The United Nations completes 70 years of its establishment in 2015. What reforms is India asking for to strengthen the global institutions of governance and why? (2015, 20 Marks)
The UN of 1945 had 51 members; at seventy it had 193, yet its decision-making core and the Bretton Woods quota tables still mirrored the victors’ world. India’s answer, later branded “reformed multilateralism”, is that the legitimacy problem of global governance is a representation problem. In September 2015 Narendra Modi hosted the first G4 leaders’ summit in over a decade, and the General Assembly’s decision 69/560 made a framework text the reference for further negotiation.
What India asks for
- Security Council: expansion in both permanent and non-permanent categories; African representation in both; text-based negotiations with timelines; new permanent members with the same responsibilities; transparent working methods.
- The veto: the Russian and Chinese vetoes on Syria from 2011 showed it shielding national interests while civilians suffered; India wants it abolished or, while it exists, extended to new permanent members.
- General Assembly: revitalisation, and a real role in choosing the Secretary-General.
- ECOSOC and the development system: restoring ECOSOC’s role, overshadowed by the IMF and World Bank, and core rather than earmarked funding.
- Peacekeeping and finances: consultation of troop contributors on mandates, as Article 44 contemplates, and less dependence on a few large donors.
- Bretton Woods institutions: IMF quotas and World Bank voice realigned to economic weight; the 2010 quota reform, stuck in the US Congress until December 2015, was the test case.
- Trade: a WTO that protects food security; India held out in 2014 for a durable public-stockholding peace clause.
- Climate and terrorism: common but differentiated responsibilities at Paris, where India and France launched the International Solar Alliance (November 2015), and adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, proposed by India in 1996.
Why India asks
- Legitimacy: Africa, Latin America and most of Asia lack permanent voice. Robert W. Cox (1981) argued that institutions encode the hegemonic order of their founding moment, which is why they lag shifts in power.
- Effectiveness: an unrepresentative Council is bypassed, as over Iraq (2003), or overreaches, as India argued of the Libya mandate (2011). Legitimacy and efficiency are linked, not traded off.
- Contribution without voice: one of the largest cumulative peacekeeping contributors and a punctual payer has no say in permanent decision-making.
- Development: the SDGs, adopted that same month, require finance and technology unreformed institutions do not deliver.
- National interest: insulation on Kashmir, counter-terrorism listings and the shift from rule-taker to rule-maker. Oliver Stuenkel calls this “revisionist integration”: changing the order by joining its core.
Eleven years on
The record vindicates the diagnosis more than the method:
- The IMF’s 16th quota review (2023) raised quotas by half without shifting shares.
- The WTO Appellate Body has lacked a quorum since December 2019, and the 2022 pledge of a fully functioning system by 2024 lapsed.
- India’s 2023 G20 presidency commissioned an expert group, co-convened by N. K. Singh and Lawrence H. Summers, on stronger multilateral development banks, and brought the African Union into the G20.
- The BRICS New Delhi Declaration (September 2026) again demanded IMF, World Bank and WTO reform.
- After eighteen years the Council talks still lack a negotiating text; in June 2026 India rejected the co-chairs’ “Fixed Regional Seats” idea as no real expansion.
Critics note that India seeks a seat in a club whose privileges it condemns, and that its abstentions weaken its normative voice.
Conclusion
India’s demand is systemic: patching one organ while the rest stay frozen in 1945 would be cosmetic. Its strongest argument is not India’s merit but the institutions’ self-interest, since bodies that exclude rising powers lose compliance. That is why the demand, though stalled, cannot be dismissed.