[Answered] “Long-held assumptions and alignments rooted in the legacies of colonialism and the ideology of the Cold War are making way for new configurations and partnerships.” In light of above statement discuss the need of reforming NAM under current geo-political realities.

A renewed state of political and economic tension between opposing geopolitical power-blocs, in the form of trade War, is being breaking out with one bloc led by China and the other led by the United States. Further, the current changing global politics and major global problems like terrorism posing a need of reforming NAM under current geo-political realities. Focus is being shifted from non-alignment to multi-alignment.

Need of Nonalignment 2.0:

1. World has again moved towards bi-polarity, one led by US and other by China-Russia. The war torn Syria is prime example of this, where both US and Russia is asserting power.
2. The escalating tension in Indo-pacific region due to China’s assertion and US acting as a counterweight to check the Chinese expansionist policy.
3. The large scale migration in Europe and Asia due to the unstable regimes and ethnic conflict in different parts of world.
4. Issue of global climate change and occurrence of catastrophic disasters raising demand to form global consensus to deal with it.
5. Changing US policies, protectionism, prevalent terrorism and nuclearisation of middle east.
6. Formation of multiple regional economic groupings like TPP and RCEP and fading away of multilateral bodies WTO from global arena.
7. NAM establishes itself as a deliberative and coordinating platform for the developing countries as it deals with newly emerging problems from global warming, debt-affected low income countries to UN reforms.
8. NAM provides an alternative medium to tackle these issues in fresh and innovative ways.
9. Even while building alliances with others, we availed of the NAM umbrella to promote our national strategies when it suited us.
10. India recently is becoming closer to the U.S. Both China and Russia, are oppose to U.S. that can cause problems to India.
11. Doklam and the Maldives have shown that China is in no mood for a compromise. In fact, China has attributed the increase of its defence budget to the formation of the Quadrilateral, which is being seen as a direct threat to China.

What should be done?

1. An obvious way is to revive NAM by breathing new life into it and making it fit to deal with the new norm to suit current multipolar world.
2. A partnership of near equals like IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa) with similar interests without any ideological conflict is probably the best model to follow.
3. Something on the lines of the G-15 organised by India and like-minded countries some years ago could be put together with the objective of dealing with the issues like climate change, terrorism and protectionism.
4. The members may have links with the U.S., China and Russia, but should be able to work together without the undue influence of the three.

NAM as a concept can never be irrelevant, principally it provides a strong base to foreign policy of its members. It should be seen as “Strategic Autonomy”, which is the need of the hour of today’s world. The principles of NAM still can guide the nations towards it. NAM is a platform where India can assert its soft power and provide an active leadership.