The Lift Line

“It is that UN we need to recreate, and 81 years is long enough to show us why it’s worth doing.” (Shashi Tharoor, The Indian Express, 21 October 2026)

Why This Editorial Matters for Your Exam

In the news: Shashi Tharoor writes in The Indian Express of 21 October 2026 that the UN, which marks its 81st birthday this week, “stands today at a precarious crossroads”: central to the global agenda, yet “failing at its vital task, the maintenance of international peace and security”. UN Day will be observed on 24 October, the date on which the UN Charter entered into force in 1945.

The author writes from inside the system. His byline says he served the UN from 1978 to 2007 and was India’s candidate for Secretary-General in 2006, and “came second out of seven candidates”; the winner was Ban Ki-moon. He is now an MP.

This page sets out his argument and adds what he does not name: the Charter articles behind the Council’s deadlock, the reform talks, the Pact for the Future and the G4’s position. For background on the race to choose the next Secretary-General, see our earlier piece, Two Questions Open at Turtle Bay (3 September 2026). For context, the field had fallen from the eight candidates listed there to seven by 20 September 2026, after Michelle Bachelet withdrew (Al Jazeera).

UPSC relevance:

  • GS Paper 2: important international institutions, agencies and fora, their structure and mandate; effect of the policies of developed and developing countries on India’s interests; India and the UN.
  • Prelims: UN Charter Articles 23, 27, 97 and 108; straw polls; Pact for the Future (Actions 39 to 41); the G4; UN Day.
  • Essay and Interview: multilateralism and its rivals; legitimacy and power in global institutions.

The Crux in 60 Words

The UN built the rules of international society and saved millions of lives, Tharoor argues, but it is failing at peace and security. A Council frozen in 1945 and a veto used to shield allies have cost it legitimacy. Coalitions and the G20 cannot replace it. Reform should widen representation and limit the veto without driving the great powers away.

Key Arguments at a Glance

Shashi Tharoor argues in The Indian Express that the UN, though central to the global agenda, is failing at its vital task of maintaining international peace and security, because a Council built on the realities of 1945 and the veto has lost legitimacy; the UN worth having must be recreated, not abandoned.

Supporting
  • In Tharoor’s account the UN system has built the normative architecture of international society and saved millions of lives, through agencies such as UNICEF, the WHO, the UNHCR and the World Food Programme and instruments such as the Montreal Protocol and the Paris Agreement.
  • The Council’s permanent membership, he writes, ‘looks like a war photo from 1945’, leaving billions without permanent representation and creating a severe representational deficit.
  • The veto, and the mere threat of it, has made the Council ‘a stage for strategic obstruction’, so states turn to coalitions, regional alliances and forums like the G20.
  • Yet the G20 cannot dispatch peacekeepers and lacks the moral authority of universal membership; without a working Council, he warns, the world would be one where ‘the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must’.
Counter

The Charter itself stands in the way: under Article 108 an amendment needs ratification by two-thirds of members including all the permanent members, and Tharoor concedes that reform must stop short of the point where the most powerful states might walk away. Members also disagree on what reform means: budget cuts and streamlining for the developed West, inclusion and voice for developing countries.

Way Forward

On the author’s terms: expand permanent seats to include underrepresented regions and emerging powers, set clear norms to limit veto use, and deepen accountability between the Council and the General Assembly. Our analysis adds: the Pact for the Future (Actions 39 to 41) gives the talks agreed principles, and the test of intent is whether the intergovernmental negotiations move to a negotiating text, as the G4 demands.

Background and Context

UN Day and a deadlocked race

  • UN Day: “United Nations Day (24 October) marks the entry into force in 1945 of the United Nations Charter” (UN). This year it falls on a Saturday, the UN’s 81st birthday.
  • The race: the Council is choosing the next Secretary-General, who, as the column puts it, will lead the organisation “in the New Year”. By 16 October 2026 it had held six straw polls: on 30 July, 21 August, 18 September, 29 September, 7 October and 16 October.
  • The colour code: the sixth poll was the first in which the permanent members used red ballots, so that a “discouraged” vote from a permanent member gives “a strong indication that a candidate is facing a potential veto” (Security Council Report).
  • The rule: to win the Council’s recommendation, a candidate needs at least nine “encouraged” votes and no “discouraged” vote from a permanent member. After the sixth poll, none of the seven candidates had the support of all five permanent members (AP, 17 October 2026). The Council does not officially release straw-poll results.

