Does NAM Still Matter?

Several founding objectives were met → most colonies gained independence; apartheid ended with Nelson Mandela’s election in 1994; and the Cold War closed in the early 1990s, removing the rivalry that had justified non-alignment. That raised the question of purpose.

Keethaponcalan — why the movement is still needed

Unresolved issues (poverty, neo-colonialism, debt, terrorism, climate change — Vijay Prashad notes that many economic problems remain open); the continuing national interests of small members; and a shift from unipolarity toward multipolarity (Daniel W. Drezner points to the rise of China and India).

The relevance debate

Sreenivasan sits on both sides — NAM needs revival, and its essence was always strategic autonomy

Answer-frame — India’s own distance

• NAM was founded in 1961 to assert independence from the US and Soviet camps and to advance sovereignty, non-interference and equitable development.
• Signs of decline → over the last two decades, weak and inconsistent leadership and fragmented priorities among 120-plus members have reduced coherence.
• India’s shift → the Prime Minister’s absence from recent summits signals reduced priority, part of the move to multi-alignment.
• Assessment → NAM’s future depends on redefinition and reform, not on India’s attendance alone; the idea survives even as the institution needs renewal.

From Non-Alignment to Multi-Alignment

Non-Alignment 1.0 and 2.0 — what carries over

• Both are anti-violence, anti-imperialist and anti-colonial.
• Both aim to protect national interest — sovereignty and territorial integrity.
• Both reject formal military blocs and uphold an independent, autonomous foreign policy.

What changes

• 1.0 → non-alignment from bloc politics; 2.0 → multiple alignment.
• 1.0 emerged in the Cold War; 2.0 in the setting of globalization and liberalization.
• 1.0 was largely Nehru’s personal initiative; 2.0 arose from the changing dynamics of a multipolar world.
• 1.0 diluted ties with neighbours; 2.0 deepens them through Act East and Link West.
• 1.0 was strictly against military alignment; under 2.0 India has signed LEMOA and COMCASA, moving away from a purely Nehruvian posture.

The Non-Alignment 2.0 document (2012)

• Framed by twelve experts on international relations, defence and foreign policy → a prescription for India’s foreign and strategic policy over the following decade.
• Objectives → identify opportunities and challenges; enhance strategic autonomy while upholding liberal values; set out a comprehensive framework built on India’s economic and security capabilities.
• Key formulations → “strategic autonomy has been the defining value” since independence; the goal is “to give India maximum options”; and knowledge is “the field that is vital to defining national power in the twenty-first century.”
• Criticism → Bharat Karnad calls it a regressive roadmap, faulting its overemphasis on ideational and moral influence and questioning the revival of non-alignment when material power drives international relations.

Strategic autonomy and multi-alignment

• Terminology → the phrase “Non-Aligned” was first used by V.K. Krishna Menon at the UN General Assembly in 1953 and by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1956.
• S. Jaishankar → non-alignment belonged to a specific era and context, but the independence of action within it remains a thread of continuity in Indian foreign policy.
• Multi-alignment → engaging several powers at once on specific interests — defence, trade, technology — without a single alliance.
• Nirupama Rao → strategic autonomy is now driven by sustained economic growth, energy and maritime security, and access to technology and innovation, pursued through “well-rounded strategic relationships and partnerships with all the major powers.”
• Tanvi Madan → India’s NAM heritage still supplies diplomatic flexibility, letting it engage many states without binding itself to one bloc.

“This is a time for us to engage America, manage China, cultivate Europe, reassure Russia, bring Japan into play, draw neighbours in, extend the neighbourhood and expand traditional constituencies of support.”

