Teetering on the Edge: An Analysis of the Origins and Endurance of Non-Alignment in Indian Foreign Policy

Abstract

On February 24, 2022, the Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi explicitly declared its neutrality in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Delhi subsequently refused to endorse Western sanctions on Moscow and has abstained from voting on all resolutions condemning Russian actions in the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly. To many observers, it thus appears as though India has reverted to its tried-and-true Cold War-era strategy of non-alignment vis-à-vis Washington and Moscow. Why has India done this? Why has India remained non-aligned between the United States and Russia?

This thesis takes a three-step approach to answering these questions.

First, this thesis examines India’s original decision to embark on a path of non-alignment in 1947. It questions Jawaharlal Nehru’s traditionally idealistic rendering of the policy and, instead, posits that non-alignment was originally grounded on both a concerted Indian pursuit of three material national interests—namely, (1) national security, territorial integrity, and sovereignty, (2) economic well-being and development, and (3) state-building—and an aggregation of two non-material, ideational factors from within the Indian domestic milieu— namely, (1) a nationalistic anti-colonial ethos and (2) a sense of tolerance deriving from Hinduism. As such, borrowing a term from Samuel Barkin of the University of Chicago, it contends that non-alignment originally had largely “realist constructivist,” as opposed to idealistic and purely realist, underpinnings.

Second, this thesis investigates whether and to what extent India is still non-aligned vis-à- vis Washington and Moscow. It questions the arguments of scholars who claim either that India was never non-aligned or that India ceased to be non-aligned upon the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In so doing, this thesis proves that, despite the Modi administration’s rejection of the term non-alignment, India is still non-aligned—as defined by the maintenance of balanced and non-alliance-based relationships with both the U.S. and Russia.

Finally, this thesis tests competing explanations for India’s continued non-alignment. Using data from a novel public opinion survey on non-alignment, it first disproves a political explanation for non-alignment’s persistence, in which public opinion constrains Indian decision- makers from forswearing a non-aligned posture. It then turns to an analysis of whether the realist and constructivist factors that underpinned non-alignment’s genesis can explain the policy’s current existence; consequently, it proves that a sole realist consideration—namely, a China-inspired concern for national security, sovereignty, and territorial integrity—has remained durably explanatory. Lastly, this thesis examines two other outside factors that could undergird India’s continued non-alignment—namely, India’s perception of America as an unreliable partner and India’s realist desire to pursue its great power status in a multipolar context. It concludes that only the latter has any explanatory power in the context of non-alignment.

In the end, this thesis maintains that the combination of a durable realist factor—a concern for national security, sovereignty, and territorial integrity—and a novel realist factor— India’s desire to pursue its great power ambitions—seems to best explain why India is still non- aligned vis-à-vis Russia and U.S. In other words, solely realist considerations seem to now underpin a policy that once had purportedly idealistic roots and realist constructivist origins.

This thesis then concludes with implications of its findings for U.S. policymakers and the U.S.-India strategic partnership.