Raviteja asked: After collapse of USSR in general and after 2000 in particular India moved towards US. Is India moved away from its NAM ideology?

Smita Purushottam replies: Once the old ideological divisions had evaporated after the collapse of the Soviet Union, non-alignment itself lost its earlier meaning. Since non-alignment meant that India refused to participate in the ideologically driven global contest for power blocks and influence between the Soviet and Western blocks, India did not have much of a choice once the contest ended!

In this “End of History” moment, the only relevant elements of continuity were the positions the developing world continued to maintain on important international issues of equity, transfer of resources and also any neo-imperialist ventures mounted by some of the advanced countries, which India continued to oppose. Even in today’s shifting geopolitical scenario, India insists that it wishes to preserve strategic autonomy and foreign policy independence and thus refuses to align with any country or power, so in a sense India has not moved away from its NAM ideological moorings.