India slammed stalled UNSC reform as ‘theatre of the absurd’, demands text-based negotiations

By Anjali Sharma

UNITED NATIONS – Deputy Permanent Representative of India to the UN, Yojna Patel on Wednesday a sharply criticized the UN Security Council reform slow process at the UN General Assembly, called the 17-year-long negotiations a “theatre of the absurd.”

She told the UNGA that New Delhi urged the adoption of a negotiating text with clear timelines, warned that a small bloc is blocking meaningful progress.

Ms. Patel said that the process has lost direction after nearly two decades of going nowhere.

She was speaking at the world body said the Intergovernmental Negotiations framework had become dysfunctional, despite having been created 17 years ago to push reforms forward.

Patel said that member states continue to repeat the same positions year after year, without any mechanism to measure progress or resolve core disagreements. She argued that the discussions are stuck in a repetitive loop and need a complete reset to regain seriousness.

She called for a fundamental shift, India said the UN must begin text-based negotiations, something that many countries have demanded for years, so that nations can finally debate concrete proposals instead of recycling broad statements. Patel stressed that transparent timelines and milestones would help bring structure to the process.

Ms. Patel said there was a need for “introspection and soul searching” on why the reform effort has not moved an inch, and asked whether the membership was “condemned, like Sisyphus, to be trapped in this endless cycle till eternity?”

President of the General Assembly Annalena Baerbock has appointed Kuwait’s Tareq MAM AlBanai and the Netherlands’ Lise Gregoire-van Haaren as the new IGN co-chairs. India expressed hope that the fresh leadership would push the discussions towards “concrete outcomes”.

Patel noted that a major obstacle is the United for Consensus group (led by Italy and including Pakistan), which has consistently resisted the adoption of a negotiating text.

The lack of such a document allows the group to block structured debate, leaving the reform process stuck at the same stage year after year., she added

Patel said that calls for consensus cannot become a tool for paralysis, adding that when consensus is “wielded as a veto by another name, [it] becomes a tool of obstruction, not inclusion.”

The UfC bloc primarily opposes adding new permanent members to the Council, a change India and the G4 countries have strongly advocated, she added.

Patel also responded to suggestions that seats be set aside for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

She said India supports greater representation for Africa and for small island states, but maintained that “faith cannot become the determining criteria for Council entitlement.”

Permanent Representative of Brazil to the UN Sergio Franca Danese said the global perception is that the UN is struggling with effectiveness, making reform an urgent priority, spoke on behalf of the G4 group (India, Brazil, Japan and Germany).

He emphasized that discussions must now shift from broad statements to actual negotiation and said that “We must stop talking about talking and start negotiating.”