Non-Alignment — the core proposition

“Non-alignment was never about staying away from global politics; it was about staying above it.”

C. Raja Mohan

• India’s principal contribution to the theory and practice of international politics.
• Setting → after the Second World War, newly independent states of Asia, Africa and Latin America looked for an alternative to the two Cold War blocs led by the United States and the Soviet Union.
• Core idea → an independent foreign policy, freedom of judgment on each issue, refusal to join military alliances — and no withdrawal from world affairs.
• Scale → from 25 states at Belgrade (1961) to about 120 members today; nineteen summits between 1961 and 2024.
• Agenda shift → Cold War bloc politics → decolonization → the North–South economic divide → today, strategic autonomy, terrorism, climate change and reform of global governance.

“…a policy of acting according to our best judgment and furthering the principal objectives and ideals that we have…”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1964)

What It Is Not

Meaning has varied with the writer’s own vantage point. Western scholarship often read non-alignment as neutrality or neutralism, borrowing from European precedent — a misreading, since non-alignment arose in a different setting and rests on distinct principles.

• Georg Schwarzenberger → separates non-alignment from isolationism, non-commitment, neutrality, neutralization, unilateralism and non-involvement; it means specifically keeping out of Cold War military alliances.
• George Liska → among anti-alliance policies, traditional isolationism or neutrality differ from non-alignment, which opposes all alliances — including those among other states.
• U Nu (Burma) → tied non-alignment to Cold War neutralism, i.e. staying out of the East–West ideological struggle.

Two core components

• Opposition to military alliances → antipathy toward the Cold War system of military blocs.
• Independence of foreign policy → freedom to frame and pursue policy on national interest, free of external pressure or bloc alignment.

Bases of Non-Alignment — negative and positive

Negative basis — the anti-military-alliance policy

• Avoiding Cold War entanglement → staying out of alliances kept nations clear of superpower confrontations.
• National security → alliances could provoke adversaries and raise the risk of conflict on one’s own soil.
• Preserving sovereignty → military pacts carry obligations that erode independent decision-making.

Positive bases

1. Ideological independence → post-colonial states carried distinct cultural identities and socio-economic problems; they wanted systems suited to their own context, not wholesale Western capitalism or Soviet communism. Staying out of both blocs guarded domestic priorities from external ideological pressure.
2. Economic development → aid was needed, but not aid tied to political or ideological conditions. Bokaro Steel Plant — after the U.S. Congress refused assistance, India secured Soviet help without altering its foreign policy. Aswan Dam (Egypt) — after Western withdrawal, Egypt turned to the Soviet Union while retaining non-alignment.
3. Independence of judgment → U Nu and Kwame Nkrumah stressed judging each issue on its merits, free of bloc pressure; positions taken case by case on the specific circumstances of each question.

Non-Alignment & Sovereignty — a two-way pull

Peace, Disarmament & Conflict Resolution

Non-alignment reaches past national interest to hold peace itself as an objective.

• Recognition of the catastrophic potential of nuclear war → emphasis on preventing global conflict.
• Support for disarmament and arms control → reductions in nuclear arsenals and military spending.
• Faith in international organizations → trust in the United Nations for dialogue and peaceful settlement.
• Contribution → the Moscow (Partial) Test Ban Treaty, 1963 owed much to non-aligned pressure; non-aligned states have acted as mediators on the strength of their impartial standing.

As a technique of conflict resolution

• Avoid taking sides → impartial mediation becomes possible.
• Suspension of moral judgment → in the interest of peace, refraining from assigning blame and concentrating on settlement.
• Belgrade illustration → Nehru appealed to both the United States and the Soviet Union to halt nuclear tests without naming who began them — the urgency of ending the arms race placed above the question of fault.

Critiques

• Justice against peace → the approach can appear to equate aggressor and victim, weakening justice.
• Restraint against interest → a fine line separates withholding judgment for peace from withholding it for self-interest; credibility rests on genuine impartiality.

