According to the original schedule, the Indian Prime Minister was to attend the opening ceremony and be seated with the delegates while Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei was to deliver his welcome address. After that he was to meet the Nepal Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi in quick order at the convention centre and return to deliver his speech at 4.30 pm.

However, the Prime Minister just couldn’t say no to the request by the host country to be seated on the dais during the opening ceremony and also be the first member country to deliver its address. So Manmohan Singh had to postpone the meeting with Karzai and cancel his engagements with Bhattarai and Morsi sitting through the speeches of outgoing NAM chairman Morsi and that of the incoming one, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

Facing international isolation, Iran was clearly trying to showcase India’s participation in the summit to counter its critics and signal to the world that its stature remained undiminished.

In fact, not just Iran but many nations used the NAM pulpit to push through their personal agendas and thunder away on their pet peeves. For most part, only lip service was paid to the theme of the summit, ‘Lasting peace through joint global governance.’ A diplomat joked, “Many members seemed to treat the forum as Slam, Bam, Thank you NAM.”

Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, set the ball rolling by delivering a fiery speech denouncing the “Americans, Zionists and their puppets” and stating that, “Our view is that the control room of the world should not be managed by the dictatorial will of a few Western nations.” Lashing out at the UN Security Council, which in the recent past has approved sanctions against Iran for its nuclear waywardness, Khamenei called the Council, “a flagrant form of dictatorship which is antiquated and obsolete and whose expiry date has passed.”

Much of Khamenei’s speech was also devoted to defending Iran’s nuclear stance stating that, “We proposed the idea of a Middle East free of nuclear weapons and we are committed to it. This does not mean forgoing our right to peaceful use of nuclear power and production of nuclear fuel.” In fact Iran used the summit venue to showcase three mangled cars of Iran’s nuclear scientists who had been killed in bomb blasts in recent years. It even invited the young daughter of one of them to hold his picture and sit as a delegate in the convention centre.

If Khamenei used the NAM platform to forcefully present Iran’s peculiar point of view, Egyptian President Morsi used the occasion to indulge in Syria bashing. He slammed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and called for a regime change when he said bluntly, “Our solidarity with the struggle of the Syrian people against an oppressive regime that has lost its legitimacy is an ethical duty as it is a political and strategic necessity.” The Syrian delegation walked out of his talk and returned only after he finished.

It was left to Manmohan Singh, with his sober and nuanced speech, to bring NAM’s agenda back on some course. In his speech, the Indian Prime Minister was careful to focus on issues such as food security, renewable sources of energy and “building global governance structures that are representative, credible and effective” that unified member countries. That included reforming institutions such as UN Security Council, World Bank and the IMF.

Proposing “a NAM initiative on skill development” Manmohan Singh stated that India was prepared to contribute substantially to such an effort. He also articulated India’s position on Syria of being against externally coerced regime change, stating that NAM should take a stand that “would urge all parties to recommit themselves to resolving the crisis peacefully through a Syrian- led inclusive political process that can meet the legitimate aspirations of all Syrian citizens.”

While making the mandatory noises on Palestine, the Indian Prime Minister was careful not to dwell too much on contentious issues such as nuclear weapons proliferation, international terrorism and the growing threat of cyber security. Manmohan Singh steered clear of mentioning the on-going feud with Iran over its nuclear ambitions and also didn’t mention its woes about terror attacks on Indian soil. It was apparent that India would prefer to deal with it as a bilateral issue concerning Pakistan rather than internationalise it.

While NAM members were working on reaching a consensus on a 701-paragraph resolution that is to be released tomorrow some diplomats think the agenda still reads too much like “a blast from the past.” Part