What were the major determinants of India’s Foreign Policy of Non-alignment? Indicate the changes in India’s Foreign Policy since the 1990’s. (2004)
Non-alignment, set out by Jawaharlal Nehru in September 1946, meant refusing bloc commitments while judging each issue on its merits. It was overdetermined: several separate considerations, some normative and some material, pointed the same way. After 1991 its method changed almost completely, while its objective, decisional freedom, did not.
Major determinants of non-alignment
| Determinant | Character | What it explains |
|---|---|---|
| Freshly won independence | Normative and material | Refusal to surrender sovereignty to a new patron |
| Development priority | Material | Aid from both blocs: Bhilai (Soviet), Rourkela (West German) |
| Military and economic weakness | Material | Nothing to offer an ally; defence spending unaffordable |
| Avoiding entanglement | Strategic | Pakistan’s pacts of 1954–55 brought the Cold War to India’s border |
| Anti-colonial, anti-racist conviction | Ideological | Congress resolutions from the 1920s; South Africa raised at the UN in 1946 |
| Solidarity and voice | Instrumental | Afro-Asian numbers in the General Assembly |
| Domestic consensus | Political | Paul F. Power: a left-right split united only behind non-alignment |
Interest explains why India refused alliance; the freedom movement’s ideas explain the content, from Panchsheel (1954) to disarmament.
Changes in Indian foreign policy since the 1990s
The shocks of 1991
The Soviet collapse removed India’s veto cover and arms supplier; the payments crisis forced liberalisation; the Gulf War displayed unipolar power. P.V. Narasimha Rao reframed non-alignment at the Jakarta summit (1992) as each state’s right to independence and development, whatever the number of blocs.
What changed
- Economic diplomacy at the core: Look East (1991–92), upgraded to Act East (2014); trade pacts with the UAE and Australia (2022), EFTA (2024) and the UK (signed July 2025), and the conclusion of FTA talks with the EU (January 2026).
- Ideological taboos dropped: full relations with Israel (January 1992); a 1993 treaty with Russia without the 1971 security clause.
- Nuclear realism: the 1998 tests, then the 2005 India–US framework and the 2008 NSG waiver.
- Strategic partnership with the United States: LEMOA (2016), COMCASA (2018), BECA (2020); the Quad at leaders’ level from 2021.
- Multi-alignment: the Quad alongside the SCO (member since 2017) and BRICS, whose New Delhi summit India hosted in September 2026. S. Jaishankar‘s The India Way (2020) sums up the method: “engage America, manage China, cultivate Europe, reassure Russia, bring Japan into play”; he has called non-alignment a term of a particular era.
- Maritime and regional turn: Neighbourhood First, SAGAR (2015) and MAHASAGAR (2025), the Indo-Pacific.
- Global South leadership through India-led platforms: the Voice of the Global South summits (from 2023), the African Union’s G20 seat (2023), the International Solar Alliance. NAM itself is maintained at lower levels: Vice-Presidents at the 2016 and 2019 summits, the External Affairs Minister at Kampala (2024).
- Willingness to use force: Balakot (2019), Operation Sindoor (2025).
What continued
Strategic autonomy remains the constant. India abstained on Ukraine resolutions and absorbed an extra 25% American tariff over Russian oil from August 2025 until an interim trade understanding in February 2026; it refuses alliance and rejects third-party mediation on Kashmir. C. Raja Mohan (Crossing the Rubicon, 2003) reads the shift as one from idealism towards pragmatic power politics, while critics warn that hedging can make partners doubt India.
Conclusion
The determinants of 1947 were weakness, bipolarity and anti-colonial conviction. Since the 1990s, capability and a multipolar order have replaced abstention with multi-alignment. The objective is unchanged: autonomy is now pursued by being inside many arrangements rather than outside all of them.