Author: Itty Abraham.

This article seeks to clarify the relationship between non-alignment as the most distinctive feature of Indian foreign policy thinking during the Cold War and India's interest in helping form the non-aligned movement (NAM). Precisely because of the early success of its independent non-aligned policy, India's decision to join and help shape the non-aligned movement needs explaining. This article offers new historical evidence to argue that India's decision to associate with the non-aligned movement – and thereby turn away from the racialised legacy of the Bandung Conference – was driven by contingent political factors rather than the intellectual and moral superiority of non-alignment over racialism.