Reform talks so far

  • Since 2008: at its 62nd session the General Assembly decided to begin intergovernmental negotiations (IGN) on Council reform in informal plenary during its 63rd session (decision 62/557, 15 September 2008). It continued them into its 80th session.
  • The Pact for the Future, adopted by world leaders at the Summit of the Future on 22 September 2024 (A/RES/79/1), deals with the Council in Actions 39 to 41. Action 39 sets guiding principles, among them “Redress the historical injustice against Africa as a priority” and “Enlarge the Security Council”, and states: “The question of the veto is a key element of Security Council reform.” It promises to “intensify efforts to reach an agreement on the future of the veto, including discussions on limiting its scope and use”. Action 40(a) encourages further models towards “a consolidated model in the future based on convergences on the five clusters”.
  • The G4 (Brazil, Germany, India and Japan): their foreign ministers met in New York on 22 September 2026, on the margins of the 81st session of the General Assembly. Their statement says that “expansion of the UNSC in both the permanent and non-permanent categories of membership is central to such reform”, that the IGN framework “has been largely ineffective in forging any concrete outcomes towards real UNSC reform despite 18 years of activities”, and it seeks a consolidated model and the start of text-based negotiations.
  • UN80, launched by Secretary-General António Guterres in March 2025, is a separate review of efficiency and mandates, welcomed by General Assembly resolution 79/318 of 18 July 2025. It does not deal with Council membership.

Tharoor names none of these processes; they are the ground his argument stands on.

The UN at 81: Tharoor’s Case

The record, in his account

  • Humanitarian: “Joint campaigns by UNICEF and the World Health Organisation”, he writes, nearly halved child mortality “from 12 million in 1990 to 6.9 million by 2011”, brought polio to the brink of eradication and coordinated responses to Ebola and Covid. He credits the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, where he served from 1978 to 1989, with assisting “over 35 million displaced people annually”.
  • Development and environment: in his account the Millennium Development Goals (2000 to 2015) “halved extreme poverty worldwide”, and the Montreal Protocol “successfully phased out 99 per cent of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons”. He lists the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris Agreement, the Beijing Conference and the 2018 Global Compact for Migration, which he calls “the first unified international framework for migration”. These commitments, he adds, now face “drastic funding cuts under the second Trump administration”.
  • Peace: the UN, he writes, “has brokered roughly 170 peace settlements”, from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the Iran-Iraq War, and stabilised Namibia, East Timor and Mozambique in their transitions.

The failure

  • Paralysis: in recent years, he writes, “wars have raged, unchecked by UN intervention, in Ukraine, Iran, Gaza, Libya and Yemen”.
  • A Council of 1945: the Council reflects the geopolitical realities of 1945, not those of today. Its permanent membership “looks like a war photo from 1945”; billions of people have no permanent representation, and the gap between relevance and formal authority creates “a severe representational deficit”.
  • The veto: it has “transformed the UNSC into a stage for strategic obstruction”. When permanent members use “the mere threat of a veto” to shield themselves or their allies, “the fundamental purpose of the Charter is subverted”.
  • The drift: when gridlock recurs, countries turn to “smaller, self-selected coalitions, ad hoc regional alliances, or exclusive economic forums like the G20”.

Why the UN still matters

  • He writes that “the G20 cannot dispatch peacekeepers to crisis spots”, and that regional blocs and mini-lateral groupings lack “the global inclusiveness and universal authority that only the United Nations possesses”.
  • Without a working Council, he warns, the world would be Thucydidean, where “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”.
  • The universal membership of the General Assembly and the binding legal authority of Council decisions “remain irreplaceable public goods”. At its best, the UN was “a vital shock absorber” where adversaries could meet and negotiate.

Two meanings of reform

  • For the developed West, he writes, reform means “budget cuts, merger of UN departments and organisations, and streamlining of mandates, staff numbers and costs”.
  • For developing countries, it means “greater inclusion, better representation and a definitive voice in determining the UN’s priorities”.
  • His steps: expand permanent seats to include underrepresented regions and emerging powers, establish clear norms to limit veto use, and deepen formal accountability between the Council and the General Assembly.
  • His limit: “reform must stop short of the point where the most powerful and influential member states might walk away, because that would end the UN”.

The Analysis

Where the argument is strong

  • Legitimacy and effectiveness are linked. A body that most of the world sees as unrepresentative finds its resolutions met “with cynicism”, in Tharoor’s word. The Pact for the Future accepts the premise: it calls for enlargement and names the veto as “a key element” of reform.
  • Forums cannot replace the Charter. Only Council decisions carry binding legal authority, and only the UN has universal membership. The G20 point is the argument’s strongest: coalitions can coordinate, but they cannot authorise or deploy peacekeepers.

Where it needs care

  • The Article 108 paradox. The reform that would make the Council legitimate needs the ratification of the five members whose privilege it dilutes. Tharoor’s warning against driving the powerful away recognises this, but it also limits how far his own remedy, norms to limit the veto, can go.
  • Enlargement is not veto reform. More permanent seats do not by themselves end paralysis. The Pact treats enlargement and the veto as separate principles, Action 39(b) and 39(g), and the debate needs both.
  • The record figures are his. The child-mortality, refugee, poverty, ozone and peace-settlement numbers are the author’s account; quote them with his name, and prefer the agency’s own report when you write them.

