate elections.
Sachin
Varghese May Have To Ride Waves Of Legal Battles To ‘Hand’ US Senate To Biden
More than 3
million Georgians have already voted. Of those votes, 928,069 are absentee by
mail and 2,072,948 are from in-person early voting. After the 3 November US
presidential election, Georgia was one of the states that saw Trump campaign
unleash baseless lawsuits, mostly questioning mail-in votes. Ballots were
counted and recounted in Georgia, thrice. 'Georgia Bureau of Investigations'
audited mail-in ballot voter signatures.
The Senate
runoffs are expected to unfold similarly.
Court
challenges have begun — on 28 December, a federal judge dismissed Atlanta
lawyer Lin Wood’s attempt to stop the Senate elections calling the claims ‘too
speculative’. Considered an ‘extreme Trump advocate’ Wood appealed that the
procedures being used by Georgia election officials to conduct absentee
balloting violate Georgia’s election laws.
Sachin
Varghese, General Counsel of the Democratic Party of Georgia, will ride waves
of legal battles that will rise in the coming days, with an aim to deliver the
US Senate to Biden — a critical role for the Kerala-born American attorney.
----
Savita
Patel is a senior journalist and producer, who produced ‘Worldview India’, a
weekly international affairs show, and produced ‘Across Seven Seas’, a diaspora
show, both with World Report, aired on DD. She has also covered stories for
Voice of America TV from California. She’s currently based in the San Francisco
Bay Area. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed are the author’s
own. The New Age Islam neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/indian-american-lawyer-general-counsel-georgia-democratic-party-sachin-varghese-united-states-senate-race-biden-harris#read-more
-----
Delhi
Must Integrate Its UNSC Engagement with Broader National Goals While Adapting
To Changed Realities
By C.
Raja Mohan
January 5,
2021
As it
enters the United Nations Security Council for the third time since the end of
the Cold War, India finds a very different dynamic than the one it encountered
during the earlier stints in 1991-92 and 2011-12. India, too, has changed over
the last decade. The range of Indian interests has expanded and so has the
circle of India’s international partners.
Delhi’s attitudes
have also shifted from the reactive to the proactive. That, in turn, should
make India’s new stint at the UNSC more purposeful and pragmatic.
Purposefulness is about tightly integrating its UNSC engagement with India’s
broader national goals. Pragmatism demands adapting to the changed conditions
at the UNSC and avoiding overly ambitious goals.
During
1991-92, Delhi saw the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War
and the new Russia’s turn to the US and the West. The People’s Republic of
China was focused on getting its house in order, opening its economy and
keeping a low profile in the unipolar moment. India, too, had good reasons to
keep its head down. Delhi had to fix its broken economy, put out political
bushfires across the country and rejig its foreign policy to cope with the
post-Soviet world.
The West
could not resist the temptations for geopolitical overreach at the UN. Liberals
across the Atlantic sought to transform the “inter-national” forum into a
“supra-national” institution that would actively reshape the domestic
structures of different societies. For India, it was a moment to hunker down
and resist external imposition of solutions to its manifold problems —
especially on the Kashmir question and the nuclear issue.
Fast forward
to 2011-12. A revived Russia and a rising China began to demur against the
sweeping Western agenda at the UN. India’s own relative position improved in
the first decade of the 21st century, thanks to rapid economic growth. Delhi
was certainly less defensive than in the 1990s, but struggled to turn its new
strengths into practical outcomes.
A decade
later, India has walked into a far more contentious UNSC. Differences between
the US, China and Russia have become intractable. China has risen to be a great
power and is making expansive claims and trying to redeem them. Meanwhile,
Washington and Moscow have drifted apart and Russia has moved closer to China.
This
tension among the US, China and Russia has been reinforced by sharpening
disagreements between Washington and its European allies, amidst President
Donald Trump’s questioning of America’s traditional alliances. Although
President-elect Joe Biden wants to work closely with European allies in the
global arena, not all wrinkles can be smoothed over.
