India has not been particularly enthusiastic about a third non-aligned summit in the past. It has not opposed the proposal as such but it has made no secret of its view that a meeting of the heads of non-aligned governments will not serve much purpose in the changed and rapidly changing world situation.
There is still much merit in this assessment. But now that a summit meeting is to be held at Lusaka in less than a fortnight it is incumbent on this country to do its very best to ensure that the approach of the conference to the problems facing the non-aligned nations is both realistic and constructive.
This will not be easy or pleasant. Some Afro-Asian leaders cannot resist the temptation to indulge in old-fashioned anti-imperialistic rhetoric and do not like to be told that this is no longer relevant to the problems of non-aligned countries in the ‘seventies. But Mrs Gandhi, like Mr Nehru at the first non-aligned summit at Belgrade in 1961, owes it to herself and her country to point out that colonialism has ceased to be the dominant feature of our times and that it is pointless to go on whipping a dying horse.
With the exception of Yugoslavia, all non-aligned countries which will be represented at Lusaka happen to be poor. Their real problem is not how to keep out potential western investors but how to attract them. Evan President Tito’s government is keen to woo them. There are signs that the western nations are losing interest in the economic future of the poorer half of the world. It is for Asian and African countries to find out what they can do to sustain this interest. The non-aligned nations particularly need to take a hard-headed view of the new economic realities.
Irrelevant
An anti-western crusade is irrelevant also from another point of view. Asian countries, particularly those on the periphery of the Indian Ocean, need the West to balance and, if necessary, offset the Soviet Union’s growing naval presence and all that it implies in terms of political ambitions and influence.
Ideally speaking, the non-aligned countries can take up the position that neither of the two super-powers should seek to step into the place and role of the British empire which is now in the last phase of being wound up. But this will be an exercise in escapism. The Soviet Union makes no secret of its plan to establish a strong naval presence in the region and has already taken a number of steps to implement it. It may in fact be useful to look at its massive investments in Algeria, Iraq, the UAR, Syria, Somalia and Yemen in the light of its larger ambitions.
Some people argue that the United States will on its own take steps to counteract the Soviet moves in the Indian Ocean. They cite the occasional visits by units of the Seventh Fleet in support of this contention. But this assessment may not be as valid as is often believed in view of the neo-isolationist sentiment that currently grips America. In any event the non-aligned countries should recognise that they have little to gain by mounting an anti-western tirade just at this stage. They need to relate their tactics to the requirements of the situation.
In the ’fifties when Mr Nehru was shaping India’s policy and influencing those of other non-aligned countries, it was necessary to call in the “new world” of the Soviet Union to redress the balance of the “old”, which included the United States, for the simple reason that the latter was still dominant and interventionist in its approach. Things have changed vastly since then. In the ’seventies Asia may need the “old world’’ to redress the balance of the “new”. This possibility cannot be dismissed light-heartedly.
Contradictory
The Soviet Union presents a strangely contradictory picture. While it has become a super-power in the true sense of the world by virtue of its remarkable military expansion in recent years, it is unable and unwilling to sustain a major economic aid programme. In other words, it lacks the economic sinews to support its ambitions. For some years it has been seeking influence in key countries of the third world largely on the basis of arms supplies. India itself is a recipient of such supplies and is grateful to the Soviet Union for its timely and impressive assistance. But it cannot close its eyes to the unpleasant fact that the consequences of Soviet military aid in several cases have been as disruptive of peace, regional balance, domestic stability and economic growth as similar American aid.
Leaders of non-aligned countries at Lusaka must also face up to the harsh truth that they cannot serve as honest brokers between the two super-powers which have not needed the services of any mediator since the Cuban confrontation in 1962, and are unlikely to do so in future. They can best serve the cause of peace not by striking grand postures but by managing their own affairs in such a way that they do not tempt either the United States or the Soviet Union to intervene.
Mr Nehru was seriously concerned, and rightly so, with the nuclear arms race and its consequences for the future of the human race. This danger is by no means over. But it is being contained. The partial test ban agreement has been followed by the non-proliferation treaty and it is only a matter of time before the United States and the Soviet Union agree on measures to limit their future nuclear build-ups. Other nations like China can continue to foul the atmosphere by conducting nuclear tests but they do not have the resources to compete with America and Russia.
Mr Nehru often said that the world was divided not between the East (the Soviet bloc which then included China) and the West but between the rich and industrialised North and the poor and predominantly agricultural South. This is a commonplace by now but it took great perception to see this at the height of the cold war. The tragedy is that even those who accept this assessment in theory, often in practice act as if the North-South division is subordinate to that between the East and the West. The Lusaka conference will have served a useful purpose if it helps to promote a clear understanding on this central issue.
Broadly, there are two contradictory approaches to the problems of the ever widening gap between the North and the South. India has been advocating that countries of the third world should come together and exert pressure on the North in general and the West in particular. Its approach has clearly been guided by its awareness that the West has at least the capacity if not the will to provide the capital investment, the know-how and the trading facilities which Asia, Africa and Latin America need desperately and that the contribution of the Soviet Bloc can at best be limited.
Peking, on the other hand, believes that the economic imbalance between the North and the South cannot be redressed without a simultaneous change in the power balance in favour of the South, and that the latter change can be brought about only through a combination of communist revolutions on the Chinese model and acceptance by the third world of its leadership. This may not be the main explanation for its twin decisions to go nuclear and to support insurrections in the various under-developed countries. But it is indisputable that this is the crux of the Chinese world view.
Stagnant
Neither of these approaches can be said to have been particularly successful so far. The western world has not heeded the pleas by India and other Asian, African and Latin American members of the UNCTAD in the last six years. Western aid has remained stagnant and the trade barriers have not been lowered. But of the two, the Indian approach is the more sensible, if for no other reason than that China’s can only be wholly counter-productive. The talk of the countryside (Asia, Africa and Latin America) surrounding the cities (the industrialised North) is so much hot air.
Except for a brief period in the middle ’fifties, China’s role in the third world has been disruptive. Whatever it may say, its performance has not been conducive to the unity of the third world for the purpose of dealing with the two power groupings. It has indirectly helped to legitimise American intervention for two decades and it may do the same in respect of the Soviet Union in the ’seventies. For, the countries on its borders are bound to look increasingly to Moscow if the Americans withdraw and Peking does not reassure them that it will leave them alone to solve their social, economic, and political problems and conflicts as best as they can.
Finally, the situation has changed greatly since President Tito took the initiative in March 1968 for convening the third non-aligned summit. He then wanted to mobilise support in favour of the Arabs against Israel and the world-wide demand for an end to American bombing raids on North Viet Nam and for negotiations. The two issues are still very much there but the approach to them now has to be different.
In the first case it is necessary for the non-aligned countries to support President Nasser not only against Tel Aviv’s intransigence but also against his Arab critics who oppose any agreement that does not provide for the liquidation of Israel as a Jewish state. Similarly, they have to recognise that Hanoi too has to make some concessions if Indo-China is to have peace.
The Times of India, 26 August 1970