India has told the United Nations that any reform of the Security Council that creates a new category of permanent members without veto powers would effectively relegate them to second-class status, leaving the existing five permanent powers in control of the decision-making process.
India's Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Harish Parvathaneni, made the assertion on Monday while addressing the Inter-Governmental Negotiations plenary on the cluster debate on the question of the veto in the UN General Assembly. His statement restated a position India has held for years, but delivered it with fresh emphasis at a moment when negotiations on Security Council reform are once again under scrutiny.
India's position on the veto is principled and well known, Parvathaneni said. He reiterated that as long as the veto exists, it must be held by all permanent members of a reformed Council, stressing that fairness and justice demand equal rights and responsibilities for all permanent members.
The argument is straightforward. The Security Council today has fifteen members: five permanent members, China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, who enjoy veto powers, and ten non-permanent members elected for two-year terms. If the Council were expanded by adding new permanent members who lack the veto, those members would sit at the same table but without the same power.
In India's view, such a reform would not change the decision-making dynamic of the five existing permanent members, and would entrench rather than correct the inequity at the heart of the Council.
Parvathaneni warned that a reform that expands the Security Council by creating another category of long-term members without the veto would effectively make them second-class members. He argued that a new category of permanent members, with or without the veto, would only further complicate a discussion that is already difficult, and would further entrench the very inequity that reform is seeking to correct.
The Indian envoy also addressed how the veto itself is used. He said the veto should be exercised with restraint and must not become a tool of narrow political interests, particularly on matters concerning international peace and security.
He described the veto as a responsibility rather than a privilege, and noted that two of the five permanent members have not exercised the veto for over three and a half decades, while most vetoes or threats of vetoes have emanated from three of the five.
That record, in India's telling, illustrates why the debate about the veto matters beyond questions of membership. The veto can block action on the most serious issues of war and peace, and its use, or threatened use, has repeatedly prevented the Council from acting.
India pointed to the veto initiative of 2022, which was seen as a harbinger of change because it requires the General Assembly to debate whenever a veto is cast, but argued that the actual record of vetoes cast since then tells a contrary story.
India's statement was delivered in the context of the Inter-Governmental Negotiations, the forum in which member states discuss Security Council reform. The negotiations are organised around five clusters: categories of membership, the question of the veto, regional representation, the size of an enlarged Council and its working methods, and the relationship between the Council and the General Assembly.
India's position is that piecemeal reforms will not work, and that all five clusters must be addressed together.
New Delhi has consistently called for expanding both the permanent and non-permanent categories of membership, warning that reform efforts would border on failure if they focused solely on increasing the number of non-permanent members. Adding more rotating members without addressing the permanent core, India argues, would leave the fundamental imbalance untouched.
India has been at the forefront of years-long efforts to achieve reform of the Security Council, saying the body, founded in 1945, is not fit for purpose in the twenty-first century and does not reflect contemporary geopolitical realities.
The world has changed profoundly since the end of the Second World War, India argues, but the Council's permanent membership has not, and countries that are today major economies, large contributors to peacekeeping and significant voices in global affairs remain outside the permanent core.
India has consistently underscored that it rightly deserves a permanent seat at the horseshoe table, a reference to the curved table around which Council members sit in New York. That claim rests on India's size, its democratic credentials, its economic weight, its contributions to UN peacekeeping operations and its role in the developing world.
The Indian position is aligned with the Common African Position, the framework adopted by the African Union that calls for expanded representation for Africa, including permanent seats with veto powers. The alignment between India and the African group is significant because it brings together two of the largest blocs pressing for comprehensive reform, and it reflects a shared view that reform must mean equal rights, not a tiered membership.
The debate over the veto has long been one of the most sensitive aspects of Security Council reform. The five permanent members have shown little appetite for diluting their own privilege, and proposals for intermediate models, such as longer-term non-permanent seats or permanent seats without veto rights, have been floated as compromises. India's statement is a clear rejection of those compromises.
In New Delhi's view, a permanent seat without the veto is not a step towards equality but a formalisation of inequality.
There is also a practical dimension to the argument. If new permanent members lack the veto, the existing five would retain an exclusive power to block any substantive decision, including decisions that directly affect the new members. The new members would bear the responsibilities of permanent membership, including sustained engagement on the full range of peace and security issues, without the decisive tool that defines permanent membership in practice.
India's call for text-based negotiations with clear timelines and milestones reflects frustration with the pace of the reform process. The Inter-Governmental Negotiations have been under way for years without producing an agreed negotiating text, and India, along with other reform advocates, has pressed for a move from general debate to concrete drafting.
Without a text and a timeline, India argues, the process risks becoming an exercise in repetition rather than a path to change.
The statement also carries a message for the wider membership of the United Nations. Reform of the Security Council is not only about which countries sit at the table, but about the legitimacy of the Council itself. When the body charged with maintaining international peace and security is seen as unrepresentative, its decisions carry less authority, and countries may turn to other forums to address crises.
India has repeatedly made the case that a more representative Council would be a more effective one.
For India, the veto debate is inseparable from its broader foreign policy. As a country that seeks a larger role in global governance, that contributes troops to peacekeeping missions and that positions itself as a voice for the Global South, a permanent seat with full rights is both a symbol and an instrument. The insistence on equal veto rights is therefore not a technical point but a statement about the kind of international order India wants to help shape.
The immediate prospects for reform remain uncertain. The permanent members have divergent views, regional groups have competing claims, and the requirement for broad agreement in the General Assembly, including ratification by the permanent members themselves, makes any change difficult. But India's statement on Monday makes clear that New Delhi will not accept a reform that offers it a seat without the power that comes with it.
In the coming months, the debate will continue in the Inter-Governmental Negotiations, and India's position will remain a central reference point: as long as the veto exists, it must be held by all permanent members of a reformed Council, because fairness and justice demand that all permanent members enjoy the same rights and responsibilities.
(Reporting based on NDTV, The Times of India and The New Indian Express.)