Questioning Non-alignment

By C. R. Gharekhan

THE QUESTION is not only whether Non-alignment has any relevance or validity for India or for any other country in the post-cold war era of today, which it does not, but also whether the policy served the young nation as well as it was believed it would in defending and promoting the national interest. One of the unfortunate aspects of the foreign policy debate in our country has been that there has been no debate. We always had a consensus on foreign policy and seemed proud of it, but that was not necessarily a healthy thing.

As a newly-independent country, Non-alignment was good for our morale, our ego, our pride. It gave us at least an illusion of following an independent foreign policy. We had towering personalities such as Nehru and Krishna Menon who brought glory to our country on the world stage.Delegates used to flock to the U.N. General Assembly to listen to Menon. People genuinely believed that India was a leader of the third world. Non- alignment was not, or should not have been, only about making us feel good about ourselves. Nor could the illusion, or perhaps even the reality - for the sake of argument - of leadership that it conferred on us have been an adequate justification for it. The hard criterion was the interest of the people of the country.

The circuitous argument was that we needed peace in the world to devote all our energies and resources to development work. In a world divided into two antagonistic blocs, it was India's role and duty to reduce areas of tension, to prevent the entire world from being sucked into the ideological war. The non-aligned community made an important contribution in arresting the deadly rivalry between capitalism and communism and thus saved India, and other non-aligned countries, from becoming pawns in the global game of the super powers.

Did Non-alignment, at any stage during the cold war, enter the calculations of the policy framers in the capitals of the super powers? Did Washington seriously try to woo India into joining the Western bloc? Moscow in any case did not need to, since the posture of the non-aligned on most issues was favourable to it. In fact, the Non-aligned Movement (NAM) was grateful to the Soviets for their support in their fight against colonialism which, more than disarmament or development, kept up the facade of unity. The non-aligned either did not realise or choose to ignore the reality of Soviet colonialism in Eastern Europe. The sad part is that we were not perceived by most in the West, and with justification, as being genuinely non-aligned. Yes, we refused to join a military alliance but other than that, we did not judge issues on merit as Non-alignment was supposed to enable us to do. We were less than unequivocal in condemning the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia or Hungary. In more recent times, our stand on the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, a member-state of the United Nations, did absolutely no credit to our non-aligned credentials. A disingenuous argument would be used to justify such stands, namely that Non-alignment was meant to protect our freedom of decision precisely in such situations on the basis of our national interest; we did not have to follow the line taken by almost every other non-aligned country.

Did the choice of Non-alignment in the external field have to affect the course of the economic policies at home? Not necessarily. As it happened, however, most non-aligned countries opted for a dominant public sector and state control over the markets. In the case of India, we followed a kind of non- alignment in our domestic economic policy also. We had elements of central planning, state distribution system, etc, and we also had a private sector which, on the one hand was protected and on the other was not given a free rein to develop itself. Unlike many other countries, India did not derive any economic benefits from Non-alignment. We did not or could not milk the cold war for all it was worth.

Perhaps it was a coincidence, but the fact is that we embarked purposefully on the road to liberalisation and deregulation only after the cold war ended. These steps may have been taken even if the cold war had not ended, but it is an inescapable fact that many parts of the so-called non-aligned world moved from suffocating state control to giving more freedom to market forces only after the Berlin Wall crumbled in 1989. Thus, the cold war and the choice of Non-alignment had a direct bearing on the economic policies and performance at home.

This was perhaps unfortunate. We missed decades of opportunity to build a strong economy and, most importantly, to reduce the incidence of poverty. It was said that the state had to step in to develop infrastructure since the private sector was too shy and timid to invest in long-gestation projects. This argument sounds less convincing now than it might have when it was first made. In any case it is precisely in infrastructure that the country is most deficient today. If we had managed to do in the economic field in the 70's and 80's what we eventually did in the 90's, India have been a significant economic power today. No doubt the rich would have become richer but the poor could not have become any poorer than what they are today. It would have even helped us in foreign affairs. A strong economy would have much better supported a strong defence, would have earned us more respect from our neighbours and would have even strengthened our claim for permanent membership of the U.N. Security Council. Could we have done this while remaining wedded to the rhetoric of Non-alignment? A less confrontational, less rhetorical and more balanced and nuanced position in foreign policy would have attracted more foreign investments and technology into the country. We could not be really worried about neo-colonialism.

Interestingly, whatever successes we had in the diplomatic arena - chairmanship of the Neutral Nations Repatrition Committee after the Korean War, chairmanships of the three Indo-China Supervisory Commissions in 1954 and our efforts on behalf of Egypt in 1956 during the Suez crisis - came before the NAM was born in 1961.

It can be argued that the problem was not with Non-alignment as such but with turning it into a movement, a group, a bloc. It is not at all certain if Nehru would have welcomed this evolution of the first and only summit of the non-aligned that he attended in Belgrade in 1961. At the same time, the NAM leaves its members free to pursue policies and positions which may be, and often are, at variance with the `decisions' of the Movement. Non- alignment was an instrument, not an end in itself. India was one of the few countries which was serious about Non-alignment. We were one of the few significant countries which had no agenda of its own to lobby in the NAM. Knowing our weakness for leadership, other developing countries encouraged us to speak up in defence of the interests of the third world and we gladly did so but it did no good either to us or to the third world.

On the whole, NAM did not bring any particular benefit, political or economic, to India. India does not need to belong to an amorphous group or give any label to its foreign policy to achieve its goals. We do not need to hanker after leadership. Leadership has to be recognised by the followers, it cannot be a self-appointed affair. India has to be a strong power, not to bully anyone but merely to defend itself against the hostile forces in the region. An economically strong India, which alone can become militarily strong, will earn respect and leadership. This must be our highest priority. Signing the CTBT - but postponing ratification until a more propitious time - ought to help in pursuing this objective, it certainly will have no negative implications for our security. We must also continue and intensify our campaign for nuclear disarmament. Similarly, we must defend, as indeed we are defending, our interests in the WTO by forming temporary coalitions with other countries with similar interests. Pragmatism, and not profession to some outdated concept, must be the guiding principle of our diplomacy.

(The writer is a former Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations.)

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