The need to ensure effective national participation in the United Nations has never been given adequate attention in India. Nor is any serious attempt made to analyze how far patterns and problems, if any, of national participation account for lack of sufficient political support in the United Nations to India's positions on some of the questions with a bearing on its vital interests. Such an assessment forms an integral part of the larger question of making use of the United Nations forum for the purpose of safeguarding the country's interests more satisfactorily. Accordingly, a section of this article is devoted to examine the working of India's mechanism—mainly its Permanent Mission at New York—from the personnel and functional angles and the emergent patterns and problems. The subsequent section illustrates India's interactions in a couple of important political questions, so as to facilitate a general evaluation.
