Non-alignment

Also called: Policy of non-alignment · Topic: India's External Relations, 1947-1999: Non-alignment, Wars and Nuclear Policy · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 4 "India's External Relations"

Meaning

Non-alignment was the foreign policy Jawaharlal Nehru shaped for India in the Cold War. India stayed out of both military blocs, the US-led one and the Soviet-led one, and judged each world issue on its own merits. It was not neutrality (taking no side at all) and not isolation (cutting off from the world).

It matters because it was Nehru's way of reaching his three aims:

• keeping India's sovereignty (its freedom to make its own decisions)
• protecting India's territorial integrity (keeping its land whole and safe)
• bringing rapid economic development

It also gave a poor new country a voice far bigger than its military or economic power.

Explanation

Why India chose it

• The world in 1947: countries were rebuilding after the Second World War. The United Nations (UN) had been set up in 1945. Colonial rule was ending, and many new states were being born in Asia and Africa.
• India's burdens:
• disputes left behind by the British, such as unclear borders
• the strain of Partition: refugees, violence and the Kashmir dispute

• mass poverty

• The trap poor states fell into:

• They needed foreign aid.
• Many joined the camp of whichever power gave that aid.

• As a result, they lost their freedom in foreign policy.

• Nehru's answer: Nehru was Prime Minister and also his own Foreign Minister from 1946 to 1964, so he shaped foreign policy almost alone.

• In the Constituent Assembly (March 1949), he called foreign relations "the test of independence".
• A country that lets others decide its foreign policy is not truly free.

What it meant, and what it did not mean

• Cold War: a long rivalry, from about 1945 to 1991, between the US-led bloc (military alliance: NATO) and the Soviet-led bloc (military alliance: Warsaw Pact). The two sides competed through arms races, alliances and propaganda, not through direct war with each other.
• Non-alignment meant:
• no membership of any Cold War military bloc
• judging every issue on its own merits

• taking economic and technical aid from both the US and the USSR

• Non-alignment did not mean:

• Neutrality. India did not stay silent or take no side on world issues.

• Isolation. India stayed fully active in world affairs.

• Early sources: Nehru's letter to K.P.S. Menon (January 1947), and his words about "not tying yourself off with military blocs".

How it grew into a movement

• India, Yugoslavia and many new Asian and African states refused to join either the communist bloc or the Western bloc [6].
• Bandung Afro-Asian Conference (April 1955): 29 nations attended. It was led mainly by Nehru, Nasser (Egypt) and Sukarno (Indonesia) [5].
• First Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit: Belgrade, 1961 [7].

Active, not passive: India's role in practice

• Korea, 1953-54: India chaired the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission (NNRC). This body handled prisoners of war who did not want to go home after the Korean War. Its members were Sweden, Switzerland, Poland, Czechoslovakia and India.
• Gen. K.S. Thimayya was its Chairman [3].
• India sent the Custodian Forces – India (CFI), a brigade group of 5,230 personnel, to guard the prisoners [3].

• By February 1954, 21,839 prisoners had returned to the UN Command side, and only 628 had gone north [8].

• Congo, 1960-64: India sent two brigades to the UN Operation in the Congo (ONUC). They helped stop Katanga province from breaking away and keep the country united [3].

• Indian women medical officers also served in the Congo in the 1960s. This was an early example of women in Indian peacekeeping [3].

In the Constitution and practice

• Article 51 (Part IV, Directive Principles of State Policy, DPSP). DPSPs are guidelines the state should follow when it makes laws and policy. Courts cannot enforce them (Art. 37). Under Article 51, the State shall try to [2]:
• (a) promote international peace and security
• (b) maintain just and honourable relations between nations
• (c) foster respect for international law and treaty obligations
• (d) encourage the settlement of international disputes by arbitration (a neutral third party decides the dispute, instead of the sides going to war)

• The draft article was adopted with a few amendments on 25 November 1948. Many Assembly members linked peace and non-aggression to India's history and culture [2].

• Who runs foreign policy:

• Foreign affairs, the UN, treaties, and war and peace are in the Union List of the Seventh Schedule (entries 10-21). States have no role.

