India and the world

India achieved unique distinction on the world stage to take its nascent democracy to new heights by keeping equidistance in the bi-polar world. Nehru's charismatic personality, his political sagacity, his acceptability as a great leader of the country along with his position and prestige in the world contributed greatly to India's strength in world politics. India's backwardness, poverty, underdevelopment and poor military strength did not matter

- H KHASNOBIS

The non-aligned movement originated in international politics from a group of states that shared the peacetime policy of avoiding political or economic affiliations with the major power blocs. At the beginning, the non-aligned movement consisted primarily of Asian and African states that were once colonies of the Western powers and were wary of being drawn into a new form of dependence by the West or by the communist bloc.

Founded by Jawaharlal Nehru, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and Sukarno of Indonesia, the basic concept of non-alignment originated in 1955 at Bandung, Indonesia. It was the first Afro-Asian conference that set out to promote concerted economic and cultural cooperation and oppose colonialism. Twenty-five countries attended the conference.

It affirmed the right to independence and to neutral coexistence in the Cold War between the East and the West. The movement mandated seeking development assistance from both the US and the Soviet Union while refraining from forming political or military alliances with either country.

The first conference of the non-aligned movement (NAM) took place in Belgrade, in September 1961 under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia. Apart from the three leaders of the Bandung conference, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana complemented the leadership making it five. The selection of Belgrade as the first venue of the conference deserves a mention.