The above words constitute the central idea of the policy of Non-alignment. Important Points The foreign policy of a nation reflects the interplay of domestic and external factors. Therefore, the noble ideals that inspired India’s struggle for freedom influenced the making of its foreign policy. But India’s attainment of independence coincided with the beginning of the Cold War era. The Cold War period was marked by the political, economic, and military confrontation at the global level between the two blocs led by the superpowers, the US and the USSR. In this prevailing international scenario, the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, who was also a Foreign Minister exercised profound influence in the formulation and implementation of India’s foreign policy from 1946 to 1964. The foreign policy of independent India vigorously pursued the dream of a peaceful world by advocating the policy of non-alignment. India wanted to keep away from the military alliances led by US and Soviet Union against each other. India advocated non-alignment as the ideal foreign policy approach. In a letter to K .P. S. Menon (India's first Foreign Secretary), Jawaharlal Nehru wrote: "Our generals policy is to avoid entanglement in power politics and not to join any group of powers as against any other group. The two leading groups today are the Russian bloc and the Anglo-American bloc. We must be friendly to both and yet not join either. Both America and Russia are extraordinarily suspicious of each other as well as of other countries. This makes our path difficult and we may well be suspected by each of leaning towards the other. This cannot be helped". Based on the above discussion we can conclude that the above words constitute the central idea of the policy of Non-alignment.