18th Non-Aligned Summit | 26 Oct 2019

Recently, the Vice President of India attended the 18^th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit which was held in Baku, Azerbaijan.

• The theme for the 18^th NAM Summit is “Upholding the Bandung Principles to ensure concerted and adequate response to the challenges of the contemporary world.''
  
  • The theme relates to the forthcoming 65^th anniversary of Bandung Principles (2020) and the 60^th anniversary of the establishment of the Non-Aligned Movement (2021).
  • Bandung principles promote world peace and cooperation which were formulated at the Asian-African Conference in 1955.
• This NAM Summit majorly focussed on contemporary issues such as Terrorism, threats to peace and security, UN reform, climate change, sustainable development, economic governance, and south-south cooperation.

India and Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)

• India is a founder member of NAM. It participated actively in NAM meetings till 1970s but India’s inclination towards erstwhile USSR created confusion in smaller members.
  
  • It led to the weakening of NAM and small nations drifted towards either the US or USSR.
• Further India’s New Economic Policy and inclination towards the US raised questions over India’s seriousness over non-alignment.
  
  • The disintegration of the USSR led to the unipolar world order dominated by the US.
• Moreover, NAM continued losing relevance for India in a unipolar world, especially after the founding members failed to support India during the crisis.
  
  • For instance, during the 1962 War with China, Ghana and Indonesia adopted explicitly pro-China positions.
  • During the 1965 and 1971 wars, Indonesia and Egypt took an anti-India stance and supported Pakistan.
• Recently, the Prime Minister of India skipped the second NAM summit in a row (17^th and 18^th NAM Summit).
  
  • It had been the customary practice ever since the inception of NAM that India had always participated in the summit meetings through its prime minister, with the single exception of the 6^th NAM Summit when Chaudhury Charan Singh was the caretaker PM and hence missed it.
• Moreover, India has started to actively engage with new and old global powers.
  
  • India joining the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, a coalition seen by many as a counter force to China’s rise in the Indo-Pacific and Shanghai cooperation organization led by China shown India’s balancing approach in the new world order.

Source: PIB