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"There's going to be no effective U.N. without the U.S."

Amit Baruah

Shashi Tharoor, India's candidate for the post of Secretary-General of the United Nations, speaks about his chances and his plans.

Photo: V.V. Krishnan

Shashi Tharoor: "I think one of the qualifications that I bring to this particular candidacy that is relatively absent from the others is ... that I have a lot of internal experience of the [U.N.] system."

It is for the first time ever that India has decided to put up a candidate for the top U.N. job. Shashi Tharoor, Under Secretary-General for Communications at the U.N. in New York, is New Delhi's nominee.

Mr. Tharoor, author and columnist, has been with the U.N. since 1978 in different capacities. That, however, is unlikely to make his job easier in the campaign to become the next Secretary-General.

In an interview in New Delhi on Monday, Mr. Tharoor reveals that India has been considering his candidature for some time. The U.N. official believes that being an insider is a distinct advantage as far as he's concerned. Excerpts:

What are the chances of your becoming the next U.N. Secretary-General?

I wouldn't have entered the race if I didn't think there was a good chance. At the same time, one understands that this is a complicated race. We have a number of candidates in the fray and, perhaps, others to emerge. Ultimately, the important thing is that we try and put forward the best case for our candidacy and see how the member-states decide to go at the end of the day.

In a piece you wrote for Maxim News, you quoted former U.N. Secretary-General Trygve Lie as saying that the job was an impossible one. What are your qualifications that allow you to take on this impossible job?

First of all, understanding it. In some ways, getting the measure of what the job involves is the first step towards being able to do it properly. For some people, there is always a romantic illusion as to what the work is of the Secretary-General.

And for others, there is a very unromantic impression, which comes from the U.N. Charter, that it's a purely administrative job. The only reference to the Secretary-General in the U.N. Charter says he's the chief administrative officer of the organisation.

It also goes on, of course, to give the Secretary-General the power under Article 99 to bring threats to international peace and security to the attention of the Security Council, which seems a curious paradox for somebody who is also described as the administrative officer.

What I was trying to say is that the job involves these paradoxes. It involves, for example, being able to work with the rich and the powerful in dealing with the problems of the poor and the strife-torn. It involves having to, on the one hand, try and give a voice to the voiceless while at the same time recognising that you are constrained completely in how much you can do by what governments allow you to do.

I think one of the qualifications that I bring to this particular candidacy that is relatively absent from the others is not just this understanding of the job ... but the fact that I have a lot of internal experience of the [U.N.] system. I've worked for 28 years not just in one corner of the U.N., but I've done refugee work, humanitarian work, peacekeeping ... and now the management of a rather large department.

Some people have argued that you don't bring the necessary political weight to your candidacy like previous Secretary-Generals who came with a political background ...

In fact, they don't. Trygve Lie was an exiled minister in a wartime Norwegian Government, but everybody else has essentially been a civil servant or a diplomat.

Boutros-Ghali?

Boutros-Ghali was Deputy Foreign Minister, but in the Egyptian system that doesn't make him an elected politician ... this has not been a job for politicians as such. Both [Kurt] Waldheim and [Javier] Perez de Cuellar went on to political office after being Secretary-General.

Though Kofi Annan is the only one from within the ranks [to have become Secretary-General], Perez de Cuellar, too, had been an Under-Secretary General before he was elected. He was elected at the time when he was Ambassador of Peru to Moscow, but ambassadorships and U.N. positions, and in the case of Dag Hammarskjold, a civil service position in his country, have been far more typical of the credentials that are sought in a Secretary-General.

The process of selecting a Secretary-General is a rather opaque one, with the permanent five members of the Council doing the job. The Non-Aligned Group has proposed that the Council send a panel of names to the General Assembly, which then goes about electing one. Do you support such a change?

I have learnt the hard way, as it were, in the United Nations, that it's more useful and practical to work with the organisation you have. Obviously, you can try and make changes in a constructive direction provided you can bring the overwhelming majority of member-states along with you.

So, my suggestion is that until such time there is an overwhelming consensus behind such a change, that all of us should work with the system we have.

And, the system we have is almost certainly going to result in the [Security] Council sending only one name to the [General] Assembly.

If we are confident enough of the case we can make, we can make it to the 15 members of the Council. It's an unusual election: 15 voters among whom five can say no.

Can you give us some background of how India proposed your candidature?

The issue has been discussed at a fairly senior level in the government for some time now. The idea has come to us from others as well — and I'm not talking of permanent members of the Council — who have been looking around for suitable Asian candidates.

It has been a consideration, as one looks at the available candidates, there was not a widespread sense around the world that any of those who were declared earlier had already acquired the momentum to seize upon this office.

If Asia had early on united behind a credible candidate with a lot of momentum, India might have said we are happy with this. There was a real concern on the part of many governments that the field was not offering sufficiently good choice.

Had India not decided to sponsor you, would you still have been a candidate?

No. I can say that very clearly because though I am entirely conscious of my credibility as a candidate ... there is no real, serious candidate for Secretary-General who does not have the formal backing of his own government.

So, I have to say that had the Indian Government, in its wisdom, decided in the interests of other considerations not to go forward with this, I would not be a candidate.

The U.N. appears to have become the handmaiden of the United States. How would you change this if you became Secretary-General?

The great irony is that the United States believes exactly the opposite. I think this is an extremely important relationship for any Secretary-General to manage. It's very clear that there's going to be no effective U.N. without the U.S.

It would be foolish for the United Nations to set itself up in opposition, as it were, to what is now the sole superpower.

A link to your website suggests that finding someone who has largely been uninfluenced by the rising tide of anti-U.S. sentiment will be a critical qualification for the job of Secretary-General. Are you one such person?

I'm working at the United Nations. I hope I am open to all influences. I am daily influenced by the opinions, the concerns, the passions even of all 191 countries and I hear them, I meet with them; I listen to them. In that spirit I have to say that for me the U.S. is an important factor and, of course, we are physically located in America, so we are, if anything, susceptible more to the influence of America, American politics, American media, and American culture, more than any other. Being open to all gives you a perspective that I hope will be valuable.

Are you at all concerned that in case you don't make it, you might have to leave your current U.N. job even if you have enjoyed your moment of glory ...

Unemployed at 50 is not a pleasant prospect, but, yes, it's one I have had to consider. Look, a time comes in life when you decide there is a moment that you seize or you might forever regret not having taken it.

I recognise fully that if I had not run for office, I might have another 10 years at the U.N. If I run and lose, I may be gone by beginning of the New Year. That is a crossroads in my life that I really have to take. Part of making a decision like this is finding the courage to compete, courage to face the consequences.

In a recent article, you described India as a thali made up of many sumptuous dishes. Where do you locate yourself in this thali?

I think I'm certainly one of those dishes. In a curious way, I feel both very connected to my [Indian] roots. At the same time, however, I've lived more of my years outside India than in India.

So, I belong to this tribe of NRIs. In one of my books, I ask the question whether NRI should stand for Not Really Indian or Never Relinquished India. I think there is a little bit of both in everyone who is an NRI.

For me, I'd like to think of myself as one who has never really relinquished India. It's always been for me a fundamental interest and an intellectual interest as well.

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"There's going to be no effective U.N. without the U.S."

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