Why non-alignment with Non-Aligned Movement

Sandeep Dikshit

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 15

Vice President Hamid Ansari left India today to attend the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in distant Venezuela amidst questions about its relevance in this part of the world. India, a founder-member and one of the moving spirits behind NAM, is not the only SAARC country unrepresented by its Prime Minister. Bangladesh and Pakistan are sending their Foreign Ministers, Nepal its Vice President and Sri Lanka has opted for a Cabinet Minister to signal their abiding but low key, and almost disinterested, association with NAM.

Even Iran, which swore by NAM till it was in trouble with the West on the nuclear issue, is sending its Foreign Minister. Numbers tell an impressive story. NAM is the world’s second largest multinational body after the United Nations. Each one of the African nations is a member of NAM. So are many countries in Asia and Latin America. But the world has changed since the glory days of NAM that coincided with the Cold War. It now basically consists of three camps.

The most vocal group is the one that has fallen foul of the US and its allies. Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Iran, the host of the previous summit, fall in this category. The second stream consists of countries that made peace with one of the super powers but continued with the motions of turning up at NAM summits, almost always without a top-level representation.

Then there is the third category of countries like India. They don’t like the language of perpetual confrontation, espoused by the radicals like Venezuela and Iran, but also see NAM reflecting some of their concerns such as the reform of the United Nations, etc. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was a reluctant attendee at the Tehran NAM summit. His successor Narendra Modi has not identified NAM as one of India’s core foreign policy concerns. His current strategic proximity with the US might have been a factor. Under a Leftist President’s watch, host nation Venezuela’s economy has tanked and the rightists have swept the parliamentary elections.

Modi’s decision to stay away was not swayed by the visit of the Venezuelan Foreign Minister, who was accompanied by her colleague marshalling the country’s bounty of petroleum. India exports quite a bit of oil from Venezuela and even Reliance has got interested. The Prime Minister could rightly point to his packed overseas schedule. He might also have factored in the stridently anti-US statements emanating from Venezuela.

This time the PM could point to the tyranny of distance and how it was impossible to stay away for a long time, shortly after attending the G20 and ASEAN summits. India’s other neighbours too have made their excuses.

Azerbaijan will be the next country to host the NAM summit, probably after three years. Till then, it is incumbent upon NAM’s founders to retool it so that it again becomes useful enough for world leaders to attend.