India’s stake

India is a G4 member. With Brazil, Germany and Japan it backs “expansion of the UNSC in both the permanent and non-permanent categories of membership” and wants the talks to move to a text. Tharoor’s distinction between the two meanings of reform matters for India: an agenda limited to budgets and mergers would leave the question of representation untouched.

Way forward

  1. Move the talks to a text. The G4 seeks a consolidated model and the start of text-based negotiations; the Pact’s Action 40(a) points the same way.
  2. Put Africa first, as Action 39(a) asks, which widens the coalition for any enlargement.
  3. Restrain the veto by norm, as Tharoor proposes and as the Pact’s “discussions on limiting its scope and use” allow, without a Charter amendment.
  4. Tie the Council to the General Assembly through deeper formal accountability, Tharoor’s third step.
  5. Count the votes Article 108 needs: two-thirds of the General Assembly and the ratification of all five permanent members.

Data and Institutions Vault

Prelims-grade facts:

The UN Charter:

  • Article 23: Security Council of fifteen members; five permanent and ten non-permanent, elected by the General Assembly for two years.
  • Article 23: a retiring non-permanent member is not eligible for immediate re-election.
  • Article 27: procedural decisions need nine affirmative votes; all other matters nine, including the concurring votes of the permanent members.
  • Article 97: the Secretary-General is appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council; the “chief administrative officer”.
  • Article 108: amendments need two-thirds of the General Assembly and ratification by two-thirds of members, including all permanent members.
  • UN Day, 24 October: the Charter’s entry into force in 1945.

Secretary-General selection, 2026:

  • Six straw polls by 16 October 2026: 30 July, 21 August, 18 September, 29 September, 7 October and 16 October.
  • A recommendation needs at least nine “encouraged” votes and no “discouraged” vote from a permanent member.
  • Ballot options: “encouraged”, “discouraged”, “no opinion expressed”; red ballots for permanent members, first used on 16 October.
  • Candidates (7): Ivonne A-Baki (Ecuador), Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces (Ecuador), Rafael Grossi (Argentina), Rebeca Grynspan (Costa Rica).
  • Candidates, continued: Olara Otunnu (Uganda), Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett (Guyana), Macky Sall (Senegal).

Reform process:

  • IGN: decision 62/557 (15 September 2008); negotiations from the 63rd session; continued into the 80th.
  • Pact for the Future: adopted 22 September 2024 at the Summit of the Future (A/RES/79/1).
  • Pact: Council reform in Actions 39 to 41; Action 42 deals with the General Assembly.
  • Action 39(a): “Redress the historical injustice against Africa as a priority”; 39(b): “Enlarge the Security Council”.
  • G4: Brazil, Germany, India, Japan; foreign ministers met in New York on 22 September 2026.
  • UN80: launched in March 2025; welcomed by General Assembly resolution 79/318 of 18 July 2025.

⚠️ Watch the trap: The Charter never uses the word “veto”: the rule is Article 27(3)'s “concurring votes of the permanent members”. Straw polls are informal and not in the Charter; the formal step is a Council resolution, adopted in a private meeting, recommending a candidate. Council reform in the Pact for the Future is Actions 39 to 41, not 42 to 44. UN80 is an efficiency and mandate review, not a plan to change Council membership. Article 23 still names the “Republic of China” and the “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”; the seats are now held by China and Russia.

The Debate

Tharoor: recreate a legitimate UN The other side
Permanent membership “looks like a war photo from 1945” Any amendment needs all five permanent members to ratify it (Article 108)
The veto has made the Council a stage for obstruction Curbing the veto risks the exit he warns against: reform that makes the most powerful walk away
Coalitions and the G20 cannot replace universal authority He concedes that mini-lateral groupings are useful for specific economic or defensive interests
The UN’s record is one of lives saved and new norms The record figures are his account, while the failures in peace and security are recent and visible
Reform should mean inclusion, representation and voice For the developed West, in his own description, reform means budget cuts and streamlining

Balanced verdict: Tharoor makes a sound and exam-ready case: the UN’s legitimacy problem lies in the Council, and no forum can replace a body with universal membership and binding authority. His remedy runs into the Charter he wants to save, since Article 108 gives each permanent member a say over any amendment. The realistic path combines enlargement with veto restraint by norm, and that path runs through a negotiating text that eighteen years of talks have not yet produced.

