Monalisa Adhikari on Revisiting the Non-Alignment Movement in a Changing World Order

[00:00:03] Namaste and welcome to PODS by PEI, a Policy Discussion Podcast series brought to you by Policy Entrepreneurs Inc. I am Khushi and in today's episode, PEI colleague Shivangi is in conversation with Monalisa Adhikari on Revisiting the Non-Alignment Movement in a Changing World Order. Monalisa is a Senior Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Sturdy.

[00:00:27] Her research focuses on emerging powers and global governance, the foreign policies of India and China, and peacebuilding norms in Asia. She is currently working on a book examining Indian and Chinese approaches to peacebuilding and is co-investigating the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform project.

[00:00:46] In a world of shifting power dynamics and the fading influence of multilateral forms, Shivangi and Mona explore the Non-Alignment Movement, from its historical significance to contemporary relevance and impact. They debate Nepal's non-alignment stance versus India's strategic autonomy, questioning whether it ensures independence or limits engagement. They examine NAMP's role and Nepal's diplomatic balance between democratic values and diverse global ties.

[00:01:16] Like listening to PODS? We'd love to hear your thoughts. So please comment on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you listen to the show. You can also follow us at Twitter, at Tweet2PEI, and on Facebook and Instagram at Policy Entrepreneurs Inc. for updates on the latest episodes. We hope you enjoy the conversation. Hello, my name is Shivangi Baudial. Hi, my name is Mona Adhikari. And welcome to PODS by PEI, Mona.

[00:01:46] Thank you so much for having me. Okay, so getting into the questions now, I'd like to start with giving some background on like the evolution of NAMP and maybe like gauging its contemporary relevance. We all know that it began during the Cold War and it emerged as a coalition of countries that wanted to maintain this independence from like the Western and Eastern blocs. And they were advocating for a multipolar world even back then.

[00:02:13] And now as we reflect on its historical significance, who do you think has truly benefited from NAMP and what substantial gains have its member countries achieved over the decades in terms of political, economic and social development? Thank you so much, Shivangi. You touched upon the history. So let me just take a much more historical view of NAMP and then come to your question about gains and benefits. So the non-alignment movement really was a child of its time.

[00:02:43] And it was designed, like you said, to respond to the post-World War II global order, which was marked by US-Sovietanian rivalry, but also its accompanying competing sets of ideologies and alliances. And in essence, non-alignment was really a response by the then newly independent states to respond to this, the structural pressures of having to navigate and choose sides within this bipolar order.

[00:03:08] And it is an interaction, if you will, between two of the most prominent phenomenon of the last century, I think. One of course, like you said, the Cold War and the US-Sovietanian relationship, but also secondly, the process of decolonization. And I want to briefly go on with regards to the two. So at its heart, with regards to the Cold War, were two competing aligned structures. The US-lead NATO, where member states were largely European.

[00:03:36] And so the Soviet Union responded with its Warsaw Pact in 1955, which had member states like Hungary and Poland, but also what then used to be East Germany and Czechoslovakia. Alongside, it was also a battle of ideas. The US championed liberal free market capitalism, and the Soviet Union championed communism and lived with its communist experiment.

[00:04:04] And responding to that, to this global structure, was a process of decolonization, and less talked about when we talk about the Cold War. So if you look at the history between 1945 to 1960, there were at least three dozen newly independent states, each of whom had lived through colonial occupation and prized ideas of independence,

[00:04:28] both in how they navigated their international affairs, but also how they navigated their domestic policy with regards to their political ideologies or governing structures, whether they were capitalist, or they were socialist, or they were just communists. And one of the linkages between the two were really that the key leaders of the non-alignment movement were also key leaders of their respective national independence movements,

[00:04:53] be it the Nasir of Egypt, Sukarno in Indonesia, Nkrumah of Kana, or Jabal al-Nehru in India. And as a part of that decolonization, as countries were decolonizing, in 1955, many of these countries met in Bandung in Indonesia, which then was the largest gathering of the global south. And they talked about a third way, third way not having to choose between a capitalist US and a communist Soviet Union.

