Non-Alignment, 1946–1965: Its Establishment and Struggle against Afro-Asianism

Abstract

Scholars often confuse Non-Alignment and Afro-Asianism. Although sibling movements with shared roots in Nehruvian thinking, they had diverse, though overlapping, sets of members and different goals. The current article explores through the lens of the three founding fathers of Non-Alignment—Nehru, Tito, and Nasser—how the movement emerged and eventually struggled to free itself from Afro-Asianism. Nehru toyed with ideas of non-alignment since World War II, before Tito and Nasser were even in power. In the mid-1950s, the Indian Prime Minister was able to convince the Yugoslav President of his ideas; shortly afterwards, Tito convinced Nasser to join. In the five subsequent years, the Yugoslav and Egyptian leaders promoted the ideas of establishing a formal movement—often against the positions of their Indian friend. And from 1961 to 1965, during its first four years as a movement, Non-Alignment eventually broke free from Afro-Asianism. The article uses archival documents from India, former Yugoslavia, former East Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, the People’s Republic of China, and Australia.