India on Monday displayed its impatience with the non-existent pace of UN reforms, suggesting that the world body’s irrelevance had grown to such an extent that the distance between the actual United Nations and Model UN (MUN) role-play in colleges and universities was shrinking.

Presenting India’s statement at the UNSC open debate on “Effective Multilateralism through the Defence of the Principles of UN Charter”, the permanent representative of India to the United Nations in New York, Ruchira Kamboj, articulated the frustration that successive governments in India have felt over the seemingly pointless lip service that is routinely paid to UN reforms.

“Multilateral institutions rarely die. They simply fade into irrelevance. Once upon a time, there was a very long distance between the Model UN role-play in colleges and universities and the real world. Is that distance shrinking?” she pondered aloud.

Stressing the need to open out the UN Security Council to more developing countries for effectiveness and credibility, India said people would lose faith in the United Nations if it continued to perpetuate the “1945 anachronistic mindset”.

Echoing the efforts of successive Indian governments to push for UN reforms, Kamboj added: “India was a founding signatory to the UN Charter when it was signed on June 26, 1945, in San Francisco. Seventy-seven years later, when we see the world’s largest democracy, along with entire continents of Africa and Latin America, being kept out of global decision-making, we rightly call for a major course correction.”

Of the view that the multilateral system had failed to deliver during the pandemic and also the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Kamboj asked: “Can we practice ‘multilateralism effectively’ in the 21st century through a body that celebrates the principle ‘to the victor belong the spoils’ privileged more than three generations ago?”