[00:05:20] And they talked about neutrality, not sort of siding or taking sides within that aligned structure of the bipolar world order, but really prized ideas of self-determination against colonialism and imperialism. And I think that the Bandung Conference really paved way for instituting formally the non-aligned movement in 1961. So really, it was very much a child of its times and really governed by the leaders,

[00:05:48] or were leaders of their national independence movement too. So I think it's essential to sort of draw the linkages between decolonization and the non-alignment movement, and looking at it as a response to the bipolar world order. So in terms of the gains of the years, I think one of the most visible things that the non-aligned movement has done is really champion some of the key agendas of the global south in the international space, notably in the General Assembly.

[00:06:16] So whether it was about anti-colonialism, whether it was about non-interference, especially with regards to ending discrimination and the apathetic regime in South Africa, but also issues of disarmament, and notably issues of economic disparity between the global north and the south. Over time, it floated, which perhaps didn't have a lot of substantive heft in how the world economy ran, but discursively, it was very thought to be quite new.

[00:06:45] It floated ideas such as the new international economic order. So really making issues of the global south visible has been one of the key gains of the movement. But specifically for countries, and I would say the leaders of the non-alignment movement, like India or Egypt or Indonesia, it really helped with the creation of an international identity. So in other words, it gave them a narrative power. So as newly independent states,

[00:07:14] they perhaps didn't have the military power or the economic heft to sort of clear much more meaningful role in world affairs. So non-alignment as a principle and non-aligned movement as an instituted movement or a forum provided that space to craft and be more visible internationally. I mean, I teach international politics. So I think for most students in the global north, when they look at Nehru, they identify with the Indian independence movement and then the non-aligned movement.

[00:07:43] So I think it introduced these countries and their international vision to the world. Having said that, I think when we look at gains, it's important to sort of look at a couple of things. One, that non-alignment was a very broad tent, both in the kind of countries who became members, but also what different member states made out non-alignment to be. So multiple countries navigated non-alignment as a principle to suit their own interests.

[00:08:12] And there was a much more flexible interpretation of what it entailed, often bringing very, I would say, contradicting impulses to our understanding of non-alignment. An example is perhaps India, leader of the non-alignment movement, of outspoken supporter of nuclear disarmament, even though it has its own nuclear weapons program. So rather than just saying that these are contradictory, the fact that we champion disarmament and non-alignment, but have nuclear weapons program,

[00:08:41] I think what India has done is really talk about nuclear proliferation treaty to be discriminatory, how it perpetuates the nuclear haves and have-nots, and really taken this contradiction to another level to critique the existing regime on nuclear proliferation. And the second thing to note is the fact that non-alignment movement is comprised of really, really heterogeneous countries, right, in terms of the political ideologies that they subscribed to,

[00:09:10] the economic principle that governed their domestic economies, etc. So by extension, what that meant was generally the non-aligned countries were allied when it came to issues that really put them in opposition to the West, but their multiple divisions existed between non-aligned countries themselves. So in other words, a non-alignment founded on ideas of shared experiences of colonialism or civilizational solidarity

[00:09:39] were ideologically sound and discursively really attractive, but had really not so practically resolved territorial or political or military differences between some of these member states. So they perhaps gained with regards to some of these issues vis-a-vis the West, but not between themselves. Looking at our own subcontinent in 1962, the heyday of non-alignment movement, India and China fought one of its bloodiest border conflicts.

[00:10:06] And after that, I think it really puts non-alignment in perspective. One, there was an awakening in India as to the utility of non-alignment, both as a movement and a principle. So none of the non-alignment countries of the non-alignment movement explicitly condemned China's aggression, and some took rather pro-Chinese views.

