INDIA’S ROLE IN THE WORLD ORGANIZATION

D. R. SADH

Govt. Sanskrit Degree College, Indore

India’s deep involvement in international affairs and her active role in the peaceful solution of international problems, has not always been viewed with sympathy and understanding by some nations, no doubt, partly because of her being a comparatively backward country, and partly because of her recent entry as an independent State in the society of nations. Within India itself there has been always the criticism that the Government was unduly preoccupied with foreign policies to the detriment of internal progress. With reference to such criticism Mr. Nehru has repeatedly explained how her active role is inescapable. “We pay attention to international matters not because we are just interested in them, not because we want to play a great part in the world center, but because these world affairs come and interfere with us or are likely to do so.” *

Questions of war and peace are of infinite importance to India because they affect our internal development. No country could lead an isolated life in the present day. Apart from this, India has an obligation, by virtue of her geo-political standing, to participate in international affairs and even to take the initiative at times.

India’s concept of her membership of the international society is one in which the concept of State sovereignty is limited by the overriding considerations of internal solidarity and international co-operation. While, like every other state in the world, she is zealous of her independence and territorial integrity, she is also fully cognizant of the compelling need for the advancement of that society to some form of world order.

To achieve the goals of her foreign policy and to broaden her long term interests, India is a staunch supporter of the International Organization. India was one of the founder-members of the United Nations, even when she was not independent. India firmly believes that the United Nations has an important role to play in vital matters of international affairs, and hence she is opposed to ignoring or side-tracking the Organization in the taking of vital decisions, particularly those concerning war and peace. Her faith in the ethical maxim of just means and her attitude towards the solution of world problems, emphasizing not only solutions but the importance of methods, has added to India’s faith in the World Organization.

India’s role in the comity of nations is also important because there has been a general lack of appreciation of her role in the United Nations and the efforts she has made in the Organization for conciliation and solution of the world’s problems, have created some sort of disappointment and disillusionment. Though, even now, India regards the United Nations as the agency for peaceful solution of problems and a medium of co-operation, it has to be noted that the role of the Great Powers and the cold war, which has clouded the issues that are presented in the United Nations, has cooled some of her early enthusiasm manifested in the beginning.

In the early stages, India’s policy was dedicated to the realization of her objectives through the United Nations which, she thought, was to be used in the fullest measure. She also thought that the United Nations was to be guarded from the efforts of the Great Powers to abuse it and make a sterile instrument of power politics. It is perhaps in terms of this dependence that one can better understand Indian impatience the transcendent ideological rivalry of the Great Powers, which has constantly threatened to engulf the United Nations. This was realised by India in the early stages of the cold war and made Mrs. Pandit to remark...“The conflict in ideology, that is plunging the world into gloom and tension, seems so sadly irrelevant to these great human problems that vitally affect a half, and perhaps more than half, of the human population”. ** India has been of the view that the great power harmony would make it more effective, but at the same time the view is being developed now that even a Great Power agreement cannot force decisions which are against the interests of the rest of mankind.

India’s policy in the United Nations has to work in a world of Great Power rivalry and hence when on various occasions India’s suggestions go unheard, it has inspired its statesmen to more vigorous appeals. No representation of India’s performance in the United Nations could be adequate if it places in the background India’s response to the challenge of the Great Power rivalry. It is in this that lies India’s most unique and its most appreciated contribution to the United Nations.

Every power at one time or other places peace as the primary object of its foreign policy. Most of them do so constantly. India also regards peace as a primary objective. But for India peace becomes an enlarged word taking on a different stature and connotation, whereas the world feels at home with the elementary proposition that the road to peace is through security. India’s point of view is to secure security through peace. As Mr. Nehru has said, “There are two approaches to this question of war and peace; one is the approach of feeling that war is almost inevitable and, therefore, one must be prepared for war. The other is that war must be avoided at almost any cost…..If you lay more stress on war coming, you lose the battle for peace and war is likely to come because your minds have succumbed to the prospects of war”. ¹

One further remark of Mr. Nehru over the B. B. C. makes this approach clear: “Are we so helpless that we cannot stop this drift towards catastrophe? What we need is a passion for peace and civilized behaviour in international affairs. It is the temper of peace and not the temper of war that we want….if we desire peace. We cannot seek peace in the language of war threats.”

