The term 'non-alignment' is generally credited to which Indian leader, who used it in a speech at the United Nations in 1953?
- A.Jawaharlal Nehru
- B.V. K. Krishna Menon
- C.Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel
- D.Dr S. Radhakrishnan
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is B, V. K. Krishna Menon. Krishna Menon, India's best known diplomat of the period and later Defence Minister, is credited with coining the expression non-alignment in a United Nations speech in 1953; he is also remembered for the longest speech ever made at the Security Council, on Kashmir. Option A is wrong in a precise sense: Nehru was the architect and the voice of the policy and popularised the word soon afterwards, but the coinage is attributed to Krishna Menon, and the examiner is testing exactly that difference. Option C is wrong because Sardar Patel, who died in 1950, was concerned with the integration of the princely states. Option D is wrong because Radhakrishnan was a philosopher, ambassador to Moscow and later President of India.
Read the full article: Cold War, Decolonisation and Non-Aligned Movement Notes
Practice Questions
View allIn which American city did Winston Churchill deliver his famous 'Iron Curtain' speech in March 1946?
- A.Fulton, Missouri
- B.Washington, D.C.
- C.Boston, Massachusetts
- D.Chicago, Illinois
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Churchill, by then out of office, spoke at Westminster College in Fulton on 5 March 1946 and said that an iron curtain had descended across the continent from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic.
Read the full explanation →The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was founded in which year?
- A.1945
- B.1947
- C.1949
- D.1955
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The North Atlantic Treaty was signed at Washington on 4 April 1949 by twelve countries, during the Berlin blockade, and bound its members to treat an attack on one as an attack on all.
Read the full explanation →The Warsaw Pact, the military alliance of the Soviet bloc, was signed in 1955 in which city?
- A.Moscow
- B.Warsaw
- C.Prague
- D.Budapest
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The Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance was signed in the Polish capital on 14 May 1955, which is why the alliance carries that city's name, although its forces were commanded from Moscow.
Read the full explanation →The Asian-African Conference of 1955, an important step towards non-alignment, was held at which place?
- A.Colombo
- B.Bandung
- C.Belgrade
- D.Cairo
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The Asian-African Conference met at Bandung in Indonesia in April 1955 with twenty-nine newly independent countries, condemned colonialism and racialism, and endorsed the principles of peaceful coexistence; it is often called the forerunner of the Non-Aligned Movement.
Read the full explanation →The first summit conference of the Non-Aligned Movement was held in 1961 at
- A.Cairo
- B.Jakarta
- C.Belgrade
- D.Lusaka
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The first summit of non-aligned countries met at Belgrade, then the capital of Yugoslavia, in September 1961, with twenty-five participating countries, and Jawaharlal Nehru, Josip Broz Tito, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Sukarno and Kwame Nkrumah are regarded as the movement's founders.
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