[00:10:30] So I think a lot of Indian scholars see that as one of the defining moments when India navigated to a much more realist idea of foreign policy. And lastly, when we talk about benefits, I think because it's a movement and it's underpinned by a rather vague principle. And the only unifying feature of the movement has been this desire for greater agency and creative space

[00:10:56] for newly independent countries to chart an independent foreign and domestic policy, right? So it did not resolve all your foreign policy pressures. But really, at that moment, when the biggest issue was having to choose sides, having to be a part of certain alliances, it really mitigated the foremost challenge, if not all. And the vagueness also gave some amount of creative space to sort of define much more of the foreign policy

[00:11:25] that came much later in the 60s and 70s for countries in the movement. So you could see that there's been a lot of discursive benefits. There's been a benefit vis-a-vis championing some of these issues of the global South, which really it is not as unified as the sort of the nomenclature of the non-alignment movement almost makes it sound like. That is an incredible background.

[00:11:51] I particularly appreciate your insights into the decolonizing context of the time, as well as the historical nuances and strategic choices made by member countries that are often overlooked in discourse. And that really ties into my next question really well, is simply, I simply want to ask you, you know, times are really different now. And, you know, there are rising global tensions, there's shifting alliances, including member countries of the non-alignment movement, even the founding countries of non-alignment movement.

[00:12:21] So in today's geopolitical landscape, how relevant do you think the forum still is? I think that the forum is very relevant, both in very similar and dissimilar ways. So in terms of the dissimilarity, there's a dissimilarity in terms of the context, right? So the bipolar world structure had a certain certainty. But today we have a sort of a flux where we know that the West is in decline.

[00:12:49] There's a rise of a large number of what are called non-Western rising powers, but they don't have a coherent model. So we don't know if they have the interest or the capacity to lead on some of these fundamental ideas of that underpinning global governance as we know it today. So the context is different. But there's also some sense of similarity in a sense that the central feature of the time was this very binary reading of world politics, right?

[00:13:18] Which didn't account for the complexity. So it was more, are you with the US or are you with the Soviet Union? And it did account for the complexity, the history of how different states had navigated relationships between the two, their own domestic or geopolitical context, etc. But I think that some of these contemporary crises that we have today have an equal, have a similar resonant, similarly resonating binary perspective sort of being floated,

[00:13:48] whether it be Israel-Palestine, especially in the last 15 months of the Gaza crisis. We've seen countries largely in the West, European Union, US, and in the European Union, Germany, really siding with Israel, but others really talking about the idea of Palestinian state and solidarity with Palestinians, but also the need for a two-state solution, right? So we do see that sort of a divided binary. Are you with Israel or are you with Palestine? Do you see this as a question of statehood? Do you see this as a question of terrorism?

[00:14:18] So those binaries are very much prevalent. We also see similar sort of binaries with regards to Ukraine-Russia. Do you side with the Ukrainians? Do you think that Russia was the aggressor, but not the complexity of the regional context that Ukraine and Russia lived through, right? We see similar binaries, but in a very different setting with regards to the US-China trade conflict.

[00:14:41] Do you believe that China has played into the WTO or unfairly gained through the current trade architecture or not? And so in that sense, I do think that it has become much more relevant. It has also, and if you look at this, the way different states have responded to some of these crisis has also sort of, it reflects the same spirit of autonomy that non-alignment so boldly embodied. So whether you talk about hedging or offsetting risks by sort of aligning with, on different issues

[00:15:11] with different partners, or whether you talk about multi-alignment, or you talk about a much more focused, mini-lateral way of doing things, all of it at its core sort of embody this idea of agency and autonomy. So in that sense, I do think that non-alignment has been, the spirit of non-alignment and the principle of non-alignment are still at play. So the movement as such might not be relevant, but the principle, I think, is quite relevant.

[00:15:37] As far as, as much as the movement goes, I think it has much, it has much more of a symbolic ceremonial power rather than the proof, rather than a much more substantive. But I think the principle of non-alignment and how we understand how different countries understand neutrality and non-alignment and related principles is very much, I think, in today's times. That is the global sort of view on non-alignment movement.

[00:16:05] Now, coming to evaluating non-alignment as Nepal's foreign policy, and sort of zooming in on Nepal, my first question is, how do you, how would you evaluate how Nepal has leveraged its membership in the non-aligned movement to shape its foreign policy along other South Asian countries like India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh? And is it, if it is, is it like a significant, important foreign policy instrument for Nepal still?

