Andrea Benvenuti is Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations at the University of New South Wales, teaching twentieth-century international history at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He holds a DPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford. His current research focuses on the Cold War in Asia.
<p>This book sheds light on a neglected aspect of India’s Cold War diplomacy,</p><p>starting with the role of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his</p><p>Congress government in organising the first Asian-African Conference in</p><p>Bandung in April 1955. Andrea Benvenuti shows how, in the early Cold</p><p>War, Nehru seized the opportunity accorded by the conference to transcend</p><p>growing international tensions and pursue an alternative vision: a neutralised</p><p>Asian ‘area of peace’, underpinned by a code of conduct based on the five</p><p>principles of peaceful coexistence.</p><p>Relying on Indian, Western and Chinese archival sources, Nehru’s Bandung</p><p>focuses on the policy concerns and calculations, as well as the international</p><p>factors, that drove a sceptical Nehru to support Indonesia’s diplomatic push</p><p>for such a gathering. It reveals how, in Nehru’s estimation, Bandung also</p><p>served a further important purpose—securing China’s commitment to</p><p>peaceful coexistence, without which stability in Asia would be illusory.</p><p>Nehru’s support for an Asian-African conference did not derive from an</p><p>emotional commitment to Afro-Asian internationalism. Instead, it stemmed</p><p>from a desire to promote a ‘third way’ in an increasingly polarised world,</p><p>and to forge a stable regional order—one that would enhance India’s external</p><p>security and domestic prosperity.</p><p>This is an essential book for anyone interested in Independent India’s foreign</p><p>policy, the history of the Non-Aligned Movement, and also the history of</p><p>India-China relations.</p>
