the offi cial communication to Asaf Ali regarding his nomination for the
Special Session advised him to work toward securing India’s member-
ship in the proposed committee.^29 Partly because of this desire, he was
counseled to be cautious, lest he jeopardized India’s chances.
Unfortunately for India, the pro- Arab stance adopted by Asaf Ali ad-
versely aff ected its chances. It did not fi gure in the initial list of seven
countries proposed by the United States^30 or in the two more names
added by Chile.^31 New Delhi was aware that “without the support of the
USA, India will stand little chance of being included in the fact- fi nding
committee.”^32 Reacting to India’s exclusion from the American list, Asaf
Ali cabled New Delhi: “It appears from informal conversations that India
was omitted from the United States’... list because of statements of
Congress and [Muslim] League leaders in India and [because of ] the atti-
tude of [the] Indian delegation here [in New York] indicated that we were
not ‘neutral’ but favored Arabs.”^33 He repeated this observation a few days
later when he sent a detailed report to New Delhi.^34 As they were seen as
a party to the Palestinian problem, the Arab countries were excluded
from the proposed committee, and thus pro- Arab India was the closest
thing that they could have gotten in the UNSCOP.
Fortune favored India, though. To better represent the geo graph i cal
distribution of UN members, the Po liti cal Committee decided to increase
the number of nations composing the proposed committee to eleven. This
brightened India’s chances.^35 Since all nine names proposed by the United
States and Chile were unanimously accepted, it was decided that the re-
maining two members would be elected from the Asian and South Pacifi c
region. India was nominated by Iran, who appeared in the U.S. list. It de-
feated Siam (now Thailand) by thirty- four votes to seven; Australia nar-
rowly defeated the Philippines by twenty- one to twenty votes, with India
voting for the winner. Following the election, Asaf Ali regretted the con-
test with Siam, “who while hoping for our election did not wish to with-
draw. We remained in the contest at urgent requests of Arabs.”^36 India thus
became a member of the eleven- member UNSCOP. This twist of being
“elected” and not “nominated by consensus” rarely fi gures in Indian dis-
cussions concerning the UNSCOP. The drama indicates both the Indian
desperation to join the committee and the international reservations over
its neutrality on the Palestine issue.
As the committee was expected to begin its deliberations soon, Asaf
Ali suggested that a nominee “be chosen immediately.”^37 India swiftly
nominated Abdur Rahman as its representative to the UNSCOP. Unlike
92 the partition of palestine