External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Sunday called on the United Nations to stop being a bystander to the world's troubles and instead take a clear leadership role in tackling terrorism, armed conflict and the economic shocks battering developing countries.
Addressing the Chinmaya Amrit Mahotsav Global Sammelan in New Delhi on the occasion of UN Day, he said the case for reforming global institutions was growing stronger by the day, and that large parts of the world could no longer be kept out of decisions that shape their future.
"The UN must show leadership, not be a spectator to global crises," Jaishankar said, in remarks that framed the 80-year-old world body as an institution at a crossroads. The minister argued that multilateral bodies built for a different era were struggling to respond to a world of overlapping wars, supply-chain disruptions and climate stress, and that their credibility depended on whether they could act rather than merely observe.
Terrorism, he said, remained one of the gravest threats to international peace, and he rejected any attempt to justify or rationalise it. "Its usage as an instrument of statecraft is simply unacceptable. It can never be justified, it can never be rationalized," Jaishankar said, calling for stronger international resolve to counter terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.
He added that some countries continued to let political calculations take precedence over the fight against terrorism, despite the lessons of history — a pointed reference to the selective approach New Delhi has long criticised in global counter-terrorism debates.
India has for years pressed for a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism at the UN, and has repeatedly argued that the world body's counter-terrorism architecture is weakened when states distinguish between "good" and "bad" terrorists.
Jaishankar's remarks on Sunday placed that argument in a broader frame: a United Nations that cannot act decisively against terrorism, he suggested, cannot credibly claim to uphold the peace and security mandate written into its Charter.
The minister's speech also turned to the economic pressures facing the developing world, which he described as a "4F crisis" — spanning finance, fuel, food and fertiliser. The phrase captures the compounding squeeze on poorer nations: higher borrowing costs and tighter capital flows, volatile energy prices, food price shocks, and the rising cost of fertiliser that directly hits farm output.
Jaishankar said developed countries too had a stake in finding solutions, and called for urgent steps to reduce risks in the international economy and give nations more diversified options.
"Market distortions through constriction and choke points only add to suffering. A genuine dialogue in this regard is overdue," he said. The reference to choke points speaks to a world in which shipping lanes, export controls and sanctions regimes can abruptly cut off supplies of grain, fuel or fertiliser to countries that had no part in the conflicts that created the disruption.
For India, which imports a large share of its energy and fertiliser needs, the stability of those supply chains is a first-order economic concern, and New Delhi has repeatedly used global forums to argue for keeping food and fertiliser trade insulated from geopolitical tensions.
Jaishankar also linked the reform debate to the question of who gets a seat at the table. Large parts of the world, he said, could not be excluded from decision-making, and the case for reformed multilateralism was strengthening as the global order shifted.
India has been among the most vocal advocates of expanding the UN Security Council to reflect contemporary realities, arguing that a body whose permanent membership still mirrors the victors of the Second World War cannot claim to represent today's world. The minister's remarks on Sunday echoed that long-standing position without naming specific institutions, presenting reform as a matter of effectiveness rather than prestige.
A further strand of the speech concerned artificial intelligence. Jaishankar called for inclusive AI development, arguing that the benefits of the technology should be widely shared rather than concentrated in a handful of countries and companies.
The point connects to India's broader diplomatic pitch: that the governance of emerging technologies should be shaped with the participation of the Global South, which risks becoming a rule-taker in a technological order designed elsewhere. New Delhi has hosted AI summits and pushed for development-focused AI governance, positioning itself as a bridge between advanced economies and developing nations.
The setting of the speech added its own symbolism. The Chinmaya Amrit Mahotsav Global Sammelan marks the birth centenary celebrations of Swami Chinmayananda, the founder of the Chinmaya Mission, and Jaishankar's address wove India's civilisational voice into its diplomatic message.
UN Day itself, observed on October 24, marks the anniversary of the UN Charter's entry into force in 1945 — a reminder, the minister's audience would have understood, of an institution founded in the ashes of war to prevent its recurrence.
That founding promise is precisely what Jaishankar suggested is now under strain. The UN's record in recent years has been mixed: its humanitarian agencies continue to operate in war zones and refugee camps, but its Security Council has repeatedly deadlocked over major conflicts, and its development goals face a widening financing gap.
For countries of the Global South, the gap between the institution's promises and its performance is measured in food prices, debt servicing costs and the availability of vaccines, fertiliser and fuel.
India's own relationship with the UN reflects that dual reality. It is among the largest contributors of troops to UN peacekeeping missions, and it has used the General Assembly to press for counter-terrorism action and Security Council reform. At the same time, New Delhi has often acted through smaller groupings — the Quad, the G20 presidency it held in 2023, and bilateral partnerships — when the UN system has proved too slow.
Jaishankar's call for the UN to "show leadership" can therefore be read both as an exhortation and as a warning: institutions that cannot adapt risk being bypassed.
The speech also came at a moment when India is sharpening its pitch as a voice of the Global South. Through the Voice of the Global South Summits and its G20 presidency, New Delhi has sought to channel the concerns of developing countries — on debt, climate finance, digital access and food security — into the global agenda.
The "4F crisis" framing extends that pitch, giving a compact name to the interlocking pressures that finance ministers and farm ministries across Africa, Asia and Latin America now describe.
Whether the UN system answers that call will depend on negotiations that move slowly by design. Security Council reform has been debated for decades without a breakthrough, and the politics of the Council's permanent members make rapid change unlikely.
But Jaishankar's argument was less about any single reform than about the direction of travel: a United Nations that demonstrates it can lead — on terrorism, on economic shocks, on technology — will retain the authority it needs, while one that watches from the sidelines will see its relevance questioned by the very countries it was created to serve.
For now, the message from New Delhi is unambiguous. The world body must not content itself with statements while crises deepen, and the countries that bear the heaviest costs of global disorder deserve a real say in how those crises are handled. As Jaishankar put it, the UN must lead — not spectate.
(Reporting based on The Times of India.)