Bandung 1955 & Belgrade 1961

Bandung Conference (1955)

• Precursor to NAM → 29 Asian and African countries, called by Sukarno of Indonesia, met to promote Afro-Asian economic and cultural cooperation.
• The Ten Bandung Principles → respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity, non-interference, peaceful coexistence.
• Christopher Waters reads Bandung as foregrounding decolonization and Cold War anxieties; Carsten Rauch treats it as the first step toward NAM.

First Summit, Belgrade (1961)

• Formal founding of NAM → 25 states.
• Key figures → Josip Broz Tito (Yugoslavia), Jawaharlal Nehru (India), Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt), Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana), Sukarno (Indonesia).
• Two primary objectives → (i) non-alignment with any superpower bloc; (ii) national liberation and decolonization.
• John A. Graham → the aim was a buffer of non-aligned states to resist external pressure during the Cold War and to hasten decolonization.

Debate on NAM’s roots — 1955 or 1961?

• Peter Willetts → non-alignment as a coherent idea was not born until 1961 and did not survive beyond that year; linking NAM to Bandung gives it “false roots.”
• Keethaponcalan → disputes this, stressing the continuity between Bandung’s principles and NAM’s formation.

Evolution of the Movement — and its Summits

Institutionalization ran through regular summits, standing committees for routine affairs, and a shift of leadership after Nehru, Nasser and Tito to states such as Zambia, Tanzania and Cuba. The movement grew more demanding and more radical — a fair share of global resources, economic justice — put greater weight on solidarity and collective self-reliance through South–South cooperation, and pressed for firmer coordinating structures.

Five turns of the movement, 1955 to 2024. 1955 · Bandung (Ten Principles; Afro-Asian solidarity) → 1961 · Belgrade (Founding; 25 states; anti-colonialism) → 1970s · Radical turn (Lusaka, Algiers; NIEO; economic justice) → 1992 · Jakarta (Identity in a unipolar world; South–South) → 2024 · Kampala (Shared global affluence; UN reform)

Achievements of the Movement

• Decolonization and anti-imperialism → support for liberation struggles in Asia, Africa and Latin America; moral and political pressure on colonial powers through the UN.
• Transformation of the international system → a larger body of sovereign states shifted the balance in the UN General Assembly and gave voice to marginalized nations.
• New International Economic Order → the North–South divide brought to the centre; demands for fairer trade, technology transfer and unconditional assistance.
• Peace and disarmament → instrumental in the Partial Test Ban Treaty (1963); consistent advocacy of nuclear disarmament.
• Against racialism and apartheid → opposition to South Africa’s regime and support for sanctions; steady backing of Palestinian rights.
• Cultural and informational initiatives → a non-aligned news pool to reduce dependence on Western media; cultural and educational exchange.

Six contributions — Jayantanuja Bandyopadhyaya

1. Accelerated decolonization by strengthening freedom struggles and mobilizing world opinion.
2. Became a force against imperialism, neo-imperialism, racism and hegemonism.
3. Universalized the international system → turned weaker states from objects into subjects of international relations.
4. Advanced the case for a new international order based on equality.
5. Reduced polarization by de-emphasizing power blocs.
6. Promoted communication and cooperation over power politics.

The “Third Force” Question — why it did not consolidate

• NAM gave a collective voice to states unwilling to take sides in the US–USSR rivalry; its genesis lay at Bandung (1955), where the term “third world” was also coined.
• Through the Cold War it worked as a buffer between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, pressing anti-colonialism, self-determination, disarmament and the primacy of the UN.
• In the 1970s some members tried to convert NAM into a formal UN voting bloc and to add an economic dimension; Kwame Nkrumah’s neo-colonialism named the continued Western control over new states.
• Rapid expansion → over 120 members by 1990 → consensus harder, strategic coherence diluted.
• Fault lines → regional and ideological splits from Colombo (1976) through Havana (1979) into the 1980s exposed a serious risk of rupture.
• No permanent secretariat, no enforcement machinery → weak follow-through compared with the UN.
• Members’ differing dependence on the superpowers for aid undercut unity and the claim to equidistance.
• And yet → it universalized international relations, advanced decolonization and gave the Global South a platform — a partial third force, limited by size and structure rather than by the idea itself.

