India's Pursuit of United Nations Security Council Reforms

Abstract

The United Nations Security Council has emerged as the key arena and barometer for evaluating the promise and progress of accommodating new, rising powers in the international system. The case of India provides one of the best examples of a rising power coming to terms with its increased power, role and expectations of itself and of other powers, great and small, in negotiating its place in the reformed Council as a permanent member. This paper begins by mapping its historical association and varied interests vis-à-vis the Security Council, and its perspectives on various strands to reform the Council and finally, Indian strategies over the years to gain permanent seat in the reformed Council. This paper concludes that only a pragmatic, realpolitik approach that involves hard power bargaining would lead India to achieve its decades old aspiration to sit at the global high table.