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DEMOCRACY Page |1 ---------------------- ------------------------------Articles by: Shashi Tharoor, a former Indian Minister of State for External Affairs and

UN UnderSecretary General, is a member of Indias parliament and the author of a dozen books, including India from Midnight to the Millennium and Nehru: the Invention of India

India at the UN High Table


January 2011

NEW DELHI Indian diplomacy began 2011 with election to the chair of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee, a body of some importance to the country (and one which many thought India might not be asked to lead, given its strong feelings on the issue). Coming in the wake of Indias record margin of victory in the race for a non-permanent seat on the Security Council, this news confirms Indias standing in the world and the contribution it is capable of making on the Council. With such endorsements, however, expectations are high, and Indias government will have to think about how they can best be fulfilled. This is an unusual year at the UN high table. Several powerful states, whose growing global role has made them aspirants to permanent seats on a reformed Security Council, will serve alongside India. Germany and South Africa were elected as non-permanent members at the same time, while Brazil and Nigeria are halfway through their two-year-terms. This also means that four international groupings will be represented on the Council in 2011: the Russia-India-China triumvirate, whose foreign ministers meet twice a year; the BRICs, which adds Brazil to the list; the India-Brazil-South Africa alliance of the three largest southern hemisphere powers; and BASIC, which brought Brazil, South Africa, India, and China together during the climate-change negotiations in Copenhagen last year. India is the only country that belongs to all four. That not only highlights the extent to which India has become a fulcrum in global politics, but also points to the exceptional composition of the new Security Council. Half the members of the G-20, the grouping that is now the worlds premier forum on international economic questions, will be on the Council, dealing with issues of global peace and security. The five permanent Security Council members the US, Britain, France, China, and Russia will not be able to take these members for granted. They have become accustomed in recent years to making deals among themselves and more or less imposing them on the ten non-permanent members. But the five big countries now also on the Council will expect to be consulted; their acquiescence on key questions cannot simply be assumed. At the same time, the performance on the Council of those countries that aspire to permanent membership will be seen as a harbinger of what would come if they were to succeed. This puts the spotlight on India all the more.

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DEMOCRACY Page |2 ---------------------- ------------------------------One immediate implication of serving on the Council will be the need to take positions on matters that in recent years some Indian mandarins have preferred to duck for example, South Sudan, whose referendum on independence threatens to spark serious violence in an area where Indian UN peacekeepers are already serving. Also during Indias first month as a Council member, the future of the UN peacekeeping operation in neighboring Nepal will be addressed. Before long, the Council will also have to consider the implications of the likely commencement of a US troop drawdown in Afghanistan, another area of direct importance to Indias national security. Issues like sanctions on Iran, the stop-and-start Middle East peace process, and the worlds response to a likely change of leadership in North Korea, will almost certainly appear on the Councils agenda as well. All are matters that call for creative and courageous thinking that transcends entrenched positions or reflexive solidarity with non-aligned countries. India will also have to reconsider its traditional opposition to the Councils tendency to broaden its mandate by taking on issues that India believes fall within the General Assemblys jurisdiction. The Council has tended to stretch into areas like HIV/AIDS, climate change, and womens empowerment, which inflate the term peace and security beyond recognition. And yet, as a member of the G-20 and the Security Council, India may well see an interest in bringing up issues of food security or energy security, which touch on both groups core concerns. There are serious staffing implications with respect to Security Council membership as well. The need to acquire expertise on diverse issues and to participate in the adoption of roughly 60 resolutions a year (not to mention Presidential Statements on the same issues, which have less legal force but whose adoption requires unanimity) will test Indias capacity and negotiating skills. Various sub-committees and working groups of the Council (including the Counter-Terrorism Committee) will also require full-time attention. In August 2011, India will preside over the Council by alphabetical rotation, and may find itself playing a key role in the election (most likely the re-election) of the UN Secretary-General, which must take place before the end of the year. All in all, Indias place on the Security Council offers an extraordinary opportunity, after two decades of absence from the global high table, to demonstrate to the world what it is capable of. It should emerge from the experience with its reputation and credibility as a major global player enhanced. In any case, the world will be watching.

