Dateline UN | October 18, 2012

Kid in a candy store at ‘high table’ of planet

Day Four: However old we become, there is still inside us that child wanting to reach to that candy behind the store window. As I sat there at the horseshoe-shaped Security Council table, I was transfixed by the voting button in front of me, itching to touch it, feel it, press it. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the issue didn’t come down to voting!

Nevertheless I had a real-life, real-time experience of the Security Council. All those political science lessons Father Huart, the forever-smiling Jesuit, had taught us in classes XI and XII at St. Xavier’s came rushing back, as if I were in a reverie. Except of course, this was not a political theory lecture — this was the real thing.

The 15-member Security Council was discussing the “Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question”. The Palestinian case for full membership of the United Nations is supported by 132 of 193 countries. Of the 61 naysayers, Israel is expectedly the most prominent. Seated at the two ends of the horseshoe (in the second-last seats to the left and the right) were the contending parties, the Israelis and the Palestinians.

The 15 members of the Security Council (five permanent, 10 — among them India, elected for two-year terms) and 50 countries from the General Assembly made submissions on the issue being discussed. They spoke from chairs placed at the ends of the horseshoe table, sitting next to either Palestine or Israel. There was no controversy this time, but in the past even seating arrangements at the Security Council have caused problems. An Iranian delegate once refused to make a presentation because he was seated next to the Israeli delegate and wanted his seat changed. It was only when he was threatened with forfeiture of speaking opportunity that he quietened down. Thankfully there was no such drama this time.

The Security Council meets from 10 to 1 and then from 3 to 6. The two-hour lunch break is an indulgence that I used to discover the food options in the UN Headquarters but more on that in another piece. I heard the submissions of various countries with rapt attention. To my mind, the best, most forceful and articulate voice was that of the Bangladeshi representative. I was tempted to go up to him and congratulate him in Bengali.

India becomes president of the Security Council in November. It (and I) sat to the left of the Guatemalan representative, who presides over the Council in October. To my left was the gentlemen from Morocco, separating India and Pakistan as it happened. All in all it was a good day at the high table of the planet. Father Huart would be proud of me.

[This article was carried by The Telegraph | Thursday, October 18, 2012]

Dateline UN | October 17, 2012

Ma Mati Manush reaches UN

Day Three: The Indian Permanent Mission to the United Nations is located at 235 East, 43rd Street, New York. It’s not far from the East River, which flows past the UN Headquarters. The Permanent Mission is housed in a building redolent of Indian associations, and designed by the well-known architect Charles Correa. As you enter the reception area, a striking and massive painting, 20 feet high, captures your gaze. Painted by M.F. Hussain in 1993, it depicts the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

The painting, with the tragic episode it depicts, is apposite for the location, as the UN was set up to sequester humankind from the ravages of war, violence and bigotry. One of Husain’s most monumental works, it is also, the assessment goes, probably worth more than the value of the property it is displayed in!

One principle of the UN General Assembly is egalitarianism. This is the Lok Sabha of the world and all of its 193 members — with their flags displayed outside the UN building — have an equal voice and standing. You experience this enforced equality when you walk down to get your identity tag. It’s a short walk from the Indian Mission but it has to be done by everybody when he or she arrives at the UN as a delegate. You could be an ambassador or a minister, an MP or a civil servant, it doesn’t matter. You still queue up, and become part of the most multi-ethnic, multicultural and multinational single file you will ever be privileged to join.

My first statement at the UN was to the second committee of the General Assembly, the Economic and Financial Committee. Each committee meets in a separate chamber, with a capacity of about 200 people. Statements are made sitting down — a novel experience for me — and translated simultaneously into the many languages that the UN uses. I was speaking on issues related to “funding of operational activities of the UN development system along with Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review and the state of South-South Cooperation”.

It was a short statement, about 1,200 words, but I will leave you with the operative opening paragraph: “Poverty eradication still remains the overriding priority for developing countries and the greatest global challenge. It is therefore our considered conviction that poverty eradication should be at the heart of UN’s operational activities for development, as its primary objective. In Bengal, the region of India I come from, we call this humanistic philosophy one of ‘Ma, Mati, Manush’ — signifying an equilibrium of the universally caring Mother, the Earth that nurtures us, and the Human Beings who must be central to our developmental endeavours.”

I felt both humbled and satisfied as I finished my statement. I was humbled because I was speaking before the most august audience I had ever addressed. I was satisfied because I had managed to integrate the Trinamool Congress’ core philosophy into the message India wanted to give to the UN, and one which I believe is relevant to large parts of the developing world.

It was a reasonable beginning, but much remains to be done during my stint at the UN. As somebody else put it in a different America at a different time, “Tomorrow is another day.”

[This article was carried by The Telegraph | Wednesday, October 17, 2012]