Indian Foreign Policy: Non Alignment in the Midst of the Cold War
Indian Foreign Policy: Non Alignment in the midst of the Cold War
At the onset of the cold war, the world was rapidly developing into two hostile camps, one dominated by the west – most particularly by the US – and the other by the USSR. The two superpowers differed only by ideology, the US with capitalism and the USSR with communism, but both sought to aggressively spread their ideologies and expand their spheres of influence to other sovereign nations. No means was spared in this expansion, the use of military force, moral and economic pressure and security blocs were all commonly used to subjugate other nations. After World War Two, Europe was sufficiently polarized, any further expansion along the preset borders of East and West would have most certainly ended with war, a scenario none of the two camps wanted considering the continent was already ravaged by five long and bloody years of war. With no further expansion possible, the super powers turned their eyes on the newly formed countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. These newly independent countries were long dominated by the colonial rule of Europe, leaving them impoverished and susceptible to outside influence in the hopes of eliminating their economic burdens. But many rejected the pressure to choose sides in the US-USSR competition.
In 1955, at the Bandung Conference in Indonesia, dozens of Third World governments committed to stay out of the Cold War. The consensus reached at the Bandung Conference concluded with the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961. Non Alignment stands for "the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries" in their "struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against great power and bloc politics." Of these countries that follow the doctrine of non-alignment India is of great importance
At the onset of the cold war, the world was rapidly developing into two hostile camps, one dominated by the west – most particularly by the US – and the other by the USSR. The two superpowers differed only by ideology, the US with capitalism and the USSR with communism, but both sought to aggressively spread their ideologies and expand their spheres of influence to other sovereign nations. No means was spared in this expansion, the use of military force, moral and economic pressure and security blocs were all commonly used to subjugate other nations. After World War Two, Europe was sufficiently polarized, any further expansion along the preset borders of East and West would have most certainly ended with war, a scenario none of the two camps wanted considering the continent was already ravaged by five long and bloody years of war. With no further expansion possible, the super powers turned their eyes on the newly formed countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. These newly independent countries were long dominated by the colonial rule of Europe, leaving them impoverished and susceptible to outside influence in the hopes of eliminating their economic burdens. But many rejected the pressure to choose sides in the US-USSR competition.
In 1955, at the Bandung Conference in Indonesia, dozens of Third World governments committed to stay out of the Cold War. The consensus reached at the Bandung Conference concluded with the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961. Non Alignment stands for "the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries" in their "struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against great power and bloc politics." Of these countries that follow the doctrine of non-alignment India is of great importance
References: • Alfred P. Rubin, The Sino-Indian Border Disputes, The International and Comparative Law Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 1. (Jan., 1960), pp. 96-125. • Arvind Prakash, Non-Alingment and Indo-Soviet Relations, 1990 • Dilip H Mohite, Indo-US Relations, South Asian Publishers, 1995 • Fidel Castro speech to the UN in his position as chairman of the non-aligned countries movement 12 October 1979 • Govind Narain Srivastava, India Non-Alignment and World Peace, New Delhi Publications, 1984 • Indira Gandhi, India and the world, Foreign Affairs, No 51, 1972 • Jawaharlal Nehru, Changing India, Foreign Affairs, 1963, pp • H C Shukul, India’s Foreign Policy: Strategy of Non-Alignment, Chanakya Publications, 1994 • S B Jain, India’s Foreign Policy and Non-Alignment, Anamika Publishers & Distributors, 2000