The Non-Aligned Movement

NAM emerged after the Second World War to give the newly independent states of Asia, Africa and Latin America an alternative to Cold War alignment; eighteen summits were held between 1961 and 2012.

What non-alignment is — and is not

• Georg Schwarzenberger: distinguishes non-alignment from isolationism, non-commitment, neutrality, neutralization, unilateralism and non-involvement — it means specifically staying out of military alliances, above all Cold War ones.
• George Liska: traditional isolationism or neutrality differs from non-alignment, which opposes all alliances, including those among other states.
• U Nu (Burma): non-alignment as neutralism — staying uninvolved in the East–West ideological struggle.

Western scholars often equate non-alignment with neutrality; the comparison misleads — non-alignment arose in a different context, with distinct principles.

Bases of non-alignment

• Negative basis — an anti-military-alliance policy: to avoid Cold War entanglement, to protect national security (alliances can provoke adversaries), and to preserve sovereignty.
• Ideological independence — developing systems suited to one’s own context rather than wholesale Western capitalism or Soviet communism.
• Economic development — aid without strings: India’s Bokaro Steel Plant (Soviet help after the US Congress refused) and Egypt’s Aswan Dam (Soviet support after the West withdrew) preserved non-alignment.
• Independence of judgment — judging each issue on its merits, case by case (U Nu, Kwame Nkrumah).

Sovereignty, peace and conflict resolution

• Enhances sovereignty — an independent foreign policy reinforces autonomy, and non-alignment promotes equality among nations against the hierarchy of alliances. Limits sovereignty — by prioritising peaceful coexistence, non-aligned states accept restraint in the interest of global stability.
• Peace — NAM goes beyond national interest to promote peace actively: recognising the catastrophic potential of nuclear war, supporting disarmament, trusting the UN. It helped bring about the Partial Test Ban Treaty (1963), and non-aligned states often mediated disputes from a neutral stance.
• As a technique of conflict resolution — it avoids taking sides and may suspend moral judgment to facilitate peace: at the Belgrade Conference, Nehru appealed to both the USA and the USSR to halt nuclear tests without naming who began them. Critique: this can appear to equate aggressor and victim, undermining justice; credibility requires genuine impartiality.

Evolution into a movement

• Genesis in the Bandung Afro-Asian Conference (1955) — where the term “Third World” was coined and Nkrumah used “neo-colonialism”.
• First summit at Belgrade (1961); founders Jawaharlal Nehru, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Sukarno and Josip Broz Tito.
• Institutionalisation through regular summits and standing committees; leadership later passed from the founders to Zambia, Tanzania and Cuba.
• The agenda evolved: anti-colonialism and anti-racialism → the New International Economic Order (NIEO) in the 1970s → disarmament in the 1980s.

Achievements

• Decolonisation and anti-imperialism — strengthened liberation struggles and pressured colonial powers; the UNGA declared decolonisation a key objective in 1960.
• Transformation of the system — new sovereign states gave voice to the marginalised and reformed the dynamics of the UN General Assembly.
• Advocacy of the NIEO — highlighting the North–South divide and demanding fairer trade, technology transfer and South–South cooperation; the NIEO push (Algiers, 1970s) against new protectionism such as the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (1973).
• Peace and disarmament — instrumental in the Partial Test Ban Treaty (1963); consistent advocacy of a nuclear-weapon-free world.
• Against racialism and apartheid, and support for the Palestinian cause; opposition to the Suez Crisis (1956).
• Cultural and informational initiatives — a non-aligned news pool to reduce reliance on Western media.
• Indira Gandhi called NAM “the largest peace movement of history”; John Foster Dulles dismissed its independence of judgment as “immoral” — equidistance was itself the contribution, a coalitional move by weaker states refusing to take sides.

J. Bandyopadhyaya*’s assessment: NAM accelerated decolonisation; formed an international force against imperialism, racism and hegemonism; universalised the international system (turning weaker states from objects into subjects); advocated a new order based on equality; prevented polarisation; and promoted communication over power. Jürgen Dinkel*: NAM shaped both the North–South conflict and South–South relations, and permanently expanded the ensemble of actors in international relations.

NAM: Relevance, Soft Balancing and Non-Alignment 2.0

Carry both columns, then take a position.

