My two countries of origin, India and the United States of America, have shared a kindred bond with not only the ideals of democracy but also their shared interests to enhance worldwide security, ensure stability, and boost economic well-being through trade, investment, and connectivity. These two nations have proudly been at the forefront of managing and embracing tremendous diversity in race, religion and creed within the population. However, I fear that India’s history of nonalignment and its national interest ties with Russia may actually be a ruse to mask a larger underlying issue: India’s nationalistic politics are aligning closer to Russia’s style of governance than western style democracy.
I find this to be a potentially decisive moment for these nation’s partnership, as these nations grapple with their reliance on superpowers such as Russia, the Middle East, or China. Are nations like India morally bound to align themselves with the West, despite their own domestic interests? What becomes of nations that don’t actually have the power to call the shots? Beyond these questions is a very simple one, what is more important: ideological morality or economic security?
Here’s my take: Western nations such as the US have failed to understand the complexities that developing nations have to deal with when thinking of global alliances. In the modern era, every nation has been lumped into one of two categories: pro-democracy or anti-democracy. However, being either pro or anti-democracy might not be as simple as it seems in a nation like India.
In the past, India has rejected formal alliances, maintaining a policy of nonalignment. Even as India grew closer to the U.S., Indian officials rebranded nonalignment as “strategic autonomy.” Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India’s foreign minister, highlights the core objective of this policy to “give India maximum options in its relations with the outside world.”
After India’s independence from British colonial rule, the nation’s new leadership found itself at odds with the US. India had won its freedom in a uniquely Indian way, through nonviolence, and was reluctant to commit to any alliance, let alone one led by the U.S. and Great Britain. India’s first prime minister, Jawarhhalal Nehru, saw himself as a leading advocate of the nonaligned movement, and wanted developing countries to stand apart from American or Soviet demands for loyalty. He believed that it was essential for some countries to provide a neutral corridor where conflicts could be negotiated, a policy of neutrality toward great-power struggles that continues to be embraced across the Indian political spectrum.
I feel like the US failed to understand this, as during the Post World War II and Cold War eras, the US was hellbent and often stubborn to force a western pro-democracy agenda down developing nations throats. Harry Truman, FDR’s successor, viewed nonalignment with suspicion and had little interest in engaging with neutral countries. Indian leaders found the moral overtones of U.S. foreign policy, seemingly driven by a “You’re either with us or against us” ultimatum, an affront to their country’s sovereignty. The U.S. and India, two nations that conceptually seem destined to be partners, have remarkably divergent worldviews, finding themselves pursuing conflicting objectives. In my recent trips to India, I have found by talking to people that there is a general sentiment that the US has become a bully in the world and needs an opposing weight to keep it honest.
The West must understand it is not going to gain the loyalty of these nations through appeals to democratic solidarity, it will have to do so by delivering economic stability. The rising states of Asia, Africa, and Latin America will continue pursuing their own economic self-interest even as they look for protection from the United States and the West. The US should build a relationship with India based on limited areas of mutual interest and build from there. In the long run, the U.S. and India appear to need each other to manage a significant security concern they both share: the threat of China. This is yet another conundrum. Russia and China find themselves every closer strategically, and India finds itself caught right in the middle.
Russia, with its invasion of Ukraine, has shown itself to be a danger to the world. For India, staying neutral and abstaining from voting to remove Russia from the United Nations’ Human Rights Council is, in my opinion, tacit support for Russia. India may argue that it gets advanced weaponry from Russia and has strong economic ties to it, but clearly it has abdicated any moral leadership in its choices on this issue. India remains the architect of nonalignment theory, but it’s the grandiose aspirations that have fallen away along with its multiethnic democracy. True nonalignment, of which former Prime Minister Nehru would have advocated for, would keep both the US and Russia at arm’s length. India, however, is economically tied to both.
Non-alignment is not what it used to be. The world is more interconnected than ever, and it is impossible to stay neutral. As nationalistic Hindu ideals are on the rise, India must decide where it stands in this international order. There are only two planets in the orbit: Russia or the United States of America. Pick One. India’s policy of non-alignment is rendering it weak, and indecision will further expose itself.
Sources:
https://cprindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/NonAlignment-2.pdf