PYQ Vault · Paper 2 · India & the Non-Aligned Movement
“Non-alignment was little more than a rational strategy on the part of a materially weak India to maximise its interests with a bipolar distribution of global power.” Comment.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Flow snapshot — how the answer moves
Intro routes
material weakness — alliance meant obligation without defence + quarrels serving no Indian purpose — Nehru: strategy, not dogma, ready to “join the side which is to our interest” — V.P. Dutt: idealism in appearance, pragmatism in substance – returns concrete: Bokaro, US Congress refuses, Soviet aid taken, policy unchanged → Tharoor: flexibility + influence beyond actual capability — turn: a weak state cannot buy influence, so moral standing becomes capability — agenda outruns Indian interest: decolonization, disarmament, apartheid, NIEO → “Trade Union of the Third World” → Bandyopadhyaya: universalized tha intarnatinnal aucatam wuranbar atatac fram aAnRiantoc intr acnhnianta
Body flow
ee a a aR ee RE See oe es ee er ec eee eS ee ee SR: are ee ae eR See Morgenthau: neutrality as weakness where power politics governs — 1962: what diplomatic standing could not do against force Rr! calculation real, reduction false — a device fitted only to bipolarity would have ended with bipolarity → blocs gone, freedom of judgment still directs Indian diplomacy R2 strategy and ethic were not rivals → for a weak state the norms were the instrument, and they outgrew the purpose they were built for
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
