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12. Chakravarthi V. Narasimhan
Chakravarthi V. Narasimhan was born on May 21, 1915, in Srirangam in the south of India. He studied at the University of Madras at Oxford, and in 1936 entered the Indian Civil Service in Madras. In 1950 he joined the government of India in New Delhi and held several important posts with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Finance. In 1956 he was appointed executive secretary of ESCAFE (United Nations Economic Commission of Asia) in Bangkok. From 1959 to 1962 he served as underscretary for special political affairs at United Nations headquarters in New York. In 1961, Dag Hammarskjöld appointed him chef de cabinet, a post he kept through the tenure of U Thant and until September 15, 1973. At present Mr. Narasimhan is
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under-secretary-general for Inter-Agency Affairs at the UN headquarters where this conversation took place.
The United Nations comes closest to what we have in the way of a global organization. Yet, gloom and pessimism about the strength, the influence, and the prestige of the UN seem to be widespread.
To answer your question as to whence this gloom originates my impression is that it is largely due, first of all, to a general overexpectation. Secondly, it is largely due to a general misunderstanding about the nature of the organization. You have to remember that the United Nations is first and foremost an intergovernmental organization. While the Charter speaks in the name of ‘people’ rather than member states, the actions of governments here in New York in the various organs, such as the General Assembly and the Security Council, show that governments continue to pursue national interests through the UN machinery, especially when it comes to an issue in which major national interests of member states are at stake. Also, the United Nations can only be as effective as its member governments, especially those directly concerned, would wish it to be or are prepared to accept its position and authority. But, in the long run, I am convinced that what is good for the United Nations is good for every member state. However, with the present Charter it is difficult for member states to see it in this light and that is part of our problem.
As far as overexpectation is concerned, this goes back to a very large extent to the moment when the United Nations was conceived at the end of World War Two. The organization was then seen as an answer to all the world's problems. It would be very nice indeed if it worked this way in practice. But as you well know we are faced with many difficulties. Foremost, there is the question of a lack of political will. Even to reach a degree of economic cooperation between member states, we require a political will on their part. In fact, some of the economic problems in the world are even more intractable than some of our politcal problems. This all results, of course, in general disappointment. One of my philosopher friends used to say that two of the greatest disappointments in life are to get what you want and not to get what you want. In fact, the origin of the term ‘nemesis’ is getting what you wanted in the first place and then finding that it is not what you wanted. In our case, people become disappointed because the United Nations has not lived up to their expectations. On the other hand, they will say, for example, in a situation such as we had in the West Asia
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confrontation, going back to October 22, 1973, that the major powers might be able to agree on a course of action in stopping the fighting, but the only way to get the agreement implemented is still through the United Nations. It could not have been done by the two superpowers alone, even if they had been disposed to do so. It had to be arranged solely through the United Nations' good offices. As a matter of fact, the Secretary-General was reading to us the other day a cable he had received from a lady who told him, ‘Thank God for the United Nations.’
But coming now to the larger questions, including problems concerning our finite earth and its resources, the ‘limits to growth,’ pollution, the human environment, population, and so forth, we find an interaction of individual decisions, national decisions, and international action. If every person in the world decided to have ten children, you could imagine what would be the fate of the world. On the other hand, if everyone were to decide that it is best for his own personal reasons, and not for reasons of state or of humanity in general, that it would be unwise to have more than two children, let us say, then we would automatically reach a zero rate of population growth. Then it would be much easier over a period of time to plan the future.
I am convinced that questions concerning the environment, pollution, disease and epidemics, food and hunger, and so on transcend all national frontiers, especially in these days of technological revolution. With the present movement of individuals, like your being in Japan yesterday, today in New York, and tomorrow back in Amsterdam, it is quite obvious that the pace of the world has changed dramatically. People are moving constantly. What might be called the velocity of circulation has increased enormously, so that problems that perhaps could be isolated previously and be dealt with as individual problems, can no longer be dealt with solely on the national level; we have to have international action.
Indira Gandhi stressed that population control should not be imposed from above, but should be achieved by free choice. But how can we achieve global awareness, and achieve it fast, that population control is a must?
Population control will not be acceptable to all people. If it were acceptable, however, to a vast majority, the problem would be resolved to a large extent. It is quite impossible to try to find a universal solution. Nevertheless, the question of population has been given considerable attention during the seventeen years that I have been an international civil servant. What the United Nations actually has been able to do in the population field is fantastic.
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When I joined the Economic Commission for Asia, more than seventeen years ago, I set up a special unit for the first time to deal especially with demographic problems. I was warned by one of my colleagues at that time, Gunnar Myrdal, who was then executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Europe, that this was dangerous ground for the United Nations to tread. But I replied that I did not mind it, since I knew my own area, Asia. Our major problem was population. I thought it imperative that we at least got to know what the dimensions of the problems were. The awareness of the population question, the complications surrounding economic growth, and so on, have been mainly tackled by the United Nations so far. The very first step, after all, in dealing with these questions is to be aware of them. This awareness was promoted through the work mainly done during the years of darkness, I might say, by the United Nations.
The United Nations lit one small candle, providing the light by which others could see what the future had in store for them. That was the very first step. Gradually, we all headed for change. For instance, the World Health Organization was a very conservative body some ten years ago. Dr. Bandau was in that respect a conservative, but he, too, later changed his attitude completely.