[00:16:35] In terms of the movement, so I think I want to sort of forget non-alignment as a principle versus non-alignment as a movement. So in terms of Nepal's participation, Nepal has continued to participate, but I don't think that Nepal has substantively inputted into the movement, be it with new discursive ideas. So for instance, in 1990, there was, in the 1990s, after the fall of the Soviet Union, there was a lot of debate about, is non-alignment still relevant? And there were many countries inputting about, well, it's not relevant politically, but perhaps

[00:17:04] more relevant economically. You know, so I don't think we've inputted into the process. We've participated, but not inputted that sort of, that has left a legacy in terms of how Nepal has sort of left its mark in the movement, either discursively or through any other means. I don't think we've done that. But I also don't think we've had leaders, and I think that's very cynical, but I don't think we've had leaders since BP Koyrela that sort of had this understanding of our

[00:17:32] place in the world and the ability to sort of articulate that clearly. But in terms of the principle, I think Nepal has, I think, do should be given to Nepal in terms of the principle of how it's sort of navigated and non-aligned as a principle. And I think here in Nepal, countries like Nepal, but also others like Sri Lanka have really adopted non-alignment to subcontinental realities. So for us, it wasn't about balancing between the East and the West or this battle between capitalism or communism.

[00:18:02] But it was really about balancing between India and China, right? So if Mao and Nehru became champions of speaking out against colonialism and imperialism at the UN and the non-aligned movement, countries like Nepal and Sri Lanka demonstrated that in the region, it was not interventions of the West that we feared, but it was interventions by India, China and the states that's there. And that we sought to protect our independence and autonomy from India and China, not the West and the Soviet Union.

[00:18:32] So I think adapting that to subcontinental realities has been one of the things that Nepal has done. And in doing that, I think less written about or less talked about, I think we've highlighted the countries in the region have highlighted the contrast between India and China's global presence in global forums versus their posture in the region, their actions in the region, right? So they talk about non-alignment, they talk about non-aggression in UN, the non-alignment movement.

[00:19:00] But the practices in the region, as people in Nepal, Sri Lanka have seen it, has been very different. So I think we've really challenged the leaders of the third world as perhaps the fourth world to talk about some of these subcontinental realities. And I think we've really taken that non-alignment as a principle, especially in the 60s and 70s, to sort of outline. And I think that has been an inspiration that has sort of almost defined the contours of our current foreign policy as well.

[00:19:28] So I think really hedging between India and China, but also diversifying our relationship beyond India and China with the West. And I think that has been a legacy of how we saw non-alignment, how we saw the world back in the 50s and the 60s. Of course, it's tragic that when we diversified our relationship with the West and when we talk about neutrality, it was very much focused on development, financing and aid and nothing more. So those have been the challenges.

[00:19:55] But I think Nepal, in terms of leveraging its membership, I don't see how Nepal has... I can't identify a substantive input that Nepal has made to the movement. But I think in terms of discursively sort of navigating non-alignment, it is sort of allowed for a very different reading of non-alignment, especially vis-a-vis the leaders of the movement like India and China. I think you lightly touched upon this as well, but, you know, countries, founding member countries

[00:20:23] like India have now sort of shifted from non-alignment as a foreign policy and adopted what they refer to as strategic autonomy. You know, the ability to independently set foreign policy goals without relying on or without looking for approval from other nations or power blocks. And this shift has also prompted experts in Nepal to reassess Nepal's, you know, commitment

[00:20:50] to non-alignment as, you know, one of its tenets of its foreign policy. And now some of them are even calling it a form of non-engagement, which they say is very threatening in the world today. So how do you assess this differing perspectives between political decision makers who have stuck to non-alignment as a foreign policy of Nepal and those influencing Nepal's foreign policy discourse? So a couple of things, I think.

[00:21:16] So one, I think that Nepal has never really made it clear as to what do we mean by non-alignment? Is it neutrality? Is it equitance? And that's, I think, we've not been very clear about what is it that we mean by non-alignment because it's such a broad concept. It's a broad tenet of countries in the movement as well. And each of them have navigated it very differently. Non-alignment against whom and on what? I think sort of that needs clarity. So you talked about countries like India.

