• Toshi Anand

After India attained freedom in 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister realized that the traditional foreign policy choices of imperialism, balance of power, and isolationism didn’t serve the majority of the newly independent countries. He said, “ Every country has a right to choose its own path.” The international politics got a new dimension by addition of the policy of non-alignment. The Asian Relations Conference in New Delhi (March 1947) and the conference of Afro-Asian Nations in Bandung (Indonesia) in 1955 proclaimed the determination of Asian and African countries to consolidate their independence and to pursue their own developmental paths. Most of the African and Asian countries affirmed the Five Principles (Panchsheel) at Bandung conference and late on fist non-aligned conference at Belgrade in 1961 in which 25 countries participated. Among them were 6 African countries were: Liberia, Libya, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gold Coast (Ghana) and Sudan. These principles provided for peaceful co existence, mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, non aggression, non – interference in each other’s internal affairs, recognition of mutuality and equal benefit.The first summit of the Movement of non-aligned countries was convened by the leaders of India, Indonesia, Egypt, Syria and Yugoslavia. The movement contributed indisputably to the struggle for national independence and decolonization and gained immense diplomatic prestige. In the 1960s and 1970s, non-alignment included nearly all the Asian and African countries and became a platform of coordination to struggle for the respect of the economic and political rights of the developing world. In 1973 Algiers Conference, the concept of a “New International Economic order” was launched.

"Cold war era: Afro-Asia solidarity", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 5, page no.412-417, May-2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1905B60.pdf

"Cold war era: Afro-Asia solidarity", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 5, page no. pp412-417, May-2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1905B60.pdf