GP OpEd Articles Democracy Sashi Tharoor

8/3/2019 GP OpEd Articles Democracy Sashi Tharoor

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DEMOCRACY P a g e | 1

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Compiled by www.thegptutor.com All rights reserved by source

Articles by: Shashi Tharoor, a former Indian Minister of State for External Affairs and UN Under-Secretary General, is a member of India’s 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 NationsCounter-Terrorism Committee, a body of some importance to the country (and one which manythought India might not be asked to lead, given its strong feelings on the issue). Coming in thewake of India’s record margin of victory in the race for a non-permanent seat on the SecurityCouncil, this news confirms India’s standing in the world and the contribution it is capable of making on the Council. With such endorsements, however, expectations are high, and India’sgovernment 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 rolehas made them aspirants to permanent seats on a reformed Security Council, will serve alongsideIndia. Germany and South Africa were elected as non-permanent members at the same time, whileBrazil and Nigeria are halfway through their two-year-terms.

This also means that four international groupings will be represented on the Council in 2011: theRussia-India-China triumvirate, whose foreign ministers meet twice a year; the BRICs, which addsBrazil to the list; the India-Brazil-South Africa alliance of the three largest southern hemispherepowers; and BASIC, which brought Brazil, South Africa, India, and China together during theclimate-change negotiations in Copenhagen last year. India is the only country that belongs to allfour.

That not only highlights the extent to which India has become a fulcrum in global politics, but alsopoints to the exceptional composition of the new Security Council. Half the members of the G-20,the grouping that is now the world’s premier forum on international economic questions, will beon the Council, dealing with issues of global peace and security.

The five permanent Security Council members – the US, Britain, France, China, and Russia – willnot be able to take these members for granted. They have become accustomed in recent years tomaking deals among themselves and more or less imposing them on the ten non-permanentmembers. But the five big countries now also on the Council will expect to be consulted; theiracquiescence on key questions cannot simply be assumed.

At the same time, the performance on the Council of those countries that aspire to permanentmembership will be seen as a harbinger of what would come if they were to succeed. This puts thespotlight on India all the more.

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One immediate implication of serving on the Council will be the need to take positions on mattersthat 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 IndianUN peacekeepers are already serving.

Also during India’s first month as a Council member, the future of the UN peacekeeping operationin neighboring Nepal will be addressed. Before long, the Council will also have to consider theimplications of the likely commencement of a US troop drawdown in Afghanistan, another area of direct importance to India’s national security.

Issues like sanctions on Iran, the stop-and-start Middle East peace process, and the world’sresponse to a likely change of leadership in North Korea, will almost certainly appear on theCouncil’s agenda as well. All are matters that call for creative and courageous thinking thattranscends entrenched positions or reflexive solidarity with “non-aligned” countries.

India will also have to reconsider its traditional opposition to the Council’s tendency to broaden its

mandate by taking on issues that India believes fall within the General Assembly’s jurisdiction.The Council has tended to stretch into areas like HIV/AIDS, climate change, and women’sempowerment, which inflate the term “peace and security” beyond recognition. And yet, as amember of the G-20 and the Security Council, India may well see an interest in bringing up issuesof 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. Theneed to acquire expertise on diverse issues and to participate in the adoption of roughly 60resolutions a year (not to mention Presidential Statements on the same issues, which have lesslegal force but whose adoption requires unanimity) will test India’s capacity and negotiating skills.

Various sub-committees and working groups of the Council (including the Counter-TerrorismCommittee) will also require full-time attention. In August 2011, India will preside over theCouncil by alphabetical rotation, and may find itself playing a key role in the election (most likelythe re-election) of the UN Secretary-General, which must take place before the end of the year.

All in all, India’s place on the Security Council offers an extraordinary opportunity, after twodecades of absence from the global high table, to demonstrate to the world what it is capable of. Itshould emerge from the experience with its reputation and credibility as a major global playerenhanced. In any case, the world will be watching.








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ARAB REVOLUTION

February 2011

NEW DELHI – Egypt’s fate has had the world riveted in recent days to newspapers and

televisions, as the unfolding consequences of Tunisia’s “Jasmine Revolution” seem to portend a wave like the liberal revolutions of 1848 for the Arab world. Amateur historians ask breathlesslywhether this could be the year of decisive change in the Middle East, the year when regime afterregime falls prey to rising discontent with authoritarian rulers who have failed to deliver decentlives 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 notauthoritarian rule per se that is being challenged in the streets, much as we democrats would like tobelieve otherwise; rather, authoritarian rule has simply failed to deliver the goods. Dictatorial rulehas been accepted in each of these countries for decades. What the protestors were shouting forwas 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 nothave been their repressive politics but their failed economics. If young men had not beenunemployed and struggling to make ends meet, feed themselves, and be able to offer a home to theyoung women they desire, they would not be risking their lives and freedom calling for theoverthrow of their governments.

And yet one is tempted to ask the question: would a different political approach have avoidedregime collapse? In other words, could democracy have provided a sufficient outlet for thegrievances of jobless and frustrated youth?

