“The Afro-Asian peoples believe that imperialist domination, foreign exploitation and other evils which result from the subjugation of the peoples are a denial of the fundamental rights of man … The Afro-Asian peoples desire unity, to work together, to help each other, in order to struggle for the welfare of the Afro-Asian peoples as well as the whole of mankind.”

Introduction

In February 1927, Indian students, activists, and other anti-imperialists converged on Brussels to attend the first session of the League Against Imperialism. The League sought to convene anti-imperialists from the colonized world as well as their allies in order to join forces and build “a permanent international organization in order to link up all forces combating international imperialism and in order to ensure their effective support for the fight for emancipation conducted by the oppressed peoples.” The conference was both influenced and supported by the Comintern, but the Soviets did not fully control it. Jawaharlal Nehru, member of the Executive Committee of the Congress, had taken an active part in its organization.

The opening quotation to this chapter, however, is not from the Brussels Conference, but from thirty years later. In December 1957, antiimperialists from across the Afro-Asian region and their allies met in Cairo to found an international organization combating imperialism in “all its forms and manifestations.” The conference was both influenced and supported by the Soviet Union, but not controlled by it. Rameshwari Nehru, member of the Executive Committee of the Congress and relative of Jawaharlal Nehru, had taken an active part in its organization. This rhetorical repetition serves as a preliminary demonstration that the similarities between the 1927 and 1957 conferences were no coincidence. The Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Conference in Cairo convened in a very different world from that of the Brussels Conference. Many of its Asian participants had gained independence by the time of the Cairo conference, and representation from Africa had greatly increased compared to Brussels. Most importantly, new forms of imperialism emerged as the Cold War spread to all corners of the globe. Why, then, examine Indian participation in events on different sides of decolonization as comparable manifestations of regional anti-imperialist solidarity?