1. The team “Non – Alignment” was coined by V. Krishna Menon in his speech at the United Nationsin 1953.
2. Non – Alignment has been regarded as the most important feature of India’s foreign policy.
3. It aimed to maintain national independence in foreign affairs by not joining any military alliance.
4. It was the largest political grouping of countries in a multilateral fora.
5. The Non – Aligned Movement (NAM) was formed with a membership of 120 countries and 17 states as observers and 10 international organisations.
6. It has transformed from a political movement to an economical movement.
The founding fathers of Non – Aligned Movement: Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Tito of Yugoslavia, Nasser of Egypt, Sukarno of Indonesia, and Kwame Nkumarah of Ghana were the founding fathers of NAM.
The Non – Alignment roots did not prevent India from entering into an alignment with the Soviet Union by the Indo – Soviet treaty of 1971 (20 – year pact of ‘peace, friendship and co operation’)
Then India embarked on a substantial programme of military modernisation. In 1974, India also conducted its first nuclear test at Pokhran under Subterranean Nuclear Explosion Project, in response to China’s nuclear test in 1964 at Lop Nor.
