When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Jakarta last month, the joint statement issued by India and Indonesia addressed nearly every major strategic issue currently facing Asia. The document highlighted the Indo-Pacific, BRICS, ASEAN, maritime security, artificial intelligence, critical minerals, resilient supply chains, and cooperation among the Global South. Notably, however, there was no reference to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), despite both nations being founding members and the leaders whose cooperation at the 1955 Bandung Conference helped establish its intellectual foundations.
India and Indonesia have long held a unique position in the history of postcolonial diplomacy. The Bandung Conference articulated principles of sovereignty, anti-colonialism, peaceful coexistence, and independent foreign policy that eventually led to the creation of the NAM in 1961. During the Cold War, these concepts provided newly independent states with a framework to resist pressure to align with either Washington or Moscow while asserting a stronger voice in international affairs.
The strategic environment that originally gave rise to non-alignment, however, no longer exists. Today, the central challenge for Asian middle powers is not merely avoiding military blocs, but preserving policy autonomy while navigating a landscape shaped by great power competition, economic interdependence, technological rivalry, and overlapping regional institutions. Strategic autonomy has evolved from standing apart from the international system to participating in it on one's own terms.
This evolution is evident in the India-Indonesia partnership. Rather than centering their 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 various Indo-Pacific initiatives. In strengthening their ties, India and Indonesia have placed equal emphasis on defense industrial cooperation, maritime domain awareness, artificial intelligence, digital connectivity, critical minerals, and resilient supply chains. These priorities represent a shift toward issue-based rather than institution-based strategic autonomy.
While the NAM served as the primary political vehicle for developing countries to express their independence during the Cold War, India and Indonesia now pursue that same objective across multiple platforms simultaneously. ASEAN reinforces regional diplomacy, BRICS expands cooperation among emerging economies, the G20 provides influence over global economic governance, and Indo-Pacific initiatives address maritime security and connectivity. Both countries now assemble strategic autonomy through these overlapping partnerships.
The principles associated with Bandung—sovereignty, territorial integrity, international law, peaceful dispute settlement, and a stronger voice for the Global South—have not disappeared. These ideas remain deeply embedded in the diplomatic traditions of both countries, but they are now expressed through different means. Across Asia, middle powers are adapting to a strategic environment that is simultaneously more interconnected and more contested than the Cold War order. Few seek exclusive alignment with any single major power; instead, they cultivate diversified relationships across security, economic, and technological domains while preserving room for independent decision-making.
The disappearance of the NAM from recent joint statements should not be interpreted as evidence of its demise. The movement continues to exist, and many of its core principles remain relevant. What appears to be fading is its role as the primary diplomatic framework through which those principles are articulated. India and Indonesia continue to defend the values that once inspired the NAM, but they increasingly do so in the language of ASEAN centrality, a free and open Indo-Pacific, BRICS, and the Global South. The legacy of Bandung lies not in the continued invocation of a Cold War institution, but in the enduring pursuit of strategic autonomy under the conditions of a very different international order.
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.
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