Ruchira Kamboj: The diplomat who is helping India reshape the global narrative

Ever since the Russia-Ukraine crisis broke out, the global narrative has centred around Ukraine. It is as if nothing else mattered for the global media and those who set the narrative in international relations. Terrorism in South Asia ceased to matter, countless conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region faded into irrelevance, Chinese belligerence was no longer treated with disdain, and issues like UNSC reforms got conveniently buried under the carpet.

But suddenly comes one diplomat who starts registering these issues on the global radar all over again. Meet Ruchira Kamboj, India’s first woman Permanent Representative to the United Nations. A 1987-batch Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer, Kamboj is amongst India’s seniormost diplomats. She was handed the role of India’s UN envoy in June this year. As such she succeeded TS Tirumurti in this key role. While Trimurti managed to push back against Western pressure on New Delhi’s Ukraine stand, Kamboj was supposed to bring issues of counter-terrorism and volatility in the Indo-Pacific back into focus.

Kamboj’s jibe against China, Pakistan

What Kamboj seems to have helped India do is bring back attention to issues like Pakistan-sponsored terrorism and Chinese belligerence. From a very direct point of view, these are two threats that India should be ready to tackle.

Therefore, in August, Kamboj slammed China and Pakistan without taking any names while advising caution against any “double standards” on the issue of combating terrorism. She said, “Common security is also only feasible when all countries stand together against common threats such as terrorism and do not engage in double standards while preaching otherwise.”

The remarks were an apparent jibe against Beijing which has tried to block India’s multiple attempts at the United Nations to blacklist Pakistan-sponsored terrorists. Only recently, India and the US had sought UN sanctions on Abdul Rauf Azhar, the brother of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar. Yet, China put a technical hold on the request while stating that it needed more time to assess the application for designating Azhar as a global terrorist.

Earlier, she had also slammed the UN Secretary General’s (SG) report on terrorism that has glossed over terror groups that target India even though New Delhi has been providing information about such groups. The diplomat had then said, “It is puzzling to us that the SG’s report chose not to take notice of the activities of the several proscribed groups in this region, especially those that have been repeatedly targeting India. Selective filtering of inputs from member states is uncalled for.”

Bringing Chinese belligerence into focus

For most international relations experts, even those based out of India, the global realities and geopolitical equations did shake up after the Ukraine crisis. People seemed to forget that Chinese president Xi Jinping is continuously strengthening and preparing the People’s Liberation Army to flex its muscles in the Himalayas and the Western Pacific.

It is at this juncture that Ruchira Kamboj decided to take subtle jibes at Beijing’s salami-slicing tactics. She pointed out, “Any coercive or unilateral action that seeks to change the status quo by force is an affront to common security. Further, common security is only possible when countries respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, as they would expect their own sovereignty to be respected.”

She added, “Common security is also possible only if countries respect agreements signed with others, bilateral or multilateral, and do not take unilateral measures to nullify those very arrangements to those they were party to.”

With this, Kamboj seemed to remind the world that there is a military hegemon in Asia which is violating all border pacts, protocols and disregarding the rule of law with multiple countries. For New Delhi, it is also strategically crucial that global conversations once again start rotating around what China may be up to.

Reform, perform and transform…

For the all-powerful international lobby that wants to dominate the global narrative, the Ukraine crisis created the room to temporarily mute issues like expansion of the UNSC. With the Ukraine crisis overshadowing everything in international relations, the powerful lobby inside the UN could avoid difficult discussions.

However, India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations seems to have brought this issue back into the spotlight. Highlighting the severity of the issue, Kamboj said, “A truly representative Security Council is the most pressing need of the hour. Else, there is a real danger of the United Nations being superseded by other plurilateral and multilateral groupings which are more representative, more transparent and more democratic and, therefore, more effective.”

She added, “The most urgent thing therefore for us to do is to make the Security Council more representative of developing countries, so as to reflect current geopolitical realities. How do we explain away the fact that the African continent does not have a permanent representation in the Security Council, despite a majority of issues being dealt with by the Council belonging to that region? How can we aspire for common security in Africa when the body denies them representation on a permanent basis?”

If we piece together Kamboj’s statements, she has successfully conveyed how irresponsible nations like a veto-wielding China are misusing the deficiencies in the UNSC structure to disturb the balance of power. When the Ukraine crisis broke out and took hold of the larger narrative, we couldn’t have imagined that a diplomat could bring attention back to core issues. Yet, Kamboj seems to have achieved this uphill task rather clinically.

The author is a columnist who writes on national and international affairs. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.

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Akshay Narang