Bandung and Beyond

At a high-level panel during the International Conference on “Global South and Triangular Cooperation: Emerging Facets,” organised by the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), Professor Amitabh Mattoo, Dean of the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, offered stirring reflection on the historical and contemporary relevance of the Bandung Conference.

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Seventy years after the seminal gathering in 1955, Professor Mattoo urged the international community to draw upon Bandung’s foundational values to navigate today’s complex global challenges.

“The Bandung Conference was not merely a diplomatic event; it was a declaration,” he said. “A declaration by the newly decolonised nations of the Global South that we would no longer remain the passive objects of history. We would be its authors—agents of change.”

A Moral Turning Point

Held in the aftermath of colonialism’s collapse, the Bandung Conference was a powerful assertion of sovereignty, dignity, and non-alignment. “In 1955, Bandung was a moral inflexion point,” Professor Mattoo reminded the audience. “It marked a collective assertion by formerly colonised nations that we would not enter the global order as supplicants, but as self-respecting actors capable of reshaping the ethics and structures of international governance.”