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DEMOCRACY Page |3 ---------------------- ------------------------------ARAB REVOLUTION


February 2011

NEW DELHI Egypts fate has had the world riveted in recent days to newspapers and televisions, as the unfolding consequences of Tunisias Jasmine Revolution seem to portend a wave like the liberal revolutions of 1848 for the Arab world. Amateur historians ask breathlessly whether this could be the year of decisive change in the Middle East, the year when regime after regime falls prey to rising discontent with authoritarian rulers who have failed to deliver decent lives to their people. Who could be next: Yemen? Libya? Sudan? Even Jordan? Watching these events from afar, I find it difficult to escape the conclusion that it is not authoritarian rule per se that is being challenged in the streets, much as we democrats would like to believe otherwise; rather, authoritarian rule has simply failed to deliver the goods. Dictatorial rule has been accepted in each of these countries for decades. What the protestors were shouting for was not just freedom but dignity the dignity that comes from having a job worth doing, enough food to eat, and the hope of a better life for their children. The biggest failures of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia may not have been their repressive politics but their failed economics. If young men had not been unemployed and struggling to make ends meet, feed themselves, and be able to offer a home to the young women they desire, they would not be risking their lives and freedom calling for the overthrow of their governments. And yet one is tempted to ask the question: would a different political approach have avoided regime collapse? In other words, could democracy have provided a sufficient outlet for the grievances of jobless and frustrated youth? The Indian experience offers an instructive model. Unlike most developing countries including every country in the Arab world India, upon attaining its independence from colonial rule, did not choose to adopt an authoritarian system in the name of nation-building and economic development. Instead, it chose democracy. British rule left India impoverished, diseased, and undeveloped, with an appalling 18% literacy rate. The British-determined partition with Pakistan added communal violence, the trauma of destruction and displacement, and 13 million refugees to this list of woes. Indias nationalist leaders would have been forgiven for arguing that they needed dictatorial authority to cope with such immense problems, especially in the most diverse society on earth, riddled with religious, linguistic, and caste divisions. But they did not. They decided, instead, that democracy, for all its imperfections, was the best way to overcome these problems, because it gave everyone a stake in solving them. Democracy reflected Indias diversity, since Indians are accustomed to the idea of difference. The Indian idea is that a nation may contain different castes, creeds, colors, convictions, cuisines, costumes, and customs, yet still rally around a consensus. And that consensus is the simple idea that in a democracy you dont really need to agree except on the ground rules for how you will disagree.

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DEMOCRACY Page |4 ---------------------- ------------------------------Indian nationalism has therefore always been the nationalism of an idea the idea of one land embracing many, a land emerging from an ancient civilization, united by a shared history and sustained by a pluralist political system. Indias democracy imposes no narrow conformities on its citizens. The whole point of Indian pluralism is that you can be many things and one thing: you can be a good Muslim, a good Keralite, and a good Indian all at once. The Indian idea is the opposite of what Freudians call the narcissism of minor differences. In India, we celebrate the commonality of major differences. If America is famously a melting pot, then to me India is a thali, a selection of sumptuous dishes in different bowls. Each tastes different, and does not necessarily mix with the next, but they belong together on the same plate, and they complement each other in making the meal satisfying. Amid Indias myriad problems, it is democracy that has given Indians of every imaginable variety the chance to break free of their lot. There is social oppression and caste tyranny, particularly in rural India, but Indian democracy offers the victims a means of escape, and often thanks to the determination with which the poor and oppressed exercise their franchise of triumph. The significant changes since independence in the social composition of Indias ruling class, both in politics and in the bureaucracy with leaders from the formerly untouchable and backward castes elected to high office have vindicated democracy in practice. The result is that, though economic difficulties rising food and fuel prices, corruption, and unemployment persist, they have not led to demonstrations calling for regime change. Indians know that they can use other means debates in Parliament, political alliance-making, and eventually the ballot box to bring about the changes they desire. Democratic accountability also guarantees responsive government. Indian governments act today for fear of electoral retribution tomorrow. That is an incentive that Mubarak and Ben Ali never had. India has always been reluctant to preach democracy to others. Its own history of colonial rule makes it wary of preaching its ways to foreign civilizations, and underscores its conviction that each country must determine its own political destiny. Democracy, in any case, is rather like love: it must come from within, and cannot be taught. Nevertheless, for Arab rulers looking uneasily at the lessons of events in Tunisia and Egypt, the example of India might be well worth heeding.

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DEMOCRACY Page |5 ---------------------- ------------------------------Can the Millennium Development Goals be Saved?