This peace depends upon the establishment of an active mode of peace and for the dedication of our foreign policy to the pursuit of peace. There has emerged a working formula. Do nothing that will constitute a further enlargement or entrenchment of the climate of war but rather do everything that will remove this climate of war. It is within this context that the Hungarian problem or our role in the Korean problem before the United Nations should and better understood.

In the vast range of affairs coming before the United Nations, many states have made eloquent appeals on behalf of ‘Freedom, Dignity and the worth of the Human Personality’. India has often presented itself primarily as a moral force in this regard. This has contributed to the prestige of Indian foreign policy as embodying the conscience of mankind. This has also led the Western powers to regard India as a power haughtily superior to the corrupting influences of politics and the sterile considerations of power. This explains our attitude towards the Indonesian or Suez problems in which India came to a clash with the Western powers. One thing which is to be noted and which affects the foreign policy of any country is the fact that there has to be a balance between the moral judgments and political judgments which cannot be separated or overlooked. As a general rule, any issue, the pursuit of which is reasoned as likely to increase Great Power tension, is usually banned as an item for Indian participation.

But, since 1954 and thereafter, India seems to have abandoned its familiar role as a comparatively calm, dedicated but not partisan mediator of the Great Power differences–a behaviour that been dictated by its conclusion that Western-Soviet differences represented relatively minor and affordable stakes which could be overcome by time and diplomacy. Now a new ‘Strident Activism’ has emerged. This change in India’s attitude and behaviour was caused by two factors: (i) The piercing of India’s cherished area of peace by an American dominated alliance system; and (ii) Emergence of new terrors symbolised by the rampant Great Power race to develop thermo-nuclear weapons. That is why we find a new note of urgency in India’s views on disarmament demanding to be heard, not merely to submit written documents, but to be granted adequate consultation.

Another significant evolution in India’s United Nations policy, emanating from her general policy, is the creation of a Third Force through out the world. Third Force may be abhorable to Mr. Nehru, in the United Nations. India has tried hard to reconcile its policies and attitudes with her Afro-Asian colleagues, and in the process of this reconciliation sometimes the Indian policies are modified and influenced by the consideration of this Third bloc in the United Nations. With the shifting of emphasis from the Security Council to the General Assembly and the gradual transformation of it as a forum of public conscience, this is bound to play a very significant role in the future. Her voting is also influenced by this consideration. In the Fifteenth Session of the General Assembly, the role India played along with her Afro-Asian friends, though it could not succeed because ultimately Mr. Nehru had to withdraw the resolution pressing the Eisenhover-Khrushchev meeting, it is significant to note, represented a new hope in the outlook of these States. With the increase in the membership of the United Nations, the old balance of nations in the world body has changed and under this new balance of nations, India’s policy in the United Nations has greater chances of success and consideration than ever before.

A few words about our limitations are also to be mentioned here. The general criticism of Indian policy and role in the United Nations can be categorised. Usually the criticism centres round her attitude of neutralism. Critics of Neutralism at home and abroad are not reconciled to the Neutralism between good and evil. But it has to be mentioned that now this criticism has lost its sharpness and there is a better understanding and appreciation for it both at home and abroad.

Another matter which has come up for criticism is our advocacy of China for its legitimate seat in the United Nations, especially under the circumstances when our relations with China are not too cordial and when China has proved herself to be an aggressor against India. So this criticism has become more vigorous. But the Indian attitude seems to be to maintain consistency and an attitude of showing our approach conditioned by the legitimacy of the case even in the case of a nation with which we happen to be engaged in dispute. The other reason may be that China in the United Nations can be made to behave because of pressure of other nations and can be dealt with in a better way rather than if it is outside, which makes it adopt a more rigid attitudes in her foreign policies.

The second attitude which has come up for a great deal of criticism is in regard to disputes in which India was herself involved, especially Kashmir. No doubt the Indian Government accepted plebiscite in Kashmir and later it departed from its promise, but it has to be remembered that in international affairs, things do not remain constant, the very atmosphere which prompted India to accept the principle of plebiscite was in a context when India still thought a solution of the dispute with Pakistan was possible. But Pakistan’s alignment with the Western bloc and her joining the military pacts had completely changed the whole context of Indo-Pakistan problems. India’s reaction was also logical in view of the manner in which the Kashmir question was formed into a cold war issue. As a matter of fact the Kashmir problem and the way it was tackled by the United Nations was a rude shock to India and her people, and undermined the people’s faith in the Organization.

