The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), a 51-year-old group of countries which foreswear any alliance with or against any distinct power blocs, consists of 120 countries.
Originally conceived in 1951 by India’s Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Yugoslavia’s President Josip Broz Tito, Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah and Indonesia’s Sukarno, the NAM has been historically viewed with a combination of distrust and ridicule by the Western powers. Since NAM members are most of the former British colonies, there has always been a degree of condescension shown by the imperialists toward it.
Founded in 1961, the NAM has gone through a cycle of being very influential to being redundant and everything else in between. In the Western estimation, its current status can be summed up in the complex diplomatic parlance as “meh.” That, of course, is a big mistake when you consider that it still represents close to 60 percent of the world.
India still remains the leading light of the NAM. although Egypt has its own existential challenges but seems to have found a way out, Yugoslavia ceased being a country sometime in 1991. Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim majority nation, has gone on to become a vibrant economy. Ghana, the first to gain independence among sub-Saharan Africa from colonial masters, too has witnessed a relatively stable economic growth in the past quarter century.
I can name all the 120 NAM countries but it is enough to mention just a few to underscore its importance. Apart from India and Egypt, it has Iran, Iraq, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Venezuela, North Korea, Afghanistan, Cuba, Qatar, Myanmar and the list goes on. On paper, this is a grouping that could exercise vast influence in world affairs but the reality is way more complex because many of them have to either divide their loyalties or balance them along economic, geographical, cultural and even religious lines. Also, since the founding principle of the movement was to eschew any specific bloc alliances, it cannot create its own formal bloc.
The idea of the NAM made sense in a certain period because Nehru, Tito, Nasser, Nkrumah and Sukarno rightly concluded that former colonies or countries that were frequently railroaded needed a platform where they can express themselves independently and perhaps seek meaningful cooperation. Over the decades, particularly since the end of the Cold War aided by the disintegration of the Soviet Union and increasingly globalized and yet localized economic interests, the dynamic has been fundamentally altered. Notwithstanding, there is still a way the NAM can reinvent itself into a constructive alliance to meet massive global challenges.
One immediate example may be seen in the upcoming NAM summit in Tehran on August 30-31. India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reaches Tehran a couple of days earlier.
The United States is deeply aware of not just civilizational ties between India and Iran but the fact that New Delhi enjoys considerable goodwill in Tehran and could play a quietly decisive role in the ongoing standoff over Iran’s nuclear program. Dr. Singh will hold bilateral talks with Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad which will cover a whole gamut of issues including, either directly or implicitly, the crippling Western sanctions out of which India offers a way out.
Iran is strategically important for India not just because of its oil and gas but also because of its geostrategic location bordering Afghanistan as well as Central Asian countries. While Afghanistan is crucial for India because of Pakistan, not to mention its rich mineral resources, Central Asian countries are important in terms of its energy security. Since Pakistan is ruled out for now as the natural transit and access route for India, New Delhi has to depend on Iran for it. There is no way India can afford to treat Iran as untouchable the way the Western powers can for any number of reasons.
As Manish Chand of the IANS wire reports, “it would be a visit laden with immense symbolic significance” because it is “expected to not only reinforce India's enduring commitment to the movement but also underline New Delhi's strategic intent to deepen ties with sanctions-hit Tehran.”
Manish writes:
“On the bilateral track, the modus operandi of payments for Iranian oil imports amid tightening Western sanctions are sure to figure in the discussions. Despite Western pressure, India has continued importing Iranian oil and has cited its importance for India's energy security, but has cut down its imports from 12 percent to around 10-11 percent.
“A few months ago, India sealed an agreement for paying 45 percent of its oil imports from Iran in rupees. However, after the US and the EU sanctions came into effect over a month ago, shipments have become difficult with not many insurance companies willing to provide transportation cover.
“India is also expected to ask Iran to buy more wheat and other commodities to bridge a massive trade deficit, which currently favors Tehran, sources said.
“According to the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), bilateral trade between India and Iran can touch $30 billion by 2015 from the current $13.7 billion.”
And this is just between two countries out of the 120 NAM. There has been a staggering amount of economic, diplomatic, cultural and geostrategic activity going on between them that the Western powers are all too aware of and wary of. Perhaps the upcoming summit will convince its members to fundamentally reorder the way the NAM operates in order to potentially become the world’s most constructive grouping. After all between them they account for over two billion people in perhaps the most diverse geographical, cultural and religious spread for a single group.