Foreign Policy

To pursue an independent foreign policy, for a nascent nation, was a great challenge for the leaders of independent India. The broad parameters which had evolved during the freedom struggle had to be kept at the core while taking any decisions on international affairs. Nehru gave this voice a shape in the form of the idea of non-alignment and an organisational structure through the non-aligned movement (NAM).

The basic principles of India’s foreign policy, during Nehruvian Era, broadly revolved around the premises given below.

(i) Disapproval of participation in any military alliance either bilaterally or multilaterally.

(ii) An independent foreign policy not tied to any of the two contending power blocs, though this was not a synonym for a neutral foreign policy.

(iii) A policy of friendship with every country, whether of the American bloc or of the Soviet bloc.

(iv) An active anti-colonial policy which supported decolonisation in Asian-African-Latin American countries.

(v) Open support to the policy of anti-apartheid.

(vi) Promotion of disarmament as the key to world peace.

[The basic principles of non-alignment and NAM have already been discussed at length in the chapter, ‘The Evolution of Nationalistic Foreign Policy’.]

India’s commitment to disarmament at the international level, could be seen in the time of framing of UN’s Charter. Article 11 of the Charter advocates international disarmament. India supported the formation of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1947 and sponsored the Eighteen Nations Disarmament Conference in 1962.