As India
looks for a productive tenure at the UNSC, five objectives present themselves.
One is about making the UNSC “effective”. Delhi, however, might be sensible to
pare down that ambition. The UNSC is becoming less effective today thanks to
the deep divisions among the major powers.
The UNSC
system was designed to function as a concert of five powers. Unanimity among
the five permanent members with veto powers was rare during the Cold War
decades. After a brief moment of great power cooperation in the 1990s, we are
now back in an era of contestation. But there will be enough room for India to
carve out a larger role for itself amid renewed great power rivalry.
The UNSC
offers room for sustained diplomatic interaction between the major powers, who
could minimise tensions and create new opportunities for cooperation. Much like
the US and USSR that cooperated on issues relating to nuclear proliferation at
the height of the Cold War, the US and China could explore potential common
ground even amidst their broad-based confrontation. All other powers, including
India, will, of course, want to be sure that the US-China cooperation is not at
the expense of others.
Two, making
the UNSC more “representative” has been one of India’s demands since the end of
the Cold War. Pessimists would urge Delhi to curb its enthusiasm. China has no
interest in letting two other Asian powers — India and Japan — join the UNSC as
permanent members. Optimists would suggest Delhi’s campaign, in partnership
with Brazil, Germany and Japan, to expand the UNSC must continue. For the
campaign is about an important principle and revealing the nature of political
resistance to it.
Three,
Delhi has no choice but to deal with China’s growing hostility to India. At the
end of the Cold War, India had bet that cooperation with China on the
multilateral front was valuable in its own right, and would also help generate
the conditions for resolving the boundary dispute and expand the areas of
bilateral cooperation. Delhi, which was eager to build a multipolar world with
Beijing, now finds itself in a unipolar Asia that is centred around China.
Meanwhile, the boundary dispute has worsened over the last decade. India now
joins the UNSC amid a continuing military standoff between the two armies in
the high Himalayas following the Chinese aggression in the Ladakh region.
Senior
Indian officials have promised to “work with” China with an open mind. Sceptics
would discount that sentiment. China has repeatedly tried to get the UNSC to
focus on India’s constitutional changes in Kashmir. On the question of
cross-border terrorism, Beijing protects Pakistan from the international
pressures that India has sought to mobilise at various fora. On the nuclear
front, China continues to block India’s membership of the Nuclear Suppliers
Group.
Four, the
engagement with peace and security issues at the UNSC will allow India to
strengthen its new coalitions such as the Quad — which brings together
Australia, India, Japan and the US. India could also use the UNSC tenure to
deepen collaboration with its European partners like France and Germany in the
security arena, and find common ground with “Global Britain” that is carving
out a new international path for itself after breaking away from the European
Union. Delhi must also sustain an intensive dialogue with Moscow on all
international issues, notwithstanding Russia’s worsening problems with the West
and closer ties to China.
Fifth,
Delhi needs to revitalise its engagement with its traditional partners in the
“global south” by articulating their peace and security concerns in the UNSC.
Two sub-groups of the global south should be of special interest. The numerous
small island states around the world face existential challenges from global
warming and rising sea levels. They also struggle to exercise control over
their large maritime estates. Supporting the sovereignty and survivability of
the island states is a crucial political task for India.
Africa is
the other priority. Nearly half of UNSC meetings, 60 per cent of its documents,
and 70 per cent of its resolutions are about peace and security in Africa. The
continent has three seats in the UNSC (Kenya, Niger and Tunisia) and there is
regular consultation between the UNSC and the Peace and Security Council (PSC)
of the African Union (AU). The UNSC tenure is a good moment for Delhi to
intensify India’s engagement on peace and security issues in Africa at
bilateral, regional and global levels.
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C. Raja
Mohan is director, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore
and contributing editor on international affairs for The Indian Express
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/india-elected-united-nations-security-council-7132965/
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