As the world celebrated the 79th United Nations (U.N.) Day on October 24, the so-called G-4 nations—Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan—reiterated their demand for a reform of the United Nations Security Council by expanding its permanent and non-permanent categories of membership. All four want to be permanent members. 

But is that possible in the foreseeable future under the prevailing rules of the U.N. that were established in 1945, with each of the five permanent members (the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China) possessing the so-called veto power?

The answer is “highly unlikely” as China will veto any proposal in this regard, though the other four veto-wielding powers tend to favor the idea in general and in the case of India in particular.

In fact, on 23 September 2024, the Foreign Ministers of the “Group of Four” countries – Mauro Vieira, Foreign Minister of Brazil; Ms. Annalena Baerbock, Federal Foreign Minister of Germany;  Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Minister of External Affairs of India; and  Ms Yoko Kamikawa, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan – had met on the margins of the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly to assess the state of play and discuss prospects for a reform of the United Nations Security Council. They “looked forward” to the upcoming 80th anniversary of the United Nations in 2025, urging “the international community to engage wholeheartedly” towards the realization of the goal of “the reform of the Security Council.”

It may be noted that during the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, which concluded on September 30, U.S. President Joe Biden, UK  Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and French President Emmanuel Macron addressed the need to expand the UN Security Council and make the G-4 countries Permanent Members. Biden and Starmer also argued for a country from Africa to be a Permanent Member.

When the U.N. was formed in 1945, the member states decided on five permanent veto-wielding members of the Security Council and six non-permanent members elected for two-year terms, factoring inequitable geographic representation. As the UN membership grew, pressure increased to increase the size of the Council, and in 1965, the UN Charter was amended to increase the number of non-permanent members to 10, each representing a particular geographic region, elected for two years.

The G-4 members’ quest for Permanent Membership is legitimate, given their acquired power status in the last seven decades. All told, at present, the Security Council reflects the global power structure of 1945 when the five World War II victors held on to their privileged power status. But today, Germany, Japan, and India are all leading countries in the global power index. Their non-representation as permanent members does not reflect global realities.

Besides, since three of the present five Permanent Members (P-5) are from Europe, one each from Asia and the Americas, the world’s largest continent, Asia, along with the Americas, is grossly underrepresented, and the second largest continent, Africa, is totally unrepresented. Thus, the situation is totally undemocratic and anachronistic at the moment. Therefore, the situation needs a change.

However, the UN Charter requires support from two-thirds of UN member states and all five Permanent Members of the Security Council for any amendments. A single Permanent Member can stall any amendment it wants, even if the overwhelming majority of the members are keen on it.

With regard to India, though Russia has consistently supported its inclusion, along with the U.S., UK, and France, China has always avoided the idea on some pretext or the other.

China is also opposed to Japan’s entry and has cited its “horrible” imperial past as the reason. China knows that if Japan is denied admission, India’s chances of becoming a Permanent Member will diminish immensely.

India Rejected UN Membership?

Notably, it is a great irony that Permanent Membership was offered to India on a platter by the then-powerful nations of the world soon after the country’s independence, but the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru refused it on what appears, in retrospect, dubious grounds.

In 1950, none other than the U.S. wanted to see India joining the Security Council in the place of the nationalist China. After the Communist takeover of mainland China in 1949, then-Chinese President Chiang Kai Shek fled to the island of Taiwan.

Communist China was not recognized as a UN member, and Chiang’s government was deemed to represent the whole of China (this status continued until 1971, when, following the normalization of relations between the US and Communist China, thanks to the then-US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Beijing entered the U.N., and Taipei was pushed out). Chiang Kai Shek was also agreeable to this proposition of leaving the seat for India.

In fact, Anton Harder, whose PhD thesis in the London School of Economics was on “Sino-Indian relations from 1949-1962,” revealed all this in the letter that the then-Indian Ambassador to the U.S. Vijaylaxmi Pandit wrote to her brother Nehru.

She wrote:  “One matter that is being cooked up in the State Department should be known to you. This is the unseating of China as a Permanent Member in the Security Council and of India being put in her place. I have just seen Reuters’ report of your answer to the same question. Last week, I had interviews with (John Foster) Dulles and (Philip) Jessup, reports of which I have sent to (Girija Shankar) Bajpai (the then foreign secretary). Both brought up this question and Dulles seemed particularly anxious that a move in this direction should be started. Last night, I heard from Marquis Childs, an influential columnist of Washington, that Dulles (US Secretary of State) has asked him on behalf of the State Department to build up public opinion along these lines”.

Nehru’s response within the week was unequivocal: “In your letter you mention that the State Department is trying to unseat China as a Permanent Member of the Security Council and to put India in her place. So far as we are concerned, we are not going to countenance it. That would be bad from every point of view. It would be a clear affront to China, and it would mean some kind of a break between us and China. I suppose the State Department would not like that, but we have no intention of following that course. We shall go on pressing for (Communist) China’s admission in the UN and the Security Council. “

In other words, rather than India’s case, Nehru, in his zeal for “Asian unity,” went out of his way to espouse the cause of Communist China’s entry into the United Nations. So much so that he rejected in 1955 a similar offer, this time from the Soviet Union.

Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin had suggested to Nehru that Moscow would propose India as the sixth permanent member of the Security Council, and thus not at the cost of China. But as Sarvepalli Gopal in his biography of Nehru (1979) has mentioned, “He (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.”

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In fact, Nehru has been quoted to have said: “Perhaps Bulganin knows that some people in the U.S.  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 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.”

Just imagine what Nehru did for China and how China responded to the Indian gesture — the border war in 1962!

Be that as it may, coming back to the present scenario, there are also doubts about whether the U.S. and the other three (if China is not taken into account) will grant the exact status they enjoy to the G-4 members even if they are made permanent members. There are reports that the United States does not support expanding veto power beyond the five countries that currently hold it.

Against this backdrop, there are merits in the theory that the G-4 should go all out in creating a global opinion that there is no need for any veto right to any Permanent Member. Vetoes should be done away with on the grounds that the rationale that there was in 1945 endowing the P-5 with veto power does not exist today.

The veto power may have played a positive role in the formation of the UN in the sense that it attracted the then-real powers, particularly the U.S. and the then-USSR, to join the world body, thus ensuring that the UN would not collapse the way its predecessor—the League of Nations—did.

The League’s fundamental flaw was that it was not universal. The U.S., for instance, was not a member. As a result, fiascos like the Italian aggression against Ethiopia in 1935 (which, in turn, triggered the chain of events leading to the outbreak of World War II) could not be avoided. The League could not undertake any remedial action in the absence of the support of the States that controlled the bulk of the world’s economic and military power.

However, the U.N. does not have that flaw now since all major powers have joined it already. Thus, the veto provision has lost its value. This is all the more so because all the member States of the U.N. are equal, with one vote each.

Therefore, it does not seem a bad idea for India and its G-4 partners to work for a veto-free U.N. Security Council and join it as equal members.

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