NAM : Foreign Policy of Namo :::: Past is always right there behind you!

 Modi era: Changing World and the Foreign Policy

The foreign policy of the Modi government came in for debate during the corona crisis when the Prime Minister sought to revive two prominent but virtually defunct bodies – the SAARC and the Non Aligned Movement. Modi’s ‘NAM spin’ came as a surprise in 2020 as he has generally tried to stay away from any of the principal policy paradigms anchored by Jawaharlal Nehru.   

Along with the then Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito and Egypt's second president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, India's first Prime Minister Nehru is credited for the birth of NAM at Belgrade. 

In general sense too since 2014, it is arguably said that Modi's foreign policy is a breath of fresh air! But of course, we should not miss the point that a country's foreign policy must be built up based on capability, confidence and aspirations.  

Even his critics would say the Prime Minister during his first stint itself has surprised the world with a display of new energy and enthusiasm in India's global engagements.

People say he gave the much needed 'Gujarati pragmatism' spin and has tried to take India out of the known bogies of self-inflicted economic isolation, Partition and the legacy of Cold War. 

In fact, even the term or the phrase ‘non alignment’ was first used by Nehru in 1954 and he had arguably conceived it as a policy of vigorous action for peace and for a better international climate. 

NAM was not originally conceived as a platform that would prefer neutrality in international politics. It was born in a bi-polar world and thus it may be of certain academic interest to speculate what shape the founders (including Nehru) would have given to the NAM if the world then had been it had turned out to be. 

But it is also a fact by late 1990s, the NAM had lost its relevance!

In February 1999, in one of my earlier assignments in the national capital – my story for 'Press Trust of India - PTI' was titled, “Is NAM losing its relevance?” (Reported Feb 8, 1999 in ‘The Hindu’).

I had spoken to a number of experts on the subject and those included some serving career diplomats both in India and overseas. One such an individual was Dr V R Panchmukhi of Research and Information System for Non Aligned and other Developing Countries.

NAM was not a “cogent grouping”, he had said. 

But crucially he also said – “NAM started as a reaction to Cold War but situations proved that dominance of power blocs was pervasive. In such a scenario, Non Alignment meant the capability of a country to stand up independently”.

Others said the absence of ‘political will’ on the part of the member nations had weakened the influence of NAM. By 2014 – when Modi came to power – even journalists regularly in MEA beat would hardly bother to know what is going on in the NAM. But what made Modi try to revive NAM in 2019?

The fact of the matter is more than Nehru-influenced platform, Modi saw in NAM a platform that is committed to promote “freedom of thought and actions for developing nations”. 

Those in the know of things suggest – Modi was convinced perhaps by his close aides External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar and NSA Ajit Doval that the neo-world order post Corona would be a different one. 

And here the developing world would be playing a more crucial role than it has done so in last two decades. 

In the 1990s, NAM or the international community had a world of ‘one and half superpowers’ – in the words of Pran Chopra as written in his book ‘The Crisis of Foreign Policy – Perspectives and Issues’.

In 2020 and beyond it is certainly a different world. 

In this world, we are concerned about an unseen virus and the ‘root cause of the virus’ has put China in suspect list. This is also a neo-world wherein US President Donald Trump has announced that his government will end all ties with the World Health Organisation.

But can NAM of 2020 era – a different world under the likes of Trump, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi – be a different one than it was in 1990s. In the US, Trump has been replaced by Democrat Joe Biden but more importantly, the American leadership also suffered a terrible blow in Afghanistan.

A disaster, some would say !!

If I take the clock back to my 1999 write up, I have a ready reference to a sentence – Barely has any NAM nation criticised the bombing of sites in Afghanistan and Sudan by the US or the strikes on Iraq. 

In fact, by 1999 itself NAM had fallen a victim of muscle flexing by Uncle Sam and also China.

“NAM’s erosion from within is well reflected in the kind of excessive influence the United States and China had over its deliberations in Durban Summit,” Prof K P Mishra of Jawaharlal Nehru University had told me. 

As a political entity, the BJP itself was never much enthusiastic about NAM.

In 2018, President Ram Nath Kovind made a visit to Cuba – another co-founder of NAM. Naturally at the media briefing, senior MEA officials on June 12, 2018 was asked whether President’s visit had anything to do about reviving the erstwhile hyped international body – the NAM.

Joint Secretary Latin America and Caribbean Partha Sathpathy had replied: “It will be first ever visit of President of India to Cuba since Cuban revolution in 1959.”

But he hastened to add cautiously: “I am not going to debate on the position of  NAM. Both India and Cuba are founding members of NAM and both practice their own foreign policies which are devoid of any pressure”.

So, what does Modi gain by his new found line on the NAM? Or Is India keen to preserve the forum? More than mere preservation, what would be required is “renovation” – both of objectives and methods. 

Many years back, it used to be argued that NAM is a right platform which could actually “rescue” United Nations from the border line or limbo.

They say – the past is always right there behind you!

Notably, in 2016 Modi had become first Indian Prime Minister since 1979 to skip the NAM Summit.