UN, IMF, World Bank:The last colonial club

Plaque Commemorating Formation of

 IMF in July 1944

The global order is a museum of Western power — polished, curated, and protected by velvet ropes. 

The UN, the IMF and the World Bank proudly claim to represent humanity, but the architecture of these institutions still reflects the world of 1945, when colonial empires still breathed and Asia was on its knees. The difference today is jarring: Europe’s share of global GDP has shrunk, but its grip on global governance remains a clenched fist.

Henry Kissinger once said, “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.” The world’s most powerful nations built multilateralism not as a moral project, but as a mechanism to institutionalize their dominance. And they have been intoxicated with that privilege ever since.

The UN Security Council is the most blatant exhibit: five nations hold veto power, including three European or Western states and China that inherited a seat meant for Taiwan. India — the world’s largest democracy, largest population, and a top-five economy — remains an outsider. Legitimacy is apparently optional; victory in 1945 is not.

The Bretton Woods twins are even less subtle. By long-standing tradition, the United States appoints the World Bank President and Europe selects the IMF Managing Director. The coveted voting quotas? Engineered to ensure that nothing of strategic importance escapes Washington’s oversight. This is not governance — it is geopolitical wealth management.

Let us not pretend the rhetoric of “global cooperation” hides the cold math behind it. Former U.S. officials have said the quiet part out loud. President Donald Trump declared: “The United States owes billions of dollars and we’re not paying until they treat us fairly.” If the UN doesn’t serve America’s interests, America will simply choke the funds. It is a protection racket with better lighting.

China markets itself as the alternative champion of the developing world — but only as long as the world agrees to be developed in China’s image. Behind its loans lie ports, digital dependencies, and a map of influence drawn in hidden ink. Beijing wants to rewrite the rules — not to make them fair, but to make them Chinese.

India stands at the edge of this dangerous duality. Its position is unique — a democracy that refuses Western tutelage and an Asian power that rejects authoritarian expansion. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has declared: “India’s voice must be heard in shaping the global order.” He is not asking for charity; he is demanding recognition.

India’s diplomacy is no longer polite. Delhi is calling out hypocrisy in real time. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar argues that Security Council reform is the world’s most urgent structural correction. He means what he says: an order that excludes 4.3 billion people from real power cannot preach democracy to anyone.

During its G20 presidency, India forced the system to listen — bringing the African Union into the room not as a guest but as a member. It was a crack in the colonial glass ceiling of global governance.

The West built the system. China wants to capture it. India intends to rewrite it.

The multilateral world is not collapsing — it is mutating. And the biggest shock to the old guard is this: India is no longer willing to play by rules written to keep it small. The heirs of the empire must finally confront a world where they no longer get to decide who counts as powerful.