Blunder of the millennium for India : Third part

UNSC Seat: Did Nehru Really Fumble?

Was Nehru’s action 55 years ago an unpardonable bungling or a clever diplomatic move to save India from ignominy and enmity of powerful nations?

Since long India has been fighting for a place as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). However, this struggle for a permanent UNSC seat is turning out to be a losing battle and would seemingly continue to be so for a variety of reasons for possibly many more decades to come. Before going into the pros and cons of the intriguing international situation, so vitally associated with the entry of a new permanent member to the UNSC, over a billion people in India reserve the right to question as to why the first Prime Minister of the country, Jawaharlal Nehru, refused the offer of a permanent UNSC seat made by the United States in 1955. Was it an unpardonable bungling by Nehru or a clever diplomatic move to save India from ignominy and enmity of powerful nations?

Very few people know that in 1955 the then US President Dwight David Eisenhower was caught in an unenviable situation of choosing between the People’s Republic of China under the Communist regime led by Mao Tse Tung and the then Formosa or the present Republic of China for a permanent seat at the UNSC. While Communist revolution was new and was beginning to find a firm footing in the Chinese mainland or the present People’s Republic of China, Washington’s blue-eyed boy Seng Kai Sek was compelled to find shelter in the island of Formosa after fleeing from the Chinese mainland. While the US was dead against Communist China becoming a permanent member of the UNSC, Eisenhower could clearly visualize that any offer made in favour of Formosa, then ruled by a fleeing dictator, would be vehemently opposed by other permanent members of the UNSC, more particularly by the then Communist USSR.

With the Cold War between the NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries being the order of the day in 1955 and India maintaining equidistance from both the blocks, perhaps President Eisenhower thought it prudent that India could fit into the permanent Asian seat in the UNSC, and accordingly the offer was made.


On the other hand, reports indicate that the then Communist USSR, a permanent member in the UNSC, mounted pressure on New Delhi to vouch for Communist China for the permanent Asian seat in the UNSC, promising that an elusive sixth UNSC permanent member seat to be offered to India in the coming years.

Today, 55 years later, as New Delhi runs from pillar to post for a permanent member seat in the UNSC, a review of Nehru’s decision to go by Moscow’s persuasion and plea in favour of China for a permanent UNSC seat could be of great significance. Perhaps a leader with lesser understanding of the then international scenario would have jumped to the conclusion of saying ‘‘Yes’’ to the US offer and possibly would have landed up biting dust. The crux of the matter at that point of time was the Cold War. The US, UK and France openly belonged to one block while of the Warsaw Pact countries USSR was the sole member in the UNSC. Moscow’s gameplan was obviously to have another Communist power as a permanent member in the UNSC to face the challenge of the NATO even within the security council. And hence the pressure on New Delhi to surrender the US offer in favour of China.


Any observer with adequate knowledge of the raging Cold War and the international scenario in 1955 would agree that Washington’s offer of a permanent UNSC seat could never ensure India a cake walk into the Security Council. With every permanent member enjoying veto power it was clear as daylight that any proposal for the fifth member’s name made by a member of one block would be vetoed by the member(s) of the other block. Accordingly, in the face of a standing US offer, possibly Nehru could see through the Soviet gameplan of vetoing any member’s name till China made the entry into the Security Council as the permanent member from Asia. Perhaps realizing a near impossible task of making way to the Security Council with the two Cold War blocks calling the shots in tune with their confrontation, Nehru possibly could clearly visualize the ineffectiveness of the US offer and hence turned down the offer.

Another reason why Nehru possibly rejected the US offer could possibly be to maintain friendly relations with all countries, regardless of blocks, or at least not to incur the wrath of any country, more particularly powerful nations. Perhaps Nehru was highly convinced that the American gameplan would come a cropper, leaving India to bite dust while relations with the Soviet Union and China would deteriorate to an all-time low. With the situation ensuring an almost certain fall and ignominy, it was only natural for New Delhi to reject the US offer. After all, any fool can aim for the moon, but the wise and the intelligent would always consider if a greater risk of crash-landing or still worse nose-landing could be on the cards. And certainly Nehru did not want to see India crestfallen after fighting a losing battle.

Meanwhile, much water has flowed down the Mississipi, the Volga, the Ganga and the Yangtze Kiang in the last 55 years. Looking back now, nothing perhaps is as easy as criticizing Nehru for giving up the Security Council permanent member seat even by one without any knowledge of the Cold War that raged for decades together till the Soviet Union collapsed in the eighties.


However, it is most unfortunate and ironic that today China is apparently turning out to be a mighty roadblock in India’s quest for a permanent seat in the UNSC. Likewise, the United States also has a different gameplan. Washington would not like to offend Pakistan, one of its frontline buyers of arms and other goods, by supporting India in the matter of a permanent seat in the UNSC. Ironically, today India can almost be certain of Moscow’s support among the powers enjoying veto in the Security Council. However, with raging turbulence than ever before on all fronts in the international arena, one can never be sure as to how many more decades India may have to wait for an opportune moment to enter the Security Council as a permanent member or if a UNSC permanent seat would remain an elusive dream for this nation for all times to come.

Blunder of the millennium for India : Second part

Nehru rejected the UNSC offer by the then US President Dwight David Eisenhower in 1955.



Very few people know that in 1955 the then US President Dwight David Eisenhower was caught in an unenviable situation of choosing between the People’s Republic of China under the Communist regime led by Mao Tse Tung and the then Formosa or the present Republic of China for a permanent seat at the UNSC. While Communist revolution was new and was beginning to find a firm footing in the Chinese mainland or the present People’s Republic of China, Washington’s blue-eyed boy Seng Kai Sek was compelled to find shelter in the island of Formosa after fleeing from the Chinese mainland. While the US was dead against Communist China becoming a permanent member of the UNSC, Eisenhower could clearly visualize that any offer made in favour of Formosa, then ruled by a fleeing dictator, would be vehemently opposed by other permanent members of the UNSC, more particularly by the then Communist USSR.


