The Kolkata Libertarian argues that India shouldn’t try to be a permanent member of the UN Security Council. I think he is wrong. I think that his entire argument can be summed up as “It is too much trouble”; the reasoning he gives is based on flawed metaphors.
He compares India to the weakest kid in a school and a “pawn” in a chess game. Once you accept those analogies, everything else he says follows.

The problem is that in the international chess game the pawns and the players are interchangeable, and unlike in a schoolyard, the currency of trade in foreign affairs is not just threats, but also inducements.

India won’t and shouldn’t be in the Security Council to achieve world peace or to make the voice of Third World countries heard. It should and will be there to get a good deal for itself. Suman looks on with horror at the situation of those temporary members who have to choose between voting for the US and voting for France. But what is wrong with being wooed by a bunch of superpowers? And what is wrong with your vote being a tradeable commodity? That’s how democracy works. “You vote for me on this issue and I’ll give you concessions on another” And how is it that India ceases to matter if India starts trading its vote?

The last point that Suman makes is the most substantive one, and in my view, cuts to the heart of the dispute.

He says:
The other choice India will have is to permanently hitch its vote to US interests, and trust that rewards from the worlds largest hyperpower will be forthcoming. After all, is this not what the likes of Thomas Friedman wish for? To replace the recalcitrant French with the more pliable Indians.. If India does join the US bandwagon unquestioningly, it faces international criticism from other fronts, placing its hard-won bilateral relationships with Europe, Russia and China in jeapordy

We have different worldviews.
This problem would be real if the world were split into two mutually irreconcilable blocs, as it was when the US and the USSR were at each other’s throats. In such a situation, supporting one of the blocs on any one issue would mean earning the permanent enmity of the other bloc[1]. In such a situation, we’d have been probably better off staying neutral than taking a stand on any issue [2].

But that is not true now. The Iraq issue won’t be forgotten next year, but the next year will bring in new problems. Perhaps on an issue involving Pakistan, India and Russia will be pitted against US and China. In?an issue involving Taiwan, India and the US will be pitted against China, and so on. No one, not even superpowers can afford to hold permanent grudges now. There will be a lot of calling in of debts, trading of favours and putting of pressure.

Yes, there will be pressure. Suman would be right if India were an extremely immature nation with no notion of how to conduct an independent foreign policy. India has stood up to pressures. It has resisted pressure to accept mediation on Kashmir, it has exploded nuclear bombs and hasn’t given a damn to “world opinion”, to name just two of its antics. Its relation with other superpowers is one of mutual (albeit asymmetrical) interdependence.

1. As may be immediately seen, this is a highly simplified view of the cold war situation. Even then, the choices weren’t as clear cut as the scenario makes it out to be.
2. Actually even staying neutral is a tough call. The question of whether it is less tough than taking a stand is an open one. For example, what happens if we are happily neutral and some crony of the big bully picks up a fight with us? Do we give in or do we hitch with the other bully? In any case this problem would be there with practically every foreign policy decision, not just with voting in the Security Council.
3. Suman is also somewhat misrepresenting Thomas Friedman’s views. The relevant part is:
   Why replace France with India? Because India is the world’s biggest democracy, the world’s largest Hindu nation and the world’s second-largest Muslim nation, and, quite frankly, India is just so much more serious than France these days. France is so caught up with its need to differentiate itself from America to feel important, it’s become silly. India has grown out of that game. India may be ambivalent about war in Iraq, but it comes to its ambivalence honestly. Also, France can’t see how the world has changed since the end of the cold war. India can.

The Debate continues: Suman respondshere and I rebut him here