Nehru's Policy Of Non-Alignment

The Cold war can be seen as a framework, which shaped every aspect of the world politics and entangled every individual state into the struggle for power and competition between the two great authorities, the United States and the Soviet Union. At the peak of an ongoing struggle over the influence and power, the termination of British Raj in South Asia, led to emergence of two new independent states, India and Pakistan. After years of British governance and influence, two states were in rather weak position, which made them prone to Soviet penetration. This led, the Truman administration to make efforts in order to construct good bilateral relations with both India and Pakistan and to keep them by its side in the global struggle.

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His ideas of freedom and independence are evident in Nehru’s policy of non-alignment, a policy of freedom of action and struggle for independence. As stated, by Nehru “non-alignment" has become a summary description of this policy of friendship toward all nations, uncompromised by adherence to any military pacts. This was not due to any indifference to issues that arose, but rather to a desire to judge them for ourselves, in full freedom and without any preconceived partisan bias.” After gaining independence, two policies, one of non-alignment and another of economic development have guided India, under the leadership of Nehru. Due to his leadership, India’s historical background and anti-colonial approach, India was a leading booster of neutralism in Cold War era. In contrast, to Pakistan India had well-balanced democratic governance in place, which further, strengthened independence and nationalism, leaving no room for foreign interference. India was in a stronger position than Pakistan, in terms of its military build-up, economic position and strong centralized governance, therefore rather than seeking for allies; it tried to sustain its strength in South

Even after, Indo-China conflict, when India required economic aid from the United States, Nehru kept criticizing the Western Power’s every action. This could be due to Nehru’s aim of keeping foreign powers out of the region and maintaining regional hegemony over South Asia. At the beginning of 1950s, the US regional strategy was to establish good bilateral relations with both, India and Pakistan. However, in mid 50s, it started to lose grounds with India, due to its neutral stand and lack of willingness to get involved in conflicts, such as the one in Korea. Due to growing nationalism in Middle East and tensions with China, especially after the North Korean invasion of the South, United States was in need of support from both India and Pakistan. However, Nehru chose not to go against its neighboring China and maintain peaceful relations. Overall, Indian and US views clashed sharply on some of the major security issues. As affirmed by Dennis Kux “ The United States saw a world-wide threat from the Soviet Union and its fellow communist states and felt peace could be secured only through strong military posture and collective security. India, in contrast, thought that communist threat was overstated, and saw both East and West gripped in mutual