S. Jaishankar (2020)

Multi-alignment — many partnerships, one decision-maker. PARTNERSHIPS (Quad · BRICS · SCO · INSTC · G20 activism · defence and energy ties with Russia) → STRATEGIC AUTONOMY (issue-by-issue judgment; no single bloc) → OUTCOMES (maximum options · Global South leadership · “Vishwa Mitra”). Voice of Global South Summits · Vaccine Maitri · African Union into the G20 · International Solar Alliance · digital public infrastructure

“There is some self-interest behind every friendship. There is no friendship without self-interests. This is a bitter truth.”

the Chanakya maxim invoked by India’s strategic establishment

Answer-frame — 1.0 against 2.0

• Shared ground → anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, protection of sovereignty, rejection of military blocs, an independent foreign policy.
• Divergence → 1.0 sought distance from blocs; 2.0 seeks multiple, issue-based alignments.
• Instruments of 2.0 → LEMOA and COMCASA, Act East and Link West, and non-attendance at NAM summits mark the departure from Nehruvian practice.
• Scholarly framing → C. Raja Mohan holds the old tenets less adequate today; Harsh V. Pant argues India cannot be pigeonholed into a rigid non-aligned stance.
• Assessment → the grammar shifts from neutrality to engagement; the constant is autonomy in decision-making.

Answer-frame — debunked, or reinterpreted?

• Non-alignment was the cornerstone of Cold War diplomacy → autonomy through the avoidance of formal alliances.
• A de facto tilt toward the Soviet Union already qualified strict non-alignment, forced by the US posture toward Pakistan and China.
• The 1991 Soviet collapse and economic liberalization pushed a reorientation toward strategic autonomy and strategic partnerships.
• Multi-alignment reinforces autonomy by cultivating a diverse network of partnerships across the geopolitical spectrum.
• Continuity, not rupture → as at Bandung, India can still model a path for the Global South between US–China confrontation.
• Assessment → “debunk” overstates it; India has reinterpreted non-alignment as multi-alignment while keeping strategic autonomy intact.

Answer-frame — an alternative universality

• Non-Alignment 2.0 (2012) set out a framework for India’s foreign and strategic policy, drawing on Nehruvian principles adapted to a multipolar world.
• Alternative universality → India offering a model of order distinct from both Western liberal hegemony and rigid bloc politics.
• Strategic autonomy as the defining value → policy that gives India “maximum options” while preserving the core of non-alignment.
• Emphasis on an open global order, deep economic engagement, and knowledge as the key to national power in the twenty-first century.
• A polycentric order → states coexisting and cooperating in networks rather than fixed alliances, which is what makes multi-alignment possible.
• Global South leadership → the Voice of Global South Summits and the African Union’s entry into the G20 project this aspiration.
• Assessment → 2.0 does frame India as a site of an alternative universality, but its credibility rests on converting convening power into concrete outcomes.

Non-Alignment & International Relations Theory

Reforming NAM for the Twenty-First Century

Keethaponcalan proposes three sets of changes.

• Vijay Prashad → NAM needs a new charter akin to the NIEO to redefine its purpose for present challenges.

Way forward

• The world is more interconnected than ever — climate change, terrorism, poverty and public-health emergencies can be met only together.
• NAM should be positioned neither for nor against any ideology or group of nations, but should select cross-sectoral priorities → counter-terrorism, global governance reform, sustainable development, South–South cooperation.
• T.V. Paul → there is space for “soft balancing,” so that weaker countries can “delegitimize imperial ventures,” though “the onus is on smaller countries.”
• A democratic, effective, flexible, credible, transparent and representative multilateral platform is what a twenty-first-century order requires.

The Settled Position

Where to land an answer on this chapter

Non-alignment was a strategy, not a doctrine — an independent foreign policy through which a materially weak India protected sovereignty, pursued development and claimed a leadership role among post-colonial states.

• Its normative ethos — anti-colonialism, disarmament, peaceful coexistence, equity — universalized international relations and gave the Global South a voice, even as size and structure limited NAM as a “third force.”
• The Cold War’s close ended much of the original agenda, but its principles persist.
• For NAM itself, relevance now depends on reform → a redefined agenda, firmer structure, and a shift from protest to constructive engagement in a multipolar and interdependent world.

Indian foreign policy is “no longer about choosing sides, but about maximizing options.”

C. Raja Mohan

The move from non-alignment to multi-alignment is “not an abandonment, but a reinterpretation” — the grammar changes, but strategic autonomy endures.

Rakesh Sood

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.