[00:21:44] So for instance, India is non-aligned, but it is a part of the coordinated security dialogue. And countries like India and Japan have justified saying that, well, we're not aligned in this militarily, but it's a diplomatic alliance of some sort, right? So what are the boundaries of security versus diplomatic alliances? So how do we really make non-alignment more detailed, much more granular? It's something that we as a country, I don't think, have done.

[00:22:11] But like I said before, I think I'd want to invoke Pippi Koyralla, who actually said that non-alignment does not mean refraining from taking sides, but really judging each international issue on its own merit without fear or fever. All right? So I think that was the broad idea of non-alignment. But I think over the years, it had just meant some form of an equidistance between India and China. Now, we've also not sort of gauged as if whether that, if that is what non-alignment is, whether

[00:22:38] that is, it's perhaps desirable, but perhaps not feasible, right? So we perhaps can't be equidistant when it comes to issues of trade and transit, perhaps can be equidistant with regards to other military or security issues. I think that granularity about what we mean, who is it that we look at, and what are the kind of issues that we really talk about when we talk about non-alignment? I think that is that national discussion has never quite been there. So we've reiterated.

[00:23:07] So when I say there's no consensus, there is a consensus because everybody says that we're non-aligned. But beyond that, there is no consensus as to what we mean by that. But I think the problem is far greater. It's not just about how we articulate where we stand with regards to non-alignment or how we should articulate our foreign policy posture. But I think the fact that our foreign policy is very indecisive, almost like crisis-driven. So we think about trade transit issues with China only when there's a blockade.

[00:23:37] And it's a very inconsistent approach to foreign policy making, right? So I think that's a far greater problem than where we stand with non-alignment. So I think there are much more practical political and institutional problems. And of course, foreign policy is just a reflection of the state. It can't make up for a dysfunctional state. And I think that shows in our foreign policy. The second is also there's never been a national consensus on key issues.

[00:24:02] And we've seen a lot of politicking on some of these very important foreign policy initiatives. So we had, for instance, we had political parties voting for endorsing the Millennium Cooperation Challenge in power, but not in opposition, right? So there's been a lot of back and forth with some of these. So that also points to this institutional capacity and centrality of Ministry of Foreign Affairs. So political scrutiny of anything foreign related to foreign relations is extremely important.

[00:24:32] But this back and forth between the stances that we've taken and not allowing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to have a stance that all parties take or adhere to has been a problem. So I think that it's far greater than what we, the problem is far greater than how we understand non-alignment or how we see its relevance or how should we articulate our current stance. I think it's much more about sort of addressing the dysfunctional foreign policy making and implementation that we have today.

[00:25:05] Again, you have emphasized on these geopolitical shifts. And I've also been trying to make sense of this diminishing efficacy of multilateral institutions like the United Nations, the International Court of Justice. You know, it's evident in their limited impact on conflicts such as Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Palestine. So while you say that, you know, like NAM as a principle is still very relevant,

[00:25:34] do you feel like forums like NAM still have a role to play like in particularly as a forum in the world we live in today? Yes and no. I think even in its heydays, it had a very limited role to play. So for instance, during the Indi-China conflict, there was an attempt led by Sri Lanka to sort of dissolve the crisis. But even in its heydays, I think it didn't quite play a role in terms of conflict management.

[00:25:59] It did talk about issues of the global south, some of them related to conflicts, but not really in terms of sort of conflict management or peace building. So I do think that the forum is largely, like I said, very ceremonial. So I don't see the foreign non-alignment movement as a forum having a substantive role to play in any of these conflicts, to be honest.

[00:26:23] But I do think that the principle as such also almost enables us to move beyond NAM. So if it's about autonomy, if it's about independence, we really need to be sort of looking at different forums where we can leverage our interests, right? And many countries in the movement have done that. For Nepal, it's I think more immediate. So I think we've invested a lot of our capacities in the UN forums.

[00:26:50] And now the UN has started talking about supporting regional organizations to support crisis management. So the UN is also sort of outsourcing some of its regional organizations and devolving some of that capacity elsewhere. So in that sense, where does Nepal find its feet? For a long time, Nepal also invested heavily on groupings like the NDC war, like a least-developed country, least-developed countries' movements, organizations like LDC Watch.

