A fortnight from now, at the milestone General Assembly on the 70th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, India will cut off its nose to spite its face.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in New York for the occasion, but he will not address the General Assembly in a departure from the practice followed by every one of his predecessors on landmark UN anniversaries.

Instead, the job has been given to external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj who will speak in the iconic home of the General Assembly on October 1 with not even a single head of state or government to listen to her. They would all have left New York -including Modi - by the time it is the turn of ministers to address the "general debate" of the session which lasts till October 6.

But the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) does not mind, till the time of writing, because it will give India an opportunity to reply at an "appropriate level" to Nawaz Sharif's General Assembly speech a day before Swaraj takes the rostrum.

Sharif is expected to dwell on the "dossier" about alleged Indian involvement in Balochistan and elsewhere in Pakistan, which he is threatening to hand over to UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon before his speech.

Pakistan's Prime Minister, according to Indian assessments, is also likely to call for implementation of UN resolutions on Kashmir, attempt to internationalise disputes with India and disgorge considerable vitriol against New Delhi. Even an oral personal attack on Modi is not being ruled out.

Had Modi chosen to address the General Assembly, he would have spoken before Sharif because UN member states are normally called to the General Assembly podium in alphabetical order. Because of the gap between the letter "I" in India's name and Pakistan's "P", Modi may likely have spoken on September 29, depending, of course, on the number of heads of state and government attending the 70th session of the General Assembly and the duration of their speeches.

Sushma Swaraj
In any case, that would have meant Sharif's allegations and criticisms against New Delhi would have gone unchallenged. India could, of course, seek a right to reply, but such replies are usually delivered by middle-level diplomats at the country's permanent mission to the UN and do not attract the same attention as a ministerial speech.

Career foreign service officers with even a nodding acquaintance of multilateral diplomacy are extremely disenchanted with the PMO's single-point agenda of reducing the UN General Assembly into a venue for an India-Pakistan spat. Conventionally, they have viewed the "general debate" as the largest and most influential global stage available to national leaders.

Several of them like Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union and Fidel Castro of Cuba have used the General Assembly to gain international attention for their points of view. Yasser Arafat, a rising leader of Palestinians in 1974, soared to international fame when he became not only the first non-state representative to address a General Assembly plenary but also spoke wearing a gun holster and holding an olive branch.

More recently, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad grabbed headlines the world over using their few minutes at the annual General Assembly.

The consternation among the country's diplomatic corps over the PMO strategy is not merely because it revives the India-Pakistan hyphenation in global dealings which successive governments in New Delhi have tried to bury.

India is an aspirant to a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. A country which gives an impression that is treating the General Assembly in a cavalier fashion diminishes its chances of achieving the goal of a permanent seat. The General Assembly has to approve Security Council reform at almost every stage of a long process.

In addition, New Delhi has declared that it will contest for a two-year term in the council in 2020. A Prime Minister who declines to address the General Assembly - especially a landmark session such as its 70th anniversary meeting - even though he is present in New York is apt to give the impression that his country is not taking the UN seriously. It has the potential to jeopardise the election prospects.

Nothing about Modi skipping the General Assembly plenary is on record yet in New Delhi. But officials at the General Assembly secretariat in New York confirmed that the Prime Minister's name is not on the list of speakers for the general debate. The list is readied weeks before the opening of a new General Assembly, in this case, September 15.

Reporters seeking to make arrangements for covering Modi's US visit have also been informally told by the government that the Prime Minister will not be speaking at the General Assembly. Diplomats are still hoping that Modi will change his mind but even if he does, India would now need all its clout at the UN to get the Prime Minister into the list for the general debate.

In its defence, the PMO is insisting that Modi will deliver remarks at a two-day summit in the General Assembly hall from September 25 for the adoption of a "post-2015 development agenda". However, this summit is separate from the annual General Assembly.

Such summits are usually the products of efforts by successive secretaries-general to leave behind their legacies. Therefore, they cajole, arm-twist or plead with heads of state and government to attend them.

Indian Prime Ministers have usually not found time to attend such gatherings. But Modi and Swaraj are newcomers to this game and appear to have succumbed to Ban's pressure to attend this year's summit and give short shrift to the more important General Assembly session.