President Trump’s formation of the Board of Peace (BoP) has set the cat among the many pigeons. The primary assembly is scheduled for February 19. Primarily based on the US proposal, UN Safety Council decision (UNSCR) 2803 accredited the establishing of a Board of Peace for overseeing the Gaza Peace Plan. The UNSCR 2803 provides the BoP sweeping powers, together with the supervision and implementation of transitional governance administration of a “Palestinian technocratic, apolitical committee of competent Palestinians from the Strip”; undertake reconstruction of Gaza and set up a brief Worldwide Stabilization Pressure (ISF) in Gaza, “acceptable to the BoP”. In impact, the UN Safety Council (UNSC) gave carte blanche to President Trump to arrange the BoP as he deems match. And historical past has proven us, particularly in Israel-Egypt and Israel-Jordan peace treaties, that sustained US involvement, safety and financial assurances and shut monitoring, are essential for the success of any plan in West Asia. That’s what BoP goals to do.
However when Trump did set it up, many have accused him of exceeding the mandate given to him by UNSCR 2803. One clear transgression has been that he has prolonged the mandate of the BoP to cowl all conflicts and never simply the Gaza Peace Plan. Aside from this, as regards different provisions of conserving the final word veto for himself as Chair of the Board, selecting the international locations invited and constituting the Government Board, it’s ingenious to argue that he was not authorised to take action when the UNSC gave him carte blanche to do what he desires with the BoP.
Then again, India has earlier taken an nearly subdued line on the unfolding human and humanitarian tragedy in Gaza. I’ve persistently advocated a extra vocal and proactive stand by India, given our stand towards terror, our help for a two-State resolution, our proximity to Israel, and our big pursuits in West Asia. Nevertheless, when India’s relations with Trump 2.0 took successful, together with that, our capacity to interact with the US administration on the Gaza battle additionally took successful. In actual fact, India despatched a minister of state to characterize India within the Gaza Peace Summit in October 2025, collectively hosted by Egypt and the US.
Whereas Trump’s BoP might search to cowl all conflicts inside its ambit, realistically, it’ll now contend solely with the Gaza Peace Course of first. Consequently, shorn of an emotional anti-Trump response, purely from a geopolitical and strategic standpoint, the invite to BoP provides India one more alternative to succeed in out to the US president on a difficulty of significance to him (and to us), particularly after having declined earlier alternatives to interact on the highest stage. The truth that India and the US might have reached a commerce deal doesn’t routinely reset the relations to the place they had been a 12 months in the past. India-US relations want extra reassurance in a fragmented world. And India becoming a member of the BoP is a giant deal, and the US is aware of it. There must be a quid professional quo for our acceptance to be on the BoP, and the US could also be prepared to accommodate India much more to have us on board.
There is no such thing as a doubt {that a} proactive function of India will assist deliver stability to the deliberations in BoP. If we don’t be a part of, India might be leaving the sector open for international locations like Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and others to drive the agenda. Not everybody has India’s pursuits in thoughts. Do we have to hesitate as a result of main European international locations have declined? Under no circumstances. Their considerations are completely different — breakdown of the transatlantic alliance, the US coveting Greenland, the weakening of NATO, rising synergy between the US and Russia.
However what if the BoP begins coping with the India-Pakistan problem? First, it’s higher to be contained in the room when this problem comes up, moderately than staying exterior. Furthermore, India is simply too massive a rustic to be bullied into accepting such meddling by the BoP. And at last, what Pakistan does or doesn’t do within the BoP needs to be the very last thing that ought to affect India vis-à-vis our participation. The world is aware of higher than to pander to Pakistan’s anti-India designs.
The opposite worry expressed is that the BoP might supplant the UN Safety Council in coping with conflicts. First, a non-representative physique just like the BoP can not displace a universally consultant organisation just like the UN, which is the one physique the place greater than 100 small States have a collective voice. At finest, the BoP might eclipse UNSC for a brief interval on Gaza.
As it’s, the UNSC is paralysed thanks to 2 differing world views of the 5 everlasting members. Nevertheless, the BoP can turn into the geopolitical counterpart of one other non-representative if influential physique, which is the G20, because the US, the present G20 president, desires the G20 to return to its core deal with financial and monetary points.
The actual shelf lifetime of the BoP might be three years (although UNSCR 2803 says it’ll should be reviewed in December 2027). By which era, Trump 2.0 might be over, and India can choose out with out having to pay $1 billion. Becoming a member of BoP is just not like getting into Resort California of The Eagles.
India has simply reached out to the Arab world, with which it has the most effective of relations now, by internet hosting the second India-Arab overseas ministers assembly in Delhi. All that is a part of a cautious orchestration the place India is poised to play a extra energetic function in Palestine and West Asia, and shrug off its picture of not getting concerned in world conflicts. These are very constructive developments. Becoming a member of the BoP will solely be a logical end result of those steps and make sure that India performs the function it was at all times destined to do — a voice of cause and pragmatism in and for the International South.
TS Tirumurti is a former Everlasting Consultant of India to the United Nations, New York and at the moment chair, Steering Committee, Deccan Centre for Worldwide Relations, Chennai. The views expressed are private
