The Pulse | Diplomacy | South Asia

Are India and Indonesia Leaving the Non-Aligned Movement Behind?

Rather than signaling the abandonment of non-alignment, the same principles are increasingly pursued through a different set of institutions.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (left) and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto visit the Prambanan Temple Compound Restoration and Conservation Project in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Jul. 8, 2026.

When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Jakarta last month, the joint statement issued by India and Indonesia addressed almost every major strategic issue facing Asia. It highlighted the Indo-Pacific, BRICS, ASEAN, maritime security, artificial intelligence, critical minerals, resilient supply chains, and cooperation among the Global South. Yet there was no reference to the Non Aligned Movement (NAM), despite India and Indonesia being among its founding members and the leaders whose cooperation at the 1955 Bandung Conference helped lay its intellectual foundations.

The NAM was similarly absent from the joint statement issued during President Prabowo Subianto’s visit to India in January 2025. The disappearance of the NAM offers a window into how two of Asia’s most important middle powers now understand strategic autonomy. Rather than signaling the abandonment of non-alignment, the same principles are increasingly pursued through a different set of institutions, partnerships, and diplomatic priorities.

India and Indonesia have long occupied a unique place in the history of postcolonial diplomacy. The Bandung Conference articulated principles of sovereignty, anti-colonialism, peaceful coexistence, and independent foreign policy that later shaped the establishment of the NAM in 1961. During the Cold War, these ideas provided newly independent states with a framework for resisting pressure to align with either Washington or Moscow while asserting a greater voice in international affairs.

But the strategic environment that gave rise to non-alignment no longer exists. The central challenge facing Asian middle powers today is not simply avoiding military blocs. It is preserving policy autonomy while navigating an increasingly complex landscape shaped by great power competition, economic interdependence, technological rivalry, and overlapping regional institutions. Strategic autonomy has therefore become less about standing apart from the international system than about participating in it on one’s own terms.

That evolution is clearly reflected in the India-Indonesia partnership. Rather than centering the relationship on the language of non-alignment, the two countries frame their cooperation through a dense network of contemporary frameworks, including ASEAN, BRICS, the G20, the Indian Ocean Rim Association, and overlapping conceptions of the Indo-Pacific. In building up their ties, India and Indonesia........

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