[00:27:17] But once Nepal becomes a low- and middle-income country, which is being talked about, what are the kind of groupings that we should sort of be looking at? What are the regional institutions that we should be looking at? What are the issue-focused, thematic issues that we should really be leveraging our successes and interests with? So I think that NAM as a movement, I don't see it playing a much more active role because even in its headings, it quite didn't.

[00:27:42] But the very principle of non-alignment and autonomy and independence that it's so strongly in bodies almost coerces us to look beyond NAM to alternatives as forms and pathways. We can talk about Nepal as a country in a group of countries, you know, in NAM. But the reality is Nepal has two neighbors, India and China. And I'd like to talk a little bit about, you know, how it can,

[00:28:11] whether it can realistically uphold its non-aligned status in the face of what appears to be increasing pressures from India and China. And Nepali leaders tend to often play these two countries off of each other to no benefit of the Nepali public. But, you know, is it really possible for Nepal to truly maintain this sovereignty? And or is it destined to be caught in like this geopolitical tug of war forever?

[00:28:39] So I think one that, of course, we live with this aboriginal reality that we're a very small power with no economic heft in Asia between two of the most rising, most economically fastest growing economies, militarily much more stronger than us, etc. But I think the problem is that we've not made an attempt. So I think it's the attempt that matters. And I do think that, well, there is a sort of desirability to sort of have an equidistant

[00:29:06] policy without sort of getting trapped in this tug of war or this rivalry between the two. But there is not a feasibility, at least not in all the issues. For instance, we depend for 85% of our imports and exports on Indian ports. So while it might be desirable to look at alternative pathways, the thing is that we're sort of, we're a child of our geography and perhaps it's not feasible to look elsewhere in terms of trade and transit.

[00:29:35] That does not mean we don't look at initiating alternative pathways, but that it will be more expensive. It will be more. But that does not mean that we're sort of, you're tied to India forever. Maybe there are other issues where you can look at China investment funding, for instance, right? So I do think that we, in Nepal, I think that all the questions start with what do India and China want? I think the first question should be, what does Nepal want? And then comes like, how do we then make, ensure that we address the security concerns

[00:30:04] of our neighbors, but also within the red lines of our constitutional commitments, within the red lines of our interests, et cetera. And of course, there is likely to be structural pressures. But the fact that we've almost taken a fatalistic stance by saying, well, there are structural pressures. So let's just get on with it. You know, so it can't just change. But I'm sure that if there are five governments in Nepal, all of them make the similar stance about, so we want alternative routes for trade and transit.

[00:30:32] We want more grants and lesser loans. And if there is a domestic consensus, and if there is a clarity with that, there will be a time when India and China will need to comply. Because we see it as our vulnerability, but they're also vulnerable in the sense that they're in a neighborhood where their security interests are at stake. India, for one, I feel has not come to terms with China's economic, growing economic leverage in the subcontinent. China has multiple other border disputes going on.

[00:30:59] So it wants to maintain reasonably good relations with neighbors like Nepal and Pakistan. So I think we also need to sort of not see them as this really strong, unified nations, but the fact that we also have something to bring to the table. For me, I think the fact that we've not attempted, we've almost had this very fatalistic reading about this is our destiny, that I think different states have navigated that destiny in very different and often very promising ways.

[00:31:27] Now, before we wrap up, I'd just like to take a moment to reflect on the current implications of the non-alignment movement. That, you know, despite aligning with democratic values championed by the United States and its Western allies and sharing little in common with totalitarian regimes like Russia and China, Nepal continues to be an active member of NAM. It caucuses at the UN. It continues to take, you know, sometimes when voting on the Ukraine issue, Nepal clearly

[00:31:57] voted against, you know, the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So how does this apparent contradiction, you know, shape foreign policy decisions of countries like Nepal? And what challenges will, you know, it continue to face in navigating these dynamics that continue to evolve and that are so complex? So I think the very idea of non-alignment was this idea of autonomy, right? And it was against this very simplistic reading of world affairs, whether you're pro-Russia, pro-Ukraine, this and that.