September 2010

NEW DELHI The target date for fulfilling the Millennium Development Goals is 2015, and the world knows it is not on course to meet those goals. So world leaders are set to gather at the United Nations to undertake a comprehensive review, with the aim of agreeing on a roadmap and a plan of action to get to the MDG finishing line on schedule. I was at the UN in September 2000, when world leaders met at the Millennium Summit and pledged to work together to free humanity from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty, and to make the right to development a reality for everyone. These pledges include commitments to improve access to education, health care, and clean water for the worlds poorest people; abolish slums; reverse environmental degradation; conquer gender inequality; and cure HIV/AIDS. Its an ambitious list, but its capstone is Goal 8, which calls for a global partnership for development. This includes four specific targets: an open, rule-based, predictable, nondiscriminatory trading and financial system; special attention to the needs of least-developed countries; help for landlocked developing countries and small island states; and national and international measures to deal with developing countries debt problems. Basically, it all boiled down to a grand bargain: while developing countries would obviously have primary responsibility for achieving the MDGs, developed countries would be obliged to finance and support their efforts for development. This hasnt really happened. At the G-8 summit at Gleneagles and the UN World Summit in 2005, donors committed to increasing their aid by $50 billion at 2004 prices, and to double their aid to Africa from 2004 levels by 2010. But official development assistance (ODA) last year amounted to $119.6 billion, or just 0.31% of the developed countries GDP not even half of the UNs target of 0.7% of GDP. In current US dollars, ODA actually fell by more than 2% in 2008. The UN admits that progress has been uneven, and that many of the MDGs are likely to be missed in most regions. An estimated 1.4 billion people were still living in extreme poverty in 2005, and the number is likely to be higher today, owing to the global economic crisis. The number of undernourished people has continued to grow, while progress in reducing the prevalence of hunger stalled or even reversed in some regions between 2000-2002 and 2005-2007. About one in four children under the age of five are underweight, mainly due to lack of quality food, inadequate water, sanitation, and health services, and poor care and feeding practices. Gender equality and womens empowerment, which are essential to overcoming poverty and disease, have made at best fitful progress, with insufficient improvement in girls schooling opportunities or in womens access to political authority.

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DEMOCRACY Page |6 ---------------------- ------------------------------Progress on trade has been similarly disappointing. Developed country tariffs on imports of agricultural products, textiles, and clothing the principal exports of most developing countries remained between 5% and 8% in 2008, just 2-3 percentage points lower than in 1998. The time has come to reinforce Goal 8 in two fundamental ways. Developed countries must make commitments to increase both the quantity and effectiveness of aid to developing countries. Aid must help developing countries improve the welfare of their poorest populations according to their own development priorities. But donors all too often feel obliged to make their contributions visible to their constituencies and stakeholders, rather than prioritizing local perspectives and participation. There are other problems with development aid. Reporting requirements are onerous and often impose huge administrative burdens on developing countries, which must devote the scarce skills of educated, English-speaking personnel to writing reports for donors rather than running programs. And donor agencies often recruit the best local talent themselves, usually at salaries that distort the labor market. In some countries, doctors find it more remunerative to work as translators for foreign-aid agencies than to treat poor patients. Meanwhile, donors sheer clout dilutes the accountability of developing countries officials and elected representatives to their own people. We must change the way the world goes about the business of providing development aid. We need a genuine partnership, in which developing countries take the lead, determining what they most acutely need and how best to use it. Weak capacity to absorb aid on the part of recipient countries is no excuse for donor-driven and donor-directed assistance. The aim should be to help create that capacity. Indeed, building human-resource capacity is itself a useful way of fulfilling Goal 8. Doing so would serve donors interest as well. Aligning their assistance with national development strategies and structures, or helping countries devise such strategies and structures, ensures that their aid is usefully spent and guarantees the sustainability of their efforts. Donors should support an education policy rather than build a photogenic school; aid a health campaign rather than construct a glittering clinic; or do both but as part of a policy or a campaign, not as stand-alone projects. Trade is the other key area. In contrast to aid, greater access to the developed worlds markets creates incentives and fosters institutions in the developing world that are self-sustaining, collectively policed, and more consequential for human welfare. Many countries are prevented from trading their way out of poverty by the high tariff barriers, domestic subsidies, and other protections enjoyed by their rich-country competitors. The European Unions agricultural subsidies, for example, are high enough to permit every cow in Europe to fly business class around the world. What African farmer, despite his lower initial costs, can compete? The onus is not on developed countries alone. Developing countries, too, have made serious commitments to their own people, and the primary responsibility for fulfilling those commitments is theirs. But Goal 8 assured them that they would not be alone in this effort. Unless that changes, the next five years will be a path to failure.
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