Module Code: PP3014: India And the World. Student Number: 0530868.

How far has India’s old and ineffective idealistic non-alignment position been swept aside by IR realism “balancing” imperatives?

“We believe…in nonaggression and noninterference by one country in the affairs of another and the growth of tolerance between them and the capacity for peaceful coexistence.” Jawaharlal Nehru- 1956[1]

“…our policy will continue to be not only to keep away from alignments, but also to try to make friendly co-operation possible.” Indira Gandhi- 1983[2]

India’s non-alignment as a foreign policy doctrine stems from both India’s experience in its independence struggle and the international environment of the early Cold War. The views echoed by India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter and successor Indira Gandhi changed very little in terms of rhetoric. However, the conduct of India’s foreign policy under their respective regimes was far from similar. Furthermore, these dissimilarities are even more apparent between India’s foreign policy of the late 50s, and that of the post-Cold War era.

The origins of abandoning Non-alignment beyond rhetoric stem from both internal factors and the changing dynamics of the regional and international system. One of the biggest contributing factors was the defeat of India at the hands of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) during the 1962 Sino-Indian War, which exposed Non-Alignment as an idealistic and ineffective form of foreign policy. Nearly half a century later, the end of the Cold-War drove India further away from Non-alignment and raised further doubts about the relevance of non-alignment and the Non Aligned Movement (NAM). Before developing the views echoed above, an overview of non-alignment and its subsequent failure merits further mention.

Following independence, India’s foreign policy was driven by both the ideas of non-violence that shaped its independence struggle