How to Think About This

  1. Separate the two reform agendas. Representation (who sits on the Council) and efficiency (budgets, mergers, mandates) are different debates; UN80 belongs to the second.
  2. Read the amendment rule first. Any answer on enlargement must deal with Article 108 and the ratification of all five permanent members.
  3. Distinguish the informal from the formal. Straw polls are informal soundings; the recommendation is a Council resolution and the appointment is the General Assembly’s (Article 97).
  4. Attribute the record. A column’s statistics are its author’s. Quote them with his name, or cite the agency’s own report.

Diagram-in-Words

Argument map

Tharoor’s case: why the UN must be recreated

Covers his account of the record, the Council’s failure, the drift to other forums, the two meanings of reform, his remedy and the Charter’s amendment rule.

Norms and lives in his account, the UN built the rules of international society and saved millions of lives Roughly 170 peace settlements his figure, from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the Iran-Iraq War A Council of 1945 permanent membership "looks like a war photo from 1945" The veto "a stage for strategic obstruction" the failure Coalitions and the G20 but "the G20 cannot dispatch peacekeepers to crisis spots" the drift The developed West budget cuts, merger of UN departments, streamlining of mandates Developing countries inclusion, representation and voice two meanings of reform Expand permanent seats, limit the veto by norm and deepen formal accountability between the Council and the General Assembly his remedy Article 108 ratification by two-thirds of members, including all the permanent members His limit reform must stop short of the point where the most powerful states might walk away the barrier
Tharoor’s argument: the UN’s record, in his account, is real, but a Council of 1945 and the veto have cost it legitimacy; his remedy must pass the Charter’s own amendment rule.
✍️ Mains Answer Framework
Question

The composition of the UN Security Council reflects the world of 1945. Examine the case for its reform and the obstacles posed by the Charter's amendment procedure, with reference to India's position. (250 words)

Introduction

United Nations Day, 24 October, marks the entry into force of the UN Charter in 1945. Under Article 23 the Security Council has fifteen members: five permanent members and ten non-permanent members elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms.
The permanent membership still reflects the world of 1945, and repeated deadlock has weakened the Council’s legitimacy.

Body

The case for reform rests on representation and effectiveness. Large regions and emerging powers have no permanent seat, and the Pact for the Future, adopted on 22 September 2024, lists among its guiding principles to ‘Redress the historical injustice against Africa as a priority’ and to ‘Enlarge the Security Council’ (Action 39).
Under Article 27(3), decisions on non-procedural matters need the concurring votes of the permanent members, the rule known as the veto, and the Pact states that ‘The question of the veto is a key element of Security Council reform.’ When the Council is paralysed, states turn to coalitions and forums such as the G20, which cannot deploy peacekeepers or claim universal authority. Even the choice of the next Secretary-General, appointed by the General Assembly on the Council’s recommendation (Article 97), has stalled: after six straw polls by 16 October 2026, no candidate had the support of all five permanent members.
The obstacles are structural. Under Article 108 an amendment needs a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly and ratification by two-thirds of members, including all the permanent members.
Intergovernmental negotiations began in 2008; on 22 September 2026 the G4 (Brazil, Germany, India and Japan) called them largely ineffective, backed expansion in both permanent and non-permanent categories and sought text-based negotiations.

Conclusion

Reform must widen representation without driving away the powers whose ratification Article 108 requires. Enlargement in both categories with a priority for Africa, agreed limits on the use of the veto and closer accountability between the Council and the General Assembly offer a path to restored legitimacy; the move from talks to a negotiating text is the test of intent.

Interview Angle

"Shashi Tharoor says UN reform must stop short of the point where the most powerful states walk away. How would you balance wider representation against the risk of losing the great powers?"

Takeaway Box

  • Lift line: “It is that UN we need to recreate, and 81 years is long enough to show us why it’s worth doing.”
  • The argument: the UN is central but failing at peace and security; a Council of 1945 and the veto have cost it legitimacy, and no forum can replace it.
  • The Charter: Article 23 (fifteen members), Article 27 (concurring votes of the permanent members), Article 97 (Secretary-General), Article 108 (amendment).
  • The race: six straw polls by 16 October 2026; none of the seven candidates had the support of all five permanent members.
  • The talks: IGN since 2008 (decision 62/557); Pact for the Future, 22 September 2024, Actions 39 to 41; G4 statement, 22 September 2026.
  • Mains keywords: representational deficit, veto restraint, legitimacy, universal membership, mini-lateralism, text-based negotiations, Article 108.
  • Ethics and Interview: power and fairness in global institutions; reform without exit.
  • Probable question: “Examine the case for reform of the UN Security Council and the obstacles in the Charter’s amendment procedure.”
  • Watch next: UN Day on 24 October; the next straw polls and the Council’s recommendation; whether the IGN moves to a text in the 81st session.

Sources:

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