• The end of bipolarity raised doubts about NAM’s purpose in a unipolar world.
• The continuing rationale: it opposes domination by any single superpower and advocates a multipolar order; it addresses globalisation-driven inequality, terrorism, environment and UN reform.
• V. N. Khanna: NAM’s future lies in being an economic movement bridging the North–South divide — it remains vital as long as global inequalities persist.

Structural weaknesses to name in a critique

• No charter, statute or secretariat; over 100 members by 1990, making consensus difficult and the agenda diffuse; bilateral disputes raised on a collective platform.
• Fracture, not only size: from Colombo (1976) through the Havana Conference (1979), serious splits along regional and ideological lines; internal camp-following toward the USA or the USSR.
• The contradiction between “respect for human rights” and “non-interference”; the inability to prevent the India–Pakistan wars or resolve Palestine; little European representation.

Non-Alignment 2.0

• Nonalignment 2.0: A Foreign and Strategic Policy for India in the Twenty-First Century — a Centre for Policy Research publication (March 2012), written over fourteen months by Sunil Khilnani, Rajiv Kumar, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Prakash Menon, Nandan Nilekani, Srinath Raghavan, Shyam Saran and Siddharth Varadarajan, with inputs from NSA Shivshankar Menon and others.
• Core idea: identify the principles to make India a leading global player while preserving strategic autonomy; in a world no longer split between two powers, non-alignment means managing complicated, shifting coalitions rather than settled alliances.
• It drew fire — critics accused it of resurrecting the buried ghost of non-alignment.

The 17th NAM Summit

• Held on Margarita Island, Venezuela (2016); theme “Peace, Sovereignty and Solidarity for Development”; a 21-article final declaration demanding an equitable world order fair to developing nations.
• Key articles: strengthening NAM and the international order; the right to self-determination; a world free of nuclear weapons; protection of human rights; condemnation of unilateral coercive measures and of terrorism; the centrality of international law and the UN Charter; a just solution on Palestine, with the Israeli occupation named a destabilising factor.
• Reform agenda: a more democratic UNGA and Security Council; transparency in appointing the Secretary-General; the 2030 Agenda and SDGs; climate change; South–South cooperation; reform of the international financial architecture.
• NAM is a forum of about 120 developing states not formally aligned with any major bloc — after the UN, the largest grouping of states. Yet C. Raja Mohan’s “movement in a state of coma” expresses the persistent doubt.

How to strengthen NAM

• Premise: the institutional framework still functions — it needs reshaping and re-energising, not reinvention.
• Symbolic — genuine multilateral partnerships; a positive, forward-looking agenda. Structural — specialised, role-based functionaries; institutional capacity; a permanent secretariat and coordination mechanisms. Policy — a proactive, target-based approach; more frequent summits and deliberation, including Track-II diplomacy; reform from a loose grouping into a results-oriented organisation (S. Jaishankar).
• Substantive agenda: terrorism, climate justice, UN reform, protection of international law, elimination of WMDs, the SDGs.
• For India: a platform to assert soft power and lead smaller states; to gather South-East Asian support against Chinese assertion in the South China Sea; to enable Afro-Asian cooperation.

NAM and India’s soft power

• Joseph Nye on soft power: influencing others’ preferences through attraction and persuasion rather than coercion — “a country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries — admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness — want to follow it.”
• NAM’s normative ethos: sovereignty, non-interference, anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, peaceful coexistence — values that match India’s foreign-policy objectives (Havana Declaration, 1979).
• Lehmann: lacking economic and military capability after independence, India chose non-alignment as an instrument to exercise considerable international soft power.
• Stature: India’s advocacy of a multipolar order and sovereign equality raises its standing (Rajiv Sikri, C. Raja Mohan); leadership within NAM gave it a platform on disarmament, peace and development. South–South cooperation as soft power — development partnerships, the International Solar Alliance, ITEC and cultural diplomacy built on shared anti-colonial histories.
• Balance: critics argue relevance has waned and India should look elsewhere; balancing NAM principles with evolving interests is hard — yet the normative ethos still amplifies India’s image as a principled, autonomous actor.