Abstract
ABSTRACT This article examines political performance in an international context where state spectacles and foreign policy become tied to aspirational identities of domestic audiences and personal prestige of state leaders. It explores how Prime Minister Indira Gandhi used foreign policy and its performative aspects to rehabilitate her image as a national hero after presiding over a controversial internal ‘Emergency’. Whilst chairing the 1983 Non-Aligned Movement summit in New Delhi, Gandhi skilfully demonstrated her pragmatic approach to foreign policy which sought to establish India's flexibility, independence, and power in diplomacy. Crucially Gandhi's display of ‘stateliness’ through her personal style and speech on the international stage revealed an important form of her statecraft at home. The article concludes that the Prime Minister’s highly mediatised dialogue with members of the Non-Aligned Movement championed her more broadly as an influential leader of the Third World and of a globally-oriented middle class in the early 1980s.
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