Many observers agree population is problem number one. What, in concrete terms, is the United Nations doing right now in this field?
We have a fund for population activities. It started with five million dollars five years ago. At the moment it has reached the level of fifty million, and it is likely to go up to one hundred million a year.
A World Population Conference is to be held in Bucharest. A world plan of action will be introduced and will certainly be adopted. This plan cannot be imposed on governments by the United Nations, any more than it can be imposed by national governments on the people, as Madame Gandhi has already pointed out to you. But, here again, there is a wide field open to research. Two kinds of research, that is. One is what we call operational research, meant to investigate why a certain program worked in some parts of the world but was not being adopted in other parts. We also study what should be done to make programs acceptable elsewhere. The second area of research is to examine where family planning has been acceptable and to study whether we would be able to give the people the tools, the necessary means to achieve the results they would like to achieve. Here, I feel, there is room for very considerable research and increased efforts. One of these days, I am sure, we will find the answers to these problems. Meanwhile, in those countries where population problems are the worst, we should con- | |
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tinue to use the known methods in trying to help reduce the population growth.
This is just one example of a problem, where, exactly as you said earlier, the United Nations will be responsible for bringing about the necessary awareness of these questions and for promoting the recognition of the need to take action at three levels: internationally, nationally, and at the individual levels. Only then will we be able in the long run to put forward plans of action on a global level and at the same time at the national and individual levels, as in India.
We have had various United Nations missions visit India to study our family planning programs, for instance. Discussions were held to examine how they could be improved. Of course, we at the United Nations are ready to give assistance in this sector to any country that might seek it. On the other hand, it is not the purpose of the United Nations to impose family planning on any government or to tell them what they should do, since this would be a counterproductive method.
Would you be prepared to assume, in switching to the problem of ‘limits of growth’ and limited resources, that in view of a future decrease in the availability of raw materials, scarcity even, aggression between the rich nations, those which use the precious resources of this planet at the heaviest rate, and the developing nations might arise? A small replica of what might be in store was the oil crisis late in 1973.
I hope, on the contrary, that the developing nations will meet the great opportunity they have now to share their resources with the advanced nations that are dependent on these resources. You see this very clearly in the conflict over oil. I do not think there will be conflicts of the sort your question implies.
But it would seem only natural that the poor and underdeveloped southern half of this globe will eventually be fed up with a situation in which the United States, representing six percent of the world's masses, uses up forty percent or more of the natural resources, which supposedly belong to all of us. The same goes, by the way, for Europe.
I think that type of conflict was perhaps possible in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. But I do not think it possible in the last third of the twentieth century; for either the United States or France to go and seize an oil well in order to protect their financial interests.
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Only because if any of the Western nations made a wrong move, the Soviet Union would step in.
And apart from that, it would not be practical policy. Take this morning's newspaper or the radio telling us that we will all run out of gas. What does that mean? That we are to use less. It also means that developing nations can and will ask more for what they have to offer. During the last quarter of the century we may at last see a leveling of standards between the rich and the poor countries, a reduction of the inequality which has already plagued mankind for so long.
And in the process, I am sure that the advanced nations will have to make considerable changes in their patterns of consumption. In the long run they will probably come to the conclusion that this is a good thing as well. There is no great advantage in throwing away an automobile after using it only one year. There is no great advantage in not having repair facilities and being confronted with a situation, as they have in this country [the United States] where it is cheaper to throw away a refrigerator than to try to repair it. This is a highly wasteful way of proceeding and before long people will discover it. We will also see changes in patterns of consumption because resources will become increasingly scarce. We will find, I think, that this is the very leverage that the developing countries hold in order to reduce the inequalities and gaps, not only in growth rates, but in living standards. I hope that the living standards of the rich and the poor countries will meet over a period of time at a certain acceptable level, which is what you might call the good life in the best sense of the word. Does the good life have to mean the possession of numerous television sets, telephones, and countless other luxury products? The good life consists of having enough to be able to live in comfort and decency with a limited amount of leisure, so that there is time available to pursue esthetic and intellectual interests.
This is the great lesson, I feel, that we in Asia have to offer to the advanced nations of the West. I remember years ago an American friend of mine came to India. He was a very compassionate man. One day he told me, ‘You know, I have seen so many people walking on bare feet in the sun. My heart goes out to them.’ I replied, ‘My friend, you have missed a great opportunity. You have come to India and you have been looking at the people's feet to see if they are shod instead of looking at their faces to see if they are happy. You will find that these people, poor as they are, walking barefoot as they do - and it should not happen; I am not justifying it - but in spite of it all, they are happy people. This is what is missing in your part of
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the world. That is the great difference between you and us. We are content with a lower standard of living. Samuel Johnson once said, ‘A big cup and a small cup can be equally full.’ The question is not whether the big cup holds more or the small cup holds less, it is which is fuller. A full small cup can represent a greater level of contentment and satisfaction than a half-empty cup which is three times, four times, six times the size of the smaller cup. If man could only adjust his patterns of thinking to his patterns of consumption, then I think he will find that everything falls into place. I regard this scarcity of resources as one of the great opportunities for economic and social statesmanship, for we could use it to change people's attitudes toward these very important questions linked to human survival.
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