[00:32:27] So I think that it was about evaluating. It was about flexibly evaluating on a case-by-case basis about where we stand on different issues. So in that sense, I do think that there isn't an inherent contradiction if we are. I think there shouldn't be an inherent contradiction in terms of our principles, right? But we have that inherent contradiction in our foreign policy making. So we recognize the Palestinian state, but the Palestinians and Tibetans have a similar issue.

[00:32:54] But we treat Tibetans quite, we police Tibetans in Nepal. They don't have the same kind of freedom, even when they're nationalized citizens of Nepal. They don't have the same kind of freedom that we have. So I think the problem has not been about how we take that stance, but the problem has been about the selectivity and contradictory stances that we've taken with regards to similar issues, right?

[00:33:18] But I think in terms of your question about how do we reflect on those contradicting values, so NAM, like I said, is a very broad tent. And you could argue that countries that are authoritarian, democratic, meritocratic, any other, or however it chooses to define itself, continue to be members of it. So Nepal both then has, you could argue, has an opportunity to learn.

[00:33:46] If you think that forums like NAM are a mechanism of socializing countries to different values. So NAM really provides Nepal to socialize either in very democratic values, learning from countries like Indonesia or India that have either been democracies or have democratized under very adverse circumstance, or learn from countries like China, Russia, and borrow more on authoritarian tendencies. So it's really a mixed bag of how we take on to what we mean through forums like this.

[00:34:16] And that is similar thing from most forums, right? It's in the United Nations General Assembly. You'd have countries of all use. So it really depends on how we want to learn and what we want to learn. Of course, you would perhaps hope that there's been a lot of research about how forums have socialized into democracies and how socialized into democracies, values of human rights, civilian supremacy have been propagated through UN forums. But now we also have alternative scholarship that are talking about authoritarian

[00:34:46] constitutional borrowing, authoritarian learning, authoritarian cascades. And countries have gone both ways. The global evidence is that it can be both. So I think it really depends on us what we make of NAM. But I think the very idea that NAM needs to reflect our interests, and NAM is non-alignment as a principle, is really to further your interests. And I think where we lack is we've not clearly defined what our interests are. So last question for you.

[00:35:15] I mean, you have time and again emphasized the relevance of NAM as a principle to this day. And you've also suggested that Nepal needs to take proactive steps to identify what's of its interests to Nepal rather than, you know, seeking for others to define what's important for Nepal. So how do you think like Nepal, what steps do you think Nepal can take to ensure that non-alignment remains a viable strategic policy?

[00:35:45] I mean, in like the changing world that we live in today. I think one that there has to be a so this is across all foreign policymaking and even in most Western countries, we see that foreign policy becoming a very elite issue. So it's only talked about in a very small setting. One is that I think we need a very much more broader national discussion about what is it that we mean by non-alignment, right? Is it equidistance?

[00:36:13] And the second question is, some of it is perhaps desirable. Is it feasible, at least in the short and the medium? And the third perhaps is about the institutional setup of Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Like how do our diplomats, what are the challenges that they face in different countries where they're posted? What do they see as some of the challenges? What do they see as spaces that we can leverage and build on? I think it's really about a national dialogue, I think, on some of these.

[00:36:43] And I think the national dialogue also paves way for a national consensus, which we've never quite had. So if you look at our political parties themselves, there's like pro-India, pro-China. And you could have a pro-India, pro-China view on a certain thing, but a party being pro-China and pro-India is unique to Nepal, I would say. So I think that a national debate, a national consensus on some of these things needs to then happen to outline what do we mean by non-alignment.

[00:37:10] And as we navigate in a very, very fast changing world order, what do we make of non-alignment? And is it still relevant? I see it as relevant, but I see it needing granularity in terms of how do we want to make it work for us? So I do think that a much more broader debate and consensus building on some of these issues is this thing. Thanks so much, Mona, for your time and for these wonderful, incredible responses to my questions.

[00:37:40] I think we'd like to wrap up the interview at this.

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