The Growth Pattern of Nam

There is no unanimity about the origin of non-alignment. India's claim as its birth-place has been contested by others, particularly, by Yugoslavia and Indonesia who also claim the same honour. This controversy notwithstanding, the fact remains that non-aligment as a movement started in 1961 although several countries pursued non-aligned policies before it. Among these countries the most prominent were India, Indonesia, Egypt and Yugoslavia and by 1961 non-aligment as a foreign policy option had already won some legitimacy at least in the third world. With a view to providing greater strength and vitality to non-alignment, they took initiatives to give an organisational shape to it. From time to time bilateral and multilateral meetings were held among the leaders of like-minded countries to devise some organizational mechanism for forging unity and co-operation among them. From the Asian Relations Conference, 1947 to the Brioni meeting of 1956, non-alignment steadily grew from policies of individual countries to a.big and strong movement, culminating in the first non-aligned summit of 1961 held at Belgrade.