"The People's Bandung": Local Anti-imperialists on an Afro-Asian Stage

Abstract

The 1955 intergovernmental Conference of Asian-African Countries at is widely regarded as the beginning of the Afro-Asian movement. It is less well known that eleven days prior to the Conference, a conference was convened in New Delhi that should be considered its unofficial counterpart. In contrast to Bandung, which was closed to the public, large crowds attended the Delhi conference. Officially known as the Conference of Asian Countries for the Relaxation of International Tension, the conference was also instrumental in the formation of the Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Organization (AAPSO), several founders of which had co-organized Delhi. In contrast to the official Bandung, this movement sought bottom-up, mass-based support for decolonization and nuclear disarmament through popular manifestations of international solidarity. This article therefore attempts to widen the Bandung Moment by focusing not on interstate diplomacy but on more popular, as well as more populous, expressions of the Bandung Spirit.