The Indian experience offers an instructive model. Unlike most developing countries – includingevery country in the Arab world – India, upon attaining its independence from colonial rule, didnot choose to adopt an authoritarian system in the name of nation-building and economicdevelopment. Instead, it chose democracy.

British rule left India impoverished, diseased, and undeveloped, with an appalling 18% literacyrate. The British-determined partition with Pakistan added communal violence, the trauma of destruction and displacement, and 13 million refugees to this list of woes. India’s nationalistleaders would have been forgiven for arguing that they needed dictatorial authority to cope withsuch 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 overcomethese problems, because it gave everyone a stake in solving them. Democracy reflected India’sdiversity, since Indians are accustomed to the idea of difference. The Indian idea is that a nationmay contain different castes, creeds, colors, convictions, cuisines, costumes, and customs, yet stillrally around a consensus. And that consensus is the simple idea that in a democracy you don’treally need to agree – except on the ground rules for how you will disagree.








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Indian nationalism has therefore always been the nationalism of an idea – the idea of one landembracing many, a land emerging from an ancient civilization, united by a shared history andsustained by a pluralist political system.

India’s 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 goodKeralite, and a good Indian all at once. The Indian idea is the opposite of what Freudians call “thenarcissism 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 dishesin different bowls. Each tastes different, and does not necessarily mix with the next, but theybelong together on the same plate, and they complement each other in making the meal satisfying.

Amid India’s myriad problems, it is democracy that has given Indians of every imaginable varietythe chance to break free of their lot. There is social oppression and caste tyranny, particularly inrural 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. Thesignificant changes since independence in the social composition of India’s ruling class, both inpolitics and in the bureaucracy – with leaders from the formerly “untouchable” and backwardcastes elected to high office – have vindicated democracy in practice.

The result is that, though economic difficulties – rising food and fuel prices, corruption, andunemployment – persist, they have not led to demonstrations calling for regime change. Indiansknow that they can use other means – debates in Parliament, political alliance-making, andeventually the ballot box – to bring about the changes they desire. Democratic accountability alsoguarantees responsive government. Indian governments act today for fear of electoral retributiontomorrow. 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 rulemakes it wary of preaching its ways to foreign civilizations, and underscores its conviction thateach 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, theexample of India might be well worth heeding.








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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 UnitedNations 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 andpledged 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 pledgesinclude commitments to improve access to education, health care, and clean water for the world’spoorest people; abolish slums; reverse environmental degradation; conquer gender inequality; andcure HIV/AIDS.

It’s 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, non-discriminatory trading and financial system”; special attention to the needs of least-developedcountries; help for landlocked developing countries and small island states; and national andinternational measures to deal with developing countries’ debt problems.

Basically, it all boiled down to a grand bargain: while developing countries would obviously haveprimary responsibility for achieving the MDGs, developed countries would be obliged to financeand support their efforts for development.

This hasn’t 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 toAfrica 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 UN’s 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 missedin most regions. An estimated 1.4 billion people were still living in extreme poverty in 2005, andthe 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 hungerstalled – 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 qualityfood, inadequate water, sanitation, and health services, and poor care and feeding practices.Gender equality and women’s empowerment, which are essential to overcoming poverty anddisease, have made at best fitful progress, with insufficient improvement in girls’ schoolingopportunities or in women’s access to political authority.










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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. Aidmust help developing countries improve the welfare of their poorest populations according to theirown development priorities. But donors all too often feel obliged to make their contributions“visible” to their constituencies and stakeholders, rather than prioritizing local perspectives andparticipation.

There are other problems with development aid. Reporting requirements are onerous and oftenimpose huge administrative burdens on developing countries, which must devote the scarce skillsof educated, English-speaking personnel to writing reports for donors rather than runningprograms. And donor agencies often recruit the best local talent themselves, usually at salaries thatdistort 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 andelected representatives to their own people.

We must change the way the world goes about the business of providing development aid. Weneed a genuine partnership, in which developing countries take the lead, determining what theymost acutely need and how best to use it. Weak capacity to absorb aid on the part of recipientcountries is no excuse for donor-driven and donor-directed assistance. The aim should be to helpcreate that capacity. Indeed, building human-resource capacity is itself a useful way of fulfillingGoal 8.

Doing so would serve donors’ interest as well. Aligning their assistance with national developmentstrategies and structures, or helping countries devise such strategies and structures, ensures thattheir aid is usefully spent and guarantees the sustainability of their efforts. Donors should supportan education policy rather than build a photogenic school; aid a health campaign rather thanconstruct a glittering clinic; or do both – but as part of a policy or a campaign, not as stand-aloneprojects.

Trade is the other key area. In contrast to aid, greater access to the developed world’s marketscreates 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 otherprotections enjoyed by their rich-country competitors. The European Union’s agriculturalsubsidies, for example, are high enough to permit every cow in Europe to fly business class aroundthe world. What African farmer, despite his lower initial costs, can compete?

The onus is not on developed countries alone. Developing countries, too, have made seriouscommitments to their own people, and the primary responsibility for fulfilling those commitmentsis 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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GP OpEd Articles Democracy Sashi Tharoor