As the Cold War began to simmer, and the United States and the Soviet Union began recruiting nations to their respective sides, India viewed the conflict as a dangerous diversion from its domestic and international priorities. Its government was determined to tackle the country’s profound developmental and governance challenges at home, while managing an intractable rivalry with Pakistan, and later China, abroad. India emerged from its independence struggle in 1947 weakened by a century of colonial occupation and partition. While non-alignment had roots in India’s colonial past, philosophical aversion to blocs and alliances, and “ nationalist inclinations towards non-confrontation,” it also had more pragmatic geopolitical applications. However, this will depend on policymakers in Washington appreciating Indian sensitivities regarding alignment, and the willingness of Indian officials in New Delhi to recognize that the greatest threat to India’s autonomy comes not from America’s embrace but rather from Chinese hegemony.Īn examination of strategic autonomy in India requires a basic understanding of the doctrine it succeeded. The paradigm shift could present opportunities to take the Indian-U.S. policymakers keen on further elevating the partnership with India, it is imperative to understand the domestic and international drivers, and the geopolitical implications, of the evolution from non-alignment to strategic autonomy. At the same time, it has developed an increasingly intimate strategic partnership with the United States.įor U.S. These debates have gained greater salience in recent years as India confronts an escalating rivalry with China that has entered a new chapter following the outbreak of a deadly crisis at the disputed Sino-Indian border this summer. They are losing ground, however, to a growing chorus of Indian voices that see alignment with the United States as a way for India to secure its strategic autonomy vis-à-vis its principal security threat: China. Some acolytes of non-alignment view strategic autonomy as cautioning against a closer partnership with the United States, which they believe would constrain India’s freedom of action. Specifically, there is disagreement about which activities and countries are enhancing India’s autonomy, and which are restricting it.
Yet there are diverging opinions in New Delhi about what strategic autonomy means in practice. It seeks to keep Indian decision-making insulated from external pressures while moving beyond some of the ideological constraints of non-alignment and its inherent aversion to foreign partnerships. Today, there’s broad consensus in New Delhi that the doctrine has outlived its purpose, as non-alignment has quietly been succeeded by a new foreign policy principle: strategic autonomy.īilled as a “ mutation of realism and India’s traditional non-aligned posture,” strategic autonomy prioritizes self-sufficiency and independence. But non-alignment was also less principled than its proponents may acknowledge, later being warped into anti-American ideology divorced from India’s national interests.Īs the Cold War has faded from memory, so too has the attractiveness of non-alignment, falling even further into disfavor since the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014.
Non-alignment may have been a more flexible Cold War strategy than its critics care to admit, with India embracing stronger ties with both superpowers in the 1960s and 1970s when the threat from China grew more acute. Considered a “ central component of Indian identity in global politics,” the doctrine counseled India against entanglement in the Cold War and alignment with either the United States or the Soviet Union, while seeking to position India as a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement.
For decades after gaining independence in 1947, Indian foreign policy was guided by one overarching principle: non-alignment.