• Art. 73 extends the Union's executive power to these subjects. So the government, led in this period by Nehru as PM-cum-Foreign Minister, could run non-alignment without a separate law.

• Key instances:

• The Cold War reaches India's border. Pakistan joined the US-led alliances:
  • SEATO, set up by the Manila treaty of 8 September 1954, which worked from 1955 to 1977 [4]
  • the Baghdad Pact (1955), later renamed CENTO. US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles linked SEATO, the Baghdad Pact and NATO into one chain of alliances [5].
  • Pakistan then received Western arms and diplomatic support, including on Kashmir.

• 1956, the double standard:

  • Britain, France and Israel attacked Egypt after it nationalised the Suez Canal (the Suez crisis). India led the world protest.
  • In the same year, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary. India did not join the public condemnation.
  • This made Western countries doubt that India was really non-aligned.

• Debate at home:

• B.R. Ambedkar, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh and later the Swatantra Party (founded 1959) wanted closer ties with the US bloc.

• Nehru still had wide freedom of action, because Congress was dominant and he held the foreign ministry himself.

• Lasting verdict: in 1950, C. Rajagopalachari said India, a country "without material, men or money", had become "the biggest moral power in the civilised world".

Don't confuse with

• Neutrality: a neutral state stays out of a conflict and takes no side. A non-aligned state stays out of military blocs but still takes positions on issues, judging each on its merits (for example, India's protest over Suez).
• Isolation: an isolated state withdraws from world affairs. Non-aligned India was highly active: it chaired the NNRC in Korea, sent troops to the Congo and helped lead Bandung.
• Non-Aligned Movement (NAM): non-alignment is India's policy, which was already taking shape by 1947. NAM is the group of states that grew out of such policies. Its first summit was in Belgrade, 1961 [7].
• Article 51A: Art. 51 is a DPSP on international peace, and it is the constitutional base for non-alignment's ideals. Art. 51A lists Fundamental Duties and has nothing to do with foreign policy.

Prelims Hooks

• Art. 51 (DPSP, Part IV): international peace, just and honourable relations, respect for international law and treaties, and arbitration. Courts cannot enforce it, and it is not a Fundamental Duty (that is Art. 51A).
• Bandung, April 1955: 29 Afro-Asian nations attended, led by Nehru, Nasser and Sukarno [5]. First NAM summit: Belgrade, 1961 [7].
• NNRC, Korea (1953-54): India was chairman and custodian of the prisoners. Gen. K.S. Thimayya was Chairman, with a CFI of 5,230 personnel [3].
• SEATO: Manila treaty, 8 Sept 1954, with Pakistan as a member [4]. The Baghdad Pact (1955) was later called CENTO [5]. India joined neither.
• Trap: in 1956, India condemned the attack on Egypt (Suez) but not the Soviet invasion of Hungary.
• Nehru was PM and Foreign Minister from 1946 to 1964. He called foreign relations "the test of independence" (Constituent Assembly, March 1949).

Mains Points

• Non-alignment as strategic autonomy (the freedom to choose one's own path):
• Staying out of blocs protected India's sovereignty.
• It let India take aid from both camps.

• It gave a poor state influence far beyond its power, through Bandung, NAM, Korea and the Congo. Rajaji's "biggest moral power" captures this. (GS-I / GS-II)

• Limits and contradictions:

• The double standard of Suez versus Hungary weakened India's claim to stand apart from both blocs.
• US distrust pushed the US closer to Pakistan (SEATO, CENTO), which brought the Cold War to India's border.
• Import-substitution planning (making goods at home instead of buying them abroad) limited India's trade and economic contact with the world.

• Moral standing could not replace hard power. This gap was exposed in 1962.

• Art. 51 versus practice in the first two decades (1947-1967):

• India promoted peace and UN peacekeeping, as the DPSP asks.
• But Art. 51 cannot be enforced in court, and security pressures often came first.
• This is a useful frame for judging how well Part IV guides foreign policy.

Related concepts

• Cold War

Read more

• International context, constitutional principles and Nehru's non-alignment