As a founding member of the United Nations, India strongly supports the purposes and principles of the UN and has made significant contributions in implementing the goals of the Charter, and the evolution of the UN's specialised programmes and agencies.

India is a member of G4, group of nations who back each other in seeking a permanent seat on the Security Council and advocate in favour of the reformation of the UNSC.

[6] India signed the Declaration by United Nations on 1 January 1942 and was represented by Girija Shankar Bajpai who was the Indian Agent-General at the time.

Independent India viewed its membership at the United Nations as an important guarantee for maintaining international peace and security.

India's status as a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement and the Group of 77 cemented its position within the UN system as a leading advocate of the concerns and aspirations of developing countries and the creation of a more equitable international economic and political order.

Dr. Hansa Mehta, a Gandhian political activist and social worker who led the Indian delegation, had made important contributions in drafting of the Declaration, especially highlighting the need for reflecting gender equality by changing the language of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 'all men are created equal' (Eleanor Roosevelt's preferred phrase) to 'all human beings'.

India supported the struggle towards global disarmament and the ending of the arms race, and towards the creation of a more equitable international economic order.

India then went on to chair the three international commissions for supervision and control for Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos established by the 1954 Geneva Accords on Indochina.

He had a powerful, if relatively silent, ally in the US president Dwight D. Eisenhower who went to the extent of using America's clout in the IMF to make Eden and Mollet (the then French Prime Minister) behave".

[13] Charter provisions on non-self-governing territories were given a new thrust when the UN adopted the landmark 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples which was co-sponsored by India.

The following year, the Special Committee on the Implementation of the Declaration on Decolonization was established to study, investigate and recommend action to bring an end to colonialism, it was chaired by India for the first time.

Other issues, such as environmentally sustainable development and the promotion and protection of human rights, have also been an important focus of India's foreign policy in international forums.

These issues included the disputed princely states of Junagadh, Hyderabad and Kashmir, which were ultimately incorporated into the Indian Union through the use of military force.

[20] Nehru's hope that the UN would unconditionally instruct Pakistan to vacate the one-third portion of Kashmir that the Pakistani tribesmen and army had occupied fell flat in the face of geopolitical manoeuvrings and cross-issue linkage.

To this day, Indian strategic commentators and critics of Nehru bemoan his cardinal mistake of taking the Kashmir dispute to a UN that was packed with pro-Pakistani partisan powers.

[22] As if a double reminder were needed that India was small fry in a UN dominated by crafty Great Powers divided into two ideological camps, New Delhi was disappointed to find that Security Council members the US, United Kingdom and France tried to prevent it from forcibly absorbing the Portuguese colony of Goa in 1961.

[23] But for the Soviet veto in favour of India, Goa could have become enmeshed in another Kashmir-like stalemate for decades, buffeted by the changing winds of Great Power alignments and preferences that were paralysing and hijacking the UN.

Following the conflict with China, India became involved in two wars with Pakistan and entered a period of political instability, economic stagnation, food shortages and near-famine conditions.

India's role diminished in the UN which came both as a result of its image and a deliberate decision by the post-Nehru political leadership to adopt a low profile at the UN and speak only on vital Indian interests.

[28] In his book "India's Changing Role in the United Nations" Stanley Kochanek shows how 'bilateralism became the guiding principle of Indian foreign policy', relegating the UN to just an 'arena for maintaining such contacts'.

[29] Further the Soviet Union's backing became far more important than a slow and indecisive UN Security Council when India obtained its greatest strategic victory by beating China in the 1967 War and breaking up Pakistan into two and carving out independent Bangladesh in 1971.

Soon after the UN's non-proliferation agenda became another irritant that forced New Delhi to view some units of the organization with distaste as fronts for imposing discriminatory regimes instead of promoting universal disarmament.

[19] From the very beginning it has refused to lend its support to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty with India's then External Affairs Minister and later President, Pranab Mukherjee in a visit to Tokyo in 2007 commenting that: "If India did not sign the NPT, it is not because of its lack of commitment for non-proliferation, but because we consider NPT as a flawed treaty and it did not recognise the need for universal, non-discriminatory verification and treatment.

To cater to these new realities and the pressing need for reforms of all aspects of UNSC, G-4 proposed to have the General Assembly increase the Security Council’s membership from 15 to 25 or 26, by adding six permanent and four or five non-permanent members.

[48] In 2016, with focus on combating inequalities to achieve Sustainable Development Goals, B. R. Ambedkar's birth anniversary was observed at the United Nations for the first time.