India which aspires to be a superpower in Asia, lost its credibility last week when it voted against Iran at a meeting of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. The headline in a leading Indian newspaper said: “India’s shameful vote against Iran.” The criticism kept snowballing, as the media, academics and mainstream and left-wing politicians in New Delhi crucified the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for abandoning its ally.

The disputed IAEA resolution, backed aggressively by the United States and the 25-member European Union, threatened to penalise Iran even though it has still not been proven beyond any reasonable doubt that the Iranians are building a nuclear weapon. The tragedy of it is that while the Western world stood firm in its flawed conviction, the countries of the Non-Aligned Movement split ranks. “India was the worst offender,” says one Asian diplomat, “because it cast a negative vote, instead of taking the path of least resistance by abstaining.” Still, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Algeria, Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, South Africa, Tunisia, Vietnam and Yemen were among the non-Western countries that abstained on the vote. So did the two big powers, China and Russia. The vote was 22 in favour, one against with 12 abstentions. But India’s negative vote was a betrayal of all that it has stood for defending the cause of developing countries at the United Nations. In one single vote, India lost the trust placed on it as a respected and founder member of the 114-nation Non-Aligned Movement. A second IAEA resolution, which will take the more drastic step of “referring” Iran to the UN Security Council, is due to come up in Vienna in November this year.

The political pressure on New Delhi last month obviously came from the US, which has pledged to provide civilian nuclear reactors and nuclear technology to India. The International Relations Committee of the House of Representatives put out the word that India’s nuclear deal with the United States was in jeopardy. The question remains: how can you entertain visions of becoming a superpower when you do not have the guts to stand up to the world’s only other superpower (the US) — when your own interests are at stake in Iran? The vote also jeopardises India’s ambition to find a permanent seat in the Security Council.

If India is seen as a political lackey of the United States and Western powers, why should the developing world back New Delhi’s claims for a seat in the Security Council? Perhaps India should also recognise that the United States has so far not made any public proclamation backing New Delhi’s drive for a permanent Security Council seat. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted that Washington was in favour of expanding the Security Council. Perhaps she deliberately refused to openly back any of the developing countries by name which have been unsuccessfully knocking at the Council door for nearly a decade. — IPS