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By:

Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Red Romance

For long, the Naxalite in news was recognisable by the gun. But the more insidious version of Naxalism has never needed a rifle. It has thrived in varsity classrooms and newspaper and magazine columns, fostered by men and women sympathetic to it. These academics and other members of the so-called intelligentsia have long enjoyed their status as ‘respectable dissenters’ even when their politics offered intellectual alibis for Naxals carrying guns. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent...

Red Romance

For long, the Naxalite in news was recognisable by the gun. But the more insidious version of Naxalism has never needed a rifle. It has thrived in varsity classrooms and newspaper and magazine columns, fostered by men and women sympathetic to it. These academics and other members of the so-called intelligentsia have long enjoyed their status as ‘respectable dissenters’ even when their politics offered intellectual alibis for Naxals carrying guns. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent Independence Day warning about “dimaagi Naxals” should therefore not be dismissed as another political label. His larger point was that an insurgency does not survive on ammunition alone. It survives on ideas and people willing to make violence appear morally fashionable. The most revealing feature of India’s Maoist movement was never simply its brutality. It was the strange attraction it exercised over sections of the metropolitan Left elite. The Naxalite with an AK-47 could be transformed into a romantic revolutionary while the policeman he killed became an instrument of an oppressive state. This was not merely naïveté. At its ugliest, it was the intellectual laundering of political violence. The fantasy of the romantic revolutionary has always been seductive. In this narrative, amplified through sympathetic media priding itself on telling ‘truth to power,’ India was not a constitutional democracy struggling with inequality and corruption but an inherently illegitimate state waiting to be overthrown. In the minds of this elite Left, Maoist violence has often been recast as resistance while attacks on infrastructure as blows against capitalism. The armed overthrow of the Indian republic was the liberation they craved for. Some of India’s most celebrated intellectuals have flirted dangerously close to that moral inversion. The issue here is whether intellectual prestige can be used to sanitise an ideology whose practitioners have murdered civilians, policemen and public servants and terrorised some of India’s poorest districts. A university cannot be the place where Maoist romanticism acquires the legitimacy of a fashionable campus cause. Professors who turn armed insurgents into heroic revolutionaries are not merely exercising academic freedom. If they knowingly excuse violence, they are helping to construct the moral vocabulary that makes violence possible. Let’s be clear here. A professor who criticises the Indian state is not a Naxal while a journalist who exposes state excesses is not an enemy of India. But an intellectual who repeatedly excuses, glorifies or rationalises political violence cannot hide behind the word ‘dissent.’ India has paid an enormous price for the Maoist fantasy. Thousands have died. Entire regions were held back by fear while development was obstructed. The people supposedly being liberated were often the first to suffer. The armed Naxal is now being pushed towards extinction. But the Indian republic cannot afford to leave behind the romantic mythology that made the gun respectable. A democracy can tolerate dissent. It should never be expected to tolerate the glorification of those who seek its violent destruction.

Broken Consensus: Is the UN Still Relevant?

The UN’s current structure is a colonial relic, where a few nations still dominate global rules.

The United Nations was born out of the ashes of the Second World War with a lofty promise: to prevent future wars, uphold international peace and security, and provide a forum for resolving disputes through dialogue, not violence. It was conceived as the cornerstone of a new world order, where multilateralism would guide diplomacy and global cooperation would replace confrontation. For many years, it lived up to that promise in spirit, if not always in practice. Today, however, the UN is increasingly being bypassed, ignored, or rendered ineffective in the face of the very challenges it was created to address.


The world has changed greatly since 1945, yet the UN’s core structure remains frozen in time. Institutions that fail to evolve risk irrelevance, and the UN is no exception.


Many of today’s major challenges, like climate action, security alliances, technology governance, pandemic response, and even peace negotiations, are tackled outside the UN—through bilateral or regional deals or forums like the G20, BRICS, and ASEAN. The General Assembly passes resolutions, but with no enforcement, they are mostly diplomatic theatre. The Security Council, once central to global security, is paralysed by vetoes and inaction. Unable to enforce its own decisions, it has become more of a stage for power politics than a tool for peace.


The Security Council still mirrors the power balance of 1945. The five permanent members—the US, UK, France, Russia, and China—hold disproportionate power through their veto, often blocking action in conflicts tied to their interests. As a result, the Council frequently fails to issue even statements, let alone binding resolutions.


Much of the world lacks a voice in the Council: Africa, Latin America, and much of Asia are sidelined, fuelling resentment and eroding the UN’s legitimacy.


The war in Ukraine starkly shows the UN’s paralysis: Russia’s permanent seat lets it veto any move to hold it accountable. Similarly, the Syrian civil war, with its mass deaths and refugee crisis, dragged on for years without effective UN action.

 

Case for Reform

India’s frustration with the UN system is neither new nor unique. As the world’s most populous nation and a major economy, its absence from permanent Security Council membership is a glaring anomaly. A nuclear power, a spacefaring nation, the world’s largest democracy, and a leading contributor to UN peacekeeping, India still remains outside the core decision-making circle.


The UN’s current structure is a colonial relic, with a few nations still dominating global rules. India’s growing stature and the UN’s stalemate have led it to seek greater strategic success through forums like BRICS and SCO. By contrast, the UN often feels like a stage where India is asked to contribute but denied a role in writing the script.


UN reform has been debated for decades, from expanding the Security Council with new permanent members (India, Brazil, Germany, and an African representative) to curbing the veto. Yet efforts remain stalled, as the P5 have little incentive to dilute their power.


Without consensus among permanent members, reform remains a distant dream. Yet the status quo is increasingly untenable. As more nations lose faith, the global order may tilt further towards regional blocs, fragmenting the notion of a unified international community.


The real question is not whether the UN needs an overhaul or not. The real question is whether the UN can reform itself from within or whether it is time for the world to look for a new alternative.


Today’s world needs a new international body that can better reflect the current geopolitical, economic, and demographic realities. It should be based on a new framework built on principles of democratic representation, rotational leadership, transparency, and accountability.


The real danger lies not in reforming the global system but in doing nothing. As global politics shift in today’s multipolar world and the UN declines, we risk deeper polarisation, where international law is honoured only when convenient and cooperation yields to rhetoric. In this vacuum, powerful states or alliances will pursue their own interests, leaving weaker nations to navigate a fragmented, volatile order.


For countries like India, this is both a challenge and an opportunity. As a rising global power, India must assert its role not just as a reform-seeker but as a reform-leader, building consensus among like-minded and under-represented nations and proposing viable models for a more inclusive and effective international system.

 

(The writer is a foreign affairs expert. Views personal.)

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