The Rediff Special /J N Dixit

If NAM is to be kept alive, it will have to move away from the orthodoxies and repetitious hortatory pronouncements

NAM's contribution towards the resolution of these issues was in terms of focusing international attention on these issues and giving general political and moral support to action and impulses which led to the solutions.

The defence and strategic equations of the world have undergone a qualitative change with the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. So NAM's general posture as it evolved since 1961 on security issues in the conventionally accepted sense of the term has also become passe.

The NAM summits at Jakarta in 1992 and in Cartagena in 1995 as well as the foreign ministers meeting over the last five years have deliberated on these dilemmas. The general conclusion arrived at was that NAM is uniquely placed to forge a global consensus on issues of contemporary global concern. There have also been formalistic affirmations that there is an overarching solidarity and adherence to a shared vision and approach to meet the challenges of the economic, technological and new political undercurrents permeating inter-state relations and the world order.

All this would be gratifying if substantiated by patterns of state behaviour of NAM members. This is not the case. The old continental sub-groups of NAM (the Asian, the African, the European and the Central and South American groups) have now been replaced by new groups in the movement. You have the Islamic group of countries, the ASEAN group of countries, the Maghrab Arabs, and the sub-Sahara African groups functioning in separate identities.

The linkage between NAM on the one hand and other multilateral fora representing the interests of the developing countries like UNCTAD and the G-77 have been diminishing over the years. The profound technological and economic changes which have occurred among the different member countries and in different regions represented in NAM have resulted in inequalities in levels of prosperity and the quality of life between different groups of countries belonging to the movement. This, in turn, has resulted in different categories of interests motivating the policies of given countries.

The process has culminated in the emergence of new regional organisations and groups like ASEAN, NAFTA, APEC and even SAARC representing more cohesive pattern of concerns and interests and functioning as more effective entities responding to the specific needs of different groups of countries.

The transformation of the international economic order has resulted in most non-aligned countries developing connections with advanced market economy countries, the linkages which cannot be entirely conform to the general orientations of NAM on these matters. This phenomenon has found economic and political expression in the manner in which non-aligned countries have responded to issues being discussed at the conferences of the WTO and multilateral discussions on issues like environment, sustainable development, non-proliferation and disarmament.

One has to acknowledge that except for lip service supporting NAM, the movement comes alive temporarily during its summits and foreign ministers conferences. Then each member goes its own way.

The Delhi meeting of the NAM foreign ministers would have two objectives: First, that of ensuring that the conference is publicly perceived as a successful exercise because India is hosting it. Secondly, the foreign ministers meeting provides an opportunity for substantive and critical introspection about the relevance of the movement to member-countries, particularly, to India.

If NAM is to be kept alive and is to have a future role, it will have to move away from the orthodoxies and repetitious hortatory pronouncements. The movement would have to focus the new challenges that developing countries are facing about transfer of technology and investments, about social and educational issues and about human rights, about meeting the political implications of new strategic and power equations dominated by the great powers which are affecting the functioning of the UN and evolving international economic arrangements.

Mr Gujral would do well in asking his non-aligned colleagues whether they agree that these are the challenges which non-aligned countries face and whether they are willing to engage in forging a collective approach to deal with these problems and whether their countries would be capable of translating such a collective approach into their policies, regardless of the other linkages and equation that they have with other centres of power and influences in the world.

J N Dixit's earlier columns: