The Hindu Business Line : Relevance of being ‘non-aligned’ and irrelevance of NAM

While being non-aligned gives countries the flexibility to choose partners and partnerships, the Non-Aligned Movement is not a forum of any consequence, relevance, or importance in today’s world.

G. Parthasarathy

Historian Ramachandra Guha has described Jawaharlal Nehru’s policy of non-alignment as an attempt to place India “beyond and above the rivalries of Great Powers.” While critics would describe non-alignment as utopian and counterproductive, cynics and realists would argue that despite professions of high moral principles, what Nehru was trying to do was to adopt a posture that led to India being wooed by both superpowers — the US and the Soviet Union . The hard reality is that in 1947 India was economically and militarily weak and needed assistance from both the superpowers. American and British hostility, particularly on Jammu and Kashmir, led to India depending on a Soviet veto in the Security Council.

In return, India was forced to endorse the Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. But Indian diplomacy was skilfully conducted to ensure continuing Western economic assistance and particularly food aid, at time when our food production could not meet growing demand and our foreign exchange reserves were woefully inadequate. India today is very different from the India of the Cold War days. We are now recognised as an emerging economic power, no longer dependant on the charity of others for our economic progress. In these circumstances, does it make any sense to cling to old shibboleths and slogans such as “non-aligned solidarity” in a vastly transformed world order?

High Praise for India

Addressing the US-India Business Summit in Washington on June 27, the US Secretary of State, Ms Condoleezza Rice, voiced high praise for India’s democratic institutions and the “rise” of India as an emerging economic power.

She observed: “I am happy that India and the US are accomplishing a great deal together these days, but I would say that we are only scratching the surface of what we can do. We, in America, look on the rise of India as an opportunity, a chance to work with a friendly democracy.” She added: “India and the US can work together bilaterally, but multilaterally as well, together with other free countries like Japan, as well, together with other free countries like Australia and (South) Korea and our allies in Europe, working with large multiethnic and multi-religious democracies like Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa.”

India is already cooperating and interacting with states extensively within Asia and beyond, through regional groupings such as SAARC and BIMSTEC, multilateral ties with ASEAN and as a participant in the East Asia Summit. It has moved to complement its trilateral dialogue with Russia and China with a new association embracing Australia, Japan and the US. It is a full-fledged dialogue partner of the European Union and a special invitee to the G-8 summits, joining a select group of emerging economic powers to interact with the most powerful economies.

Moreover, groupings such as the India-South Africa-Brazil partnership are becoming increasingly important in dealing with global economic issues and fostering cooperation between like-minded countries spanning three continents. This association positions India to seek cooperative arrangements with regional groupings such as the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and the Mercosur in South America.

Ms Rice triggered a controversy in her July 27 speech by asserting that “non-alignment” had lost its meaning after the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. She had evidently been irked by the shrill anti-American rhetoric that emerged at the recent Non-Aligned Movemnet Summit in Havana.

This summit is now remembered in India only for the curious assertion, (described by a respected columnist to me as the “Havana Hallucinations,”) of the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, that Pakistan, like India, is also a “victim of terrorism”.

If Ms Rice failed to draw a distinction between being “non-aligned” and being a member of the “Non-Aligned Movement” (NAM), the External Affairs Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, whose diplomatic skills have been an asset to the conduct of our foreign policy, curiously responded by speaking about NAM rather than “non-alignment”. He recalled that the NAM had played an important role in the process of decolonisation (that ended four decades ago) and the end of apartheid in South Africa (16 years ago). Mr Mukherjee said little about NAM’s contemporary relevance, beyond a reference to its importance in promoting “South-South Cooperation”.

NAM has little relevance today. Only 52 Heads of Government out of the 118 NAM members bothered to participate in the Havana Summit. Many of the NAM members are economic basket cases, dependant on the West for survival. They invariably bend to Western pressure in multilateral forums such as the World Trade Organisation. Over 50 NAM members figure high in the index of failed states.

The only noteworthy features of the Havana Summit were a return to ritualistic condemnations of Israel and noises of support for Iran’s nuclear programme. Interestingly, the non-aligned UN Security Council members which supported Iran’s nuclear programme in Havana had no qualms supporting resolutions in the Security Council that imposed sanctions on Teheran for continuing with nuclear enrichment, confirming that ‘non-aligned solidarity’ rhetoric is farcical.

Similarly, a number of Arab countries which voice strong condemnation of Israel in NAM meetings have no qualms about clandestine ties with Israel on sensitive security issues.

At the 1979 NAM Summit in Havana, radical Arab states sought to have Egypt expelled from the Movement for signing a separate peace agreement with Israel — a move that was rejected. Peace in West Asia is, however, promoted today primarily by the “Quartet” comprising the US, the EU, Russia and the UN, with the peace process based on hard realities and not bombastic NAM rhetoric. And Egypt is no longer threatened by its Arab partners with expulsion from multilateral forums for its links with Israel.

Creditable Foreign Policy

While membership of the NAM does little to promote our national interests in the contemporary world, those who have conducted foreign policy in the post Cold War years deserve credit for the skill with which they have guided an economically resurgent India into partnerships with ASEAN and East Asia, while pressing ahead with plans for economic integration in the neighbourhood through groupings such as SAARC and BIMSTEC.

But India still faces major challenges on issues of terrorism and its quest for energy security in a volatile neighbourhood to its west, at a time when global demand for energy resources is rapidly expanding. A resurgent China appears bent on “containing” India with its nuclear and missile transfers to Pakistan and its quest for naval facilities across the sea lanes of the Indian Ocean. While it would be inadvisable to deal with these challenges through military alliances with distant powers, India has to fashion relationships with powers across the entire Asia-Pacific Region, which promote a stable balance of power in this region.

Non-alignment in the post-Cold War era is still relevant and really means the freedom to choose a wide range of partners to cooperate with on different issues, to protect our national interests. Thus, while being non-aligned gives us the flexibility to choose our partners and partnerships, the Non-Aligned Movement is a forum of litttle relevance in today’s world.

(The author is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan.)

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