4.1. India’s Policy of Non-Alignment

India, under the leadership of first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, was the first country to have adopted the policy of non-alignment. India’s policy has been positive or dynamic neutralism in which a country acts independently and decides its policy on each issue on its merit. Non-alignment is based on positive reasoning. It is not a negative, middle of the road reluctance to distinguish between right and wrong. It does not mean that a country just retires into a shell.

P M Nehru had declared in the US Congress in 1948, “Where freedom is menaced, or justice is threatened, or where aggression takes place, we cannot be and shall not be neutral … our policy is not neutralist, but one of active endeavour to preserve and, if possible, establish peace on firm foundations.” Commenting on India’s foreign policy, K.M. Panikkar claims that India “has been able to build up a position of independence and, in association with other states similarly placed, has been able to exercise considerable influence in the cause of international goodwill.” In a way, this policy promotes Gandhiji’s belief in non-violence. The critics in early days argued that India’s policy was to remain, “neutral on the side of democracy.”

Speaking in the Constituent Assembly (Legislative) on December 4, 1947, Nehru had sought to

remove the impression that India’s non-alignment also meant neutrality. He had said:

We have proclaimed during this past year that we will not attach ourselves to any particular group. This has nothing to do with neutrality or passivity or anything else. If there is a big war, there is no particular reason why we should jump into it… We are not going to join a war if we can help it, and we are going to join the side which is to our interest when the time comes to make the choice.

India wanted to prevent the international conflict after the horrors of the Second World War. Nehru said: “If and when disaster comes it will affect the world as a whole… Our first effort should be to prevent that disaster from happening.” Reiterating India’s resolve to keep away from power blocs, he said in 1949, “If by any chance we align ourselves definitely with one power group, we may perhaps from one point of view do some good, but I have not the shadow of doubt that from a larger point of view, not only of India but of world peace, it will do harm. Because them we lose that tremendous vantage ground that we have of using such influence as we possess… in the cause of world peace.”