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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 27, No. 12. 1964.

Non-Alignment

Non-Alignment

Thus Nehru had a philosophy of foreign relationships. In practice this became the policy of non-alignment. This is not a passive, hand-washing denial of responsibility in international affairs, but, at its best, a crusade for peace. Dynamic neutralism is perhaps a better name for it; the taking of an independent line, not the avoidance of involvement.

Towards the East Nehru was frequently a little too conciliatory for the Americans; but the reason for this seems quite sound. Totalitarian states suppress almost all internal criticism, whereas a democracy works in its continual atmosphere. It follows therefore that Russia and China are more likely to react adversely to it. The East needs humouring while the West does not. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, geography has given India a 2000-mile boundary with Communism. You do not antagonise unnecessarily neighbours much stronger than yourself.

Jawaharlal Nehru

However Nehru's insistence on contin u i n g Commonwealth membership and the core belief in Western institutions, as expressed in the democratic nature of the Indian constitution, gave him equally strong reasons for remaining on friendly terms with the West.

Although Nehru, and indeed most educated Indians, were impressed in the 1930s by Russia's rapid modernisation, they did not approve of the means. Force, violence, compulsion—all these were diametrically opposed to the Gandhian technique of satyagraha. Apparently good ends reached by bad means always turn out to be bad when you attain them. Thus Nehru sought alliance with the East as little as with the West.