The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a group of states which are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. The organization was founded in Belgrade in 1961, and was largely conceived by India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru; Indonesia's first president, Sukarno; Egypt's second president, Gamal Abdel Nasser; Ghana's first president Kwame Nkrumah; and Yugoslavia's president, Josip Broz Tito.
All five leaders were prominent advocates of a middle course for states in the Developing World between the Western and Eastern Blocs during the Cold War.
Because the Non-Aligned Movement was formed as an attempt to thwart the Cold War, it has struggled to find relevance since the Cold War ended. Since the end of the Cold War and the formal end of colonialism, the Non-Aligned Movement has been forced to redefine itself and reinvent its purpose in the current world system. A major question has been whether many of its foundational ideologies, principally national independence, territorial integrity, and the struggle against colonialism and imperialism, can be applied to contemporary issues.
Even though NAM may not have the political ,economic & military strength to successfully resist those powerful nations but still it carries enough pressure to question the legitimacy of many acts of developed world as seen during Tehran Summit in 2012 where NAM nations criticized the attemts of western world to isolate iran & punish it with unilateral sanctions.
Importance For India
The movement has emphasised its principles of multilateralism, equality, and mutual non-aggression in attempting to become a stronger voice for the global South, and an instrument that can be utilised to promote the needs of member nations at the international level and strengthen their political leverage when negotiating with developed nations.
NAM is routinely derided by the western media and policy makers as an irrelevant “relic of cold war”.U.S policy makers have explicitly stated that they would like to see India out of NAM altogether and abandon the concept of non-allignment in its foreign policy thinking.
Infact U.S like India to join their alliance of democracies against non-democracies, which in their opinion is the defining agenda in the present global scenario.
Though India has made clear that ,India needs non alignment not just to preserve its “strategic autonomy” but to mobilize developing countries on the basis of common interest.
India as a founding member of NAM saw two objectives i.e national independence and the solidarity of developing countires which were embarking on the path of development in a deeply unequal world.
According to Indian perspective on NAM , it has to be seen in the contect of its revised foreign policy agenda on transforming the nation into a great power.
Even if building better relations with the rich and powerful nations has benefited India in recent decades, abonding the solidarity with other developing nations within NAM may well end up adversely affecting the nation’s economic,political and strategic interests.