The 16th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which is taking place in Tehran, is an occasion for deep introspection among its 120 member states about the identity of the group and its mission in a multipolar world. A pioneer in collective action for developing countries to remain free of superpower domination in the past, NAM has to adjust to a present where there are multiple centres of power.

The rise of NAM members like India, South Africa and Indonesia to greater economic heights and the spectacular ascent of observer countries like China, Russia, Brazil and Mexico as regional and international powers have remade the world altogether. While the aspirations of NAM remain embedded in the language of antihegemonism and sovereignty of the weak, there is a distinct problem of hegemony becoming more diffused and
widely exercised rather than remaining purely Western.
The host nation of the NAM summit, Iran, has understandably highlighted Western interference in West Asia as part and parcel of a “global oppression system”. The next NAM summit will be hosted in 2015 by another staunchly revolutionary country, Venezuela, which means that the institution could remain entrenched in a firmly anti-American mould in the foreseeable future. Venezuela is the leader of the Bolivarian revolution in Latin America against US hegemony. As the host with presiding power, it can influence the overall direction and focus of the NAM by placing American neo-colonialism as the central concern in all meetings and forums of the institution.
But NAM must collectively ponder whether this is a sufficient or pertinent raison d’etre in a world that is increasingly “post-American”, in Fareed Zakaria’s sticky phrase, a world where the US is in relative decline. Is NAM barking up the wrong tree or only one tree when there are several in the forest?
The pre-summit tug of war about participation demonstrates that the US is not quite the hyper-power which must be the sole target of NAM. Despite fervid behind-the-scenes efforts, Washington did not succeed in preventing the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, from attending the summit in Tehran. The decision of 30 or more heads of state or government to grace the summit represents a massive show of independent foreign policy decision-making by NAM member countries, which coolly disregarded American objections that Iran does not “deserve high-level presences” on its soil. There is a genuine danger that NAM will remain stuck in a mindset of the immediate post-Cold War period when the US was the sole superpower and when containing its domineering shadow was the obvious choice for self-respecting developing countries.
As a corollary to overestimating the US as the only mighty global power that needs to be defended against, NAM is also at risk of failing to live up to its neutral name tag owing to confusion about the roles of other great powers. A senior Iranian diplomat, Mohammad-Reza Majidi, has commented that Western powers are not only meddling in West Asia but also trying to “weaken and disintegrate world powers such as Russia and China”, and that NAM provides a platform for “constructive interactions among regional and world powers” to counter Western hegemony. If that is the case, are NAM countries ironically aligning with some great powers among emerging economies to balance against other great powers in the West?
Brazil, Russia and China are interested observers at the NAM summit who do share common positions with NAM members on hot-button topics like the war in Syria and the sanctions on Iran. But China is also generating fears among smaller NAM members by virtue of its size and domineering economic presence in Africa and Latin America. The Chinese and American economies are joined at the hip and it is arguable that Beijing manages its relations with the US in a way that competition does not inhibit cooperation. If NAM is truly and literally “non-aligned”, it must bite the bullet and build a consensus to circumscribe Chinese power within reasonable limits, even while resolutely opposing American or European neo-colonialism.
India is much more internally conflicted on the question of Western imperialism today than probably any NAM member. While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is attending the NAM summit in Tehran with a large 250-strong contingent, he is also a believer in closer strategic ties between New Delhi and Washington. NAM’s mandate of asserting the autonomy of developing countries in international affairs does not fully contradict India’s quest for “multi-alignment” with different power centres, but the New Delhi of 2012 is not the New Delhi of 1961 or 1981, when we viewed ourselves as one of the natural leaders of the Global South and were full-throated proponents of an anti-West worldview.
If NAM suffers from self-doubts now, it is thanks to such profound churning in international outlook in many key founding members. The Indian experience of shifting away from explicitly anti-American or anti-capitalist policies is emblematic of the wider dilemmas facing NAM member states, which are experimenting with mixed economic models and are subjected to the pressures of globalisation more intensely than before.
During my visit to Iran for a preparatory conference to the summit, I noted self-introspection among scholarly representatives of NAM countries about the dangers of the institution fading away in the absence of a new, redefined common purpose. What could be the ideational bases for a renaissance of NAM?
Anti-imperialism will of course remain the cornerstone, but NAM’s members should reinterpret its contours in the context of a multipolar world. Secondly, NAM will have to move beyond verbal condemnations of Western “humanitarian interventions” and invasions and devise grand strategies for self-protection as a group from nefarious designs emanating from all powerful quarters, including not only the US but also potentially China or other great powers. Thirdly, to win wider public approval and to revitalise grassroots support, NAM has to adopt standards of accountability of member states towards their respective societies. An international institution that keeps hitting out at foreign aggression, but which is blind to internal democratic deficiencies among its own member states, cannot have a solid social base, which matters in a world where non-state actors are so pivotal. NAM’s future lies in the hands of expectant younger generations in demographically bulging parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Delivering economic and political justice to these people must never slip from the radar of state elites gathering in Tehran with the intent of panning the tyranny of great powers.
NAM can still be a radical force in a world beset by capitalist crisis and superpower decline, but the content of revolution needs serious overhaul.

The writer is a professor and dean at the Jindal School of International Affairs