Another criticism that may be made about India’s role in the Organization is the performance of her representatives there. It is said that some of the earlier representatives like the late Sri Gopalaswami Iyengar and others could not put the Indian point clearly and that the Indian delegates were new to the job of diplomacy and could not be expected to be clever in the art of negotiation and lobbying on which the politics of United Nations is based. There is some truth in this. The other and more vehement criticism is about the performance of her chief delegate Mr. Krishna Menon who was said to be creating more enemies and following a line which was softer to the Soviet bloc and hostile to the Western powers. There is no doubt that Mr. Menon’s performance in the United Nations may not be regarded as perfectly justified on all occasions, but as regards the policy pursued, it was the Government of India’s rather than his own.

In the balance sheet of our policy in the United Nations, some constructive approaches are noteworthy. The role played by India in regard to Korea or Indo-China and more recently in the case of Suez and now in Congo, deserves special mention. Though in Congo, the Indian troops are still there without having achieved much, in the other cases, the Indian contribution has been invaluable. She has definitely played a constructive role in there issues.

Ultimately, the essence of India’s performance in the United Nations Organization has rested with two characteristics, that taken together have largely governed her general behaviour. The dictates of the climate of war thesis and the particularizations it has pressed upon general subjects, in terms of the United Nations. The uniqueness of the former has rested in what we would probably describe as the bridge between the West and the Communist world. However distrustful the Western powers are, such bridges particularly in the light of their predilections with us or against us, give an important outlook in foreign affairs. As for India’s particularizations, one easily grasps the presence of a historic mission, for ultimately there is only one constant particularization, the redress of political, economic and social inequalities of Asia and Africa.

The Indian approach to foreign policy is likely to be interpreted as an idealistic moralistic approach, in other words, one which was not solely governed by the country’s national interests as such. But there was, and is, never any question, in the minds of India’s policy makers, of consciously trying to operate on an idealistic or moral plane in world affairs. Just like the statesmen of many other countries, India’s leaders are also primarily interested in promoting, directly or indirectly, their national interests, of course, within the framework of the mutual interests of other nations as well as the overall needs of a progressive world society. It so happens that many of the policies and actions of the Indian Government and the aspirations of the Indian people were in harmony with the needs of the world society and the general moral values prevailing in the world at large. As Mr. Nehru has remarked “A policy must be in keeping with the traditions, background and temper of the country. It should be idealistic, aiming at certain objectives and at the same time it should be idealistic. If it is not idealistic, it becomes sheer Opportunism; if it is not realistic it is likely to be adventurist and wholly ineffective.” He adds “India’s approach is dictated by every consideration of intelligent self-interest”. *** Any success that the Indian policy has in the World Organization and outside, is largely due to this happy blend of idealism and realism and the earnest attempt to respect the ethical and moral values of human society. Naturally, when India’s spokesmen sometimes talked in idealistic and moral generalities, then one wholly misunderstood them to be following a wholly moral and ethical policy to the neglect of India’s national interests. But a close scrutiny reveals that Indian policy was always, and is, largely determined by her enlightened self-interest. Worner Levi affirms this when he says: “Nehru was neither a dreamer nor an idealist, but a calculating statesman…..They are based on India’s interest in a world of power politics as seen from New Delhi”. ²

As regards the future, it seems that the United Nations that is now emerging provides more opportunities and also a challenge to India.

We may conclude our study with Dr. Radhakrishnan’s remark. “The new world of which the United Nations is a symbol, may seem to be a dream but it is better than the nightmare world in which we live. To make this dream a reality, we shall do our utmost without being deterred by disappointments. We do not always undertake things in the hope of succeeding. It is better to fall in a right cause that will ultimately triumph, than succeed in a wrong cause that will ultimately fail. Truth alone triumphs, not untruth”. ³

* The Hindu, Jan. 24, 1954

** Official Records, 2nd Session of General Assembly 1947, 1.138

*** See Congress Bulletin No.5 June-July 1954. p. 246

¹ Speech in the Indian Parliament, March 23, 1954, Hindustan Times, March 1954

² Worner Levi: Evolution of Indian Foreign Policy. The Year Book of World Affairs 1952. Vol. 12.

³ Radhakrishnan S. Occasional Speeches and Writings. Series 1. p. 11.

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