The wish of many African and Asian countries to uphold their interests in a brave new world after the end of the Second World War was evident from the Bandung Conference in 1955, whose 70th anniversary just passed.But contrary to the opinions of some, it was not a conference of nonaligned states. Fourteen out of the 29 countries that attended it were America’s allies – they included Turkey, Pakistan, Thailand, the Philippines and Japan. And Bandung was not the birthplace of their neutralism if only because Indonesia, India and Egypt were already neutral. An East European communist country, Yugoslavia, which stayed out of the Warsaw Pact, arranged the first summit of nonaligned countries in 1961.The Anglo-American perception of democratic India as the key to the containment of communist China could not hide the difference between the West and India, whose opposition to colonialism and military intervention by great powers in Asia was grounded in its own struggle for independence.Indonesia, which organised the Bandung Conference, became independent from the Netherlands in 1945. Laos and Cambodia, two of the three countries comprising French Indochina, achieved independence in 1953. In Vietnam, the third country, the communist Vietminh defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. However, Vietnam remained divided until 1975, when the Americans, who lost on the same battleground, decided to end their war in the country. Five African countries including Liberia, (apartheid) South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia and Libya were already independent.Initially, India was sceptical that the invitees to Bandung would be a nebulous, unwieldy gathering of some Afro-Asian states, but it did not wish to offend Indonesia and lent its support to the conference.The news of Bandung raised the imperialist hackles of the British, who still possessed most of their African colonies. But London did not inveigh against the Bandung Conference as this would play into the hands of the Soviet Union, which would espouse the anti-colonial cause – and which, under Khrushchev after Stalin’s death in 1953, was already courting India with aid and arms.Britain and the US were united by their intent of countering any Indian-led opposition to their international policies and interests. Since the participating countries had such different backgrounds, it is interesting that London and Washington assumed that the conference would be anti-West. Perhaps that was because India and China, the two countries most likely to speak out against the West, had in Jawaharlal Nehru and Zhou Enlai, leaders of outstanding intellectual and political calibre. Western officials worried that their own allies would not be able to stand up to them.The plenary session during the historic Bandung Conference. Photo: Public domain.America’s pugnacious secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, conjured up visions of India pushing for a pan-Asian movement. Race, racism and political interests were interwoven in the British concern that the participants would have ‘little in common, except colour’ – an odd observation, given that the participants ranging from Egypt to Japan could hardly have shared a common colour – the only thing that was common to them was that they were not white.India’s initiative in inviting China also annoyed the West. Washington was anxious that China would use the conference as an anti-US platform. Nehru, whose government accorded China diplomatic recognition a few months after Britain in 1950, advised Beijing to show participants that it was not a threat to peace. Britain and the US prodded their friends to counter any Indian or Chinese offensives against colonialism or collective security.Pakistan’s territorial feud with India made it eager to oblige the West and it wanted as much ‘ammunition’ as possible against India and its criticism of the American-led SEATO, which it had joined in 1954. Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) was angry with the Soviet veto on its membership of the United Nations and could be counted on to be sympathetic to Western causes.Britain and the US also attempted to deflect Indian criticism of Western colonialism by instigating their friends to flay Soviet imperialism. They received strong support from Pakistan, Turkey (a member of NATO and the Baghdad Pact, which was signed in February 1955 just two months before the Bandung Conference) and Iraq (which joined the Baghdad Pact).Ceylon’s Prime Minister, John Kotelawala, used British information to attack Soviet expansion in East Europe and the Baltic countries. But London worried that Kotelawala tended to choose his words to please his audiences. So the Foreign Office urged Pakistan and Turkey to ‘put courage into men like Kotelawala’. The prodding worked: London eventually gloated that Kotelawala ‘made good use of his brief’.Nevertheless, Britain and the US appreciated Nehru’s efforts to prevent the conference from singling them out as nasty imperialists. Nehru’s keenness to secure the largest measure of agreement inspired his formula of opposition to ‘colonialism in all its manifestations’. But London simultaneously disliked the apparent equation of Western colonialism and Soviet communist imperialism.Also read: The Search for the ‘Bandung Spirit’The US and Britain realised that countries which were against Western colonialism were not necessarily anti-West. India was a democracy; it could be an intermediary with China and it desired world peace. So, India’s differences with them related to means rather than ends. While India held that military alliances increased tension, it wanted to put pressure on communist countries to honour agreements into which they had entered.Neither Britain nor the US was about to discard India, though whether they would work for or against India would hinge on whether New Delhi would advance or thwart their ambitions. In fact, their interest in India as an instrument of their diplomacy endured. For instance, in 1956, India and America cooperated against Britain’s use of military force to undo Egypt’s nationalisation of the Suez Canal. Egypt’s defeat of Britain ended London’s illusion that it was a great Asian power, though it still possessed its African colonies.Zhou turned out to be the star of the Bandung Conference. Instead of seeking support for China from America’s allies, he dispelled their fears of China’s policies. He stole the show by impressing on the conference that coexistence between China and Western countries was possible. Even Dulles concluded that he had to ‘salute’ Zhou’s performance at Bandung, though he doubted his sincerity. London surmised that China’s influence in Asia was much augmented – but that was a compliment of sorts to Zhou. The Pakistanis ‘found nothing to fight’; they advised that ‘a new political ABC’ had to be learned. Turkey saw India with its upbraiding of alliances and colonialisms as the main troublemaker.Bandung marked the beginning of a new rapport between Pakistan and China, although Pakistan had become America’s ally in the Middle East and Southeast Asia in 1954, and joined the Baghdad Pact. That was an early indication that friendships between Western allies and nonaligned countries were certainly possible.India and China stood out at the Bandung Conference, and pointed to changes in the international order which could never be pushed back either by the West or the Soviets. Bandung highlighted the intertwining of political division and interdependence in the world. Enmities and cooperation continue to hinge on the national interests and visions of countries. The main long-term lesson from the Bandung Conference could be that a divided but interdependent world will endure in the 21st century and beyond.Anita Inder Singh is a founding professor of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution in New Delhi. She has been a fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington DC and has taught international relations at the graduate level at Oxford and the LSE.This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire and Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.