With the Cold War between the NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries being the order of the day in 1955 and India maintaining equidistance from both the blocks, perhaps President Eisenhower thought it prudent that India could fit into the permanent Asian seat in the UNSC, and accordingly the offer was made.





Ironically, around 1955, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was offered the disputed Chinese Permanent Security Council seat by the US to keep out the People’s Republic of China, and he also was sounded out by the USSR Prime Minister, Nikolai Bulganin, to allow China to take this seat while giving India a sixth permanent seat in the Security Council. Nehru rejected this offer in deference to China. History may have been different if this offer had been subjected to serious negotiations. Now, 54 years later, we are struggling for this seat.

the statements made by the two people at that time

NEHRU:Perhaps Bulganin(USSR president at that time) knows that some people in USA have suggested that India should replace China in the Security Council. This is to create trouble between us and China. We are, of course, wholly opposed to it. Further, we are opposed to pushing ourselves forward to occupy certain positions because that may itself create difficulties and India might itself become a subject to controversy. If India is to be admitted to the Security Council, it raises the question of the revision of the Charter of the U.N. We feel that this should not be done till the question of China’s admission and possibly of others is first solved. I feel that we should first concentrate on getting China admitted. What is Bulganin’s opinion about the revision of the Charter? In our opinion this does not seem to be an appropriate time for it.

Bulganin: We proposed the question of India’s membership of the Security Council to get your views, but agree that this is not the time for it and it will have to wait for the right moment later on. We also agree that things should be taken one by one.

Blunder of the millennium for India

It is an irony that India first rejected the UNSC(United Nations Security Council) seat and is now begging for it.
When the USA, UK and Soviet Union were willing to give UN Security Council's permanent membership to India in 1955, Nehru rejected the offer and suggested it should go to China.

"He (Jawaharlal Nehru) rejected the Soviet offer to propose India as the sixth permanent member of the Security Council and insisted that priority be given to China's admission to the United Nations"
S. Gopal: Jawaharlal Nehru;
Volume II; page 248.

From the Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru , Series II, Volume 29, Minutes of meeting with Soviet Leaders, Moscow ,22 June 1955, page 231, here are the minutes of the conversation between Jawaharlal Nehru and Soviet Premier Marshal Bulganin, as quoted in Claude Arpi's Born in Sin: The Panchsheel Agreement (Mittal Publications, Delhi, 2004, ISBN 81-7099-974-X):
'Bulganin: While we are discussing the general international situation and reducing tension, we propose suggesting at a later stage India's inclusion as the sixth member of the Security Council.
Nehru: Perhaps Bulganin knows that some people in the USA have suggested that India should replace China in the Security Council. This is to create trouble between us and China. We are, of course, wholly opposed to it. Further, we are opposed to pushing ourselves forward to occupy certain positions because that may itself create difficulties and India might itself become a subject of controversy. If India is to be admitted to the Security Council it raises the question of the revision of the Charter of the UN. We feel that this should not be done till the question of China's admission and possibly of others is first solved. I feel that we should first concentrate on getting China admitted.'
Those were the halcyon days of Hindi-Chini-bhai-bhai. To paraphrase Jyoti Basu, in hindsight, this was a 'historic blunder'. India has wasted incredible amounts of energy trying to rectify this blunder and get itself into the Security Council. But it's quite apparent that if India ever gets a seat it will be a worthless seat. It reminds me of Woody Allen's] observation that he'd never want to be a member of any club that would actually admit him.
Again, going back to the NPT as well as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, it hasn't particularly hurt India that it has stayed outside these discriminatory treaties, despite much wagging of fingers by others. Similarly, certain neutral States have remained outside the UN: if I am not mistaken, Switzerland famously doesn't join anything, and is not a UN member. Just as Norway has refused to join the European Union.
India has been over-eager to join various motley crews, for instance the banana-republic kaffeeklatsch of the Non-Aligned Movement. Championing various causes for the 'Third World' may have given an ego-boost to certain Indians, but it won India no brownie points. For instance, a resolution condemning India for intervening in the genocide in the then-East Pakistan in 1971 won by a resounding 104 votes to 11. So much for NAM gratitude to India, a pious fiction believed only by South Block. Similarly ungrateful is the UN.
On top of all this is the enormous waste of the UN bureaucracy. By latching on to the generous mammaries of the UN welfare state, many consultants have become wealthy. Graham Hancock's damning 1989 expose, Lords of Poverty: The Power, Prestige, and Corruption of the International Aid Business, estimated that most of the $60 billion plus that comprised governmental, UN, and World Bank or IMF-type 'aid' was siphoned off. Mostly by elites in poor nations with their Swiss accounts, special interests (like agribusiness in donor countries, which dump their subsidised excess produce), but also, startlingly, the aid agencies' own personnel budgets, which waste as much as 80 per cent of the funds for lavish (first-class) travel, salaries, and perquisites. Similarly with the UN's extremely generous salaries and benefits.
Is there any good reason to keep on paying through the nose for a body that doesn't do India any good or give India any respect?
It's time for India to say, 'We're out of here!' if the UN continues to treat it shabbily. The return on investment to India of being in this failing body is not high; it is falling apart anyway under the weight of its own internal contradictions. Therefore, India should give the UN an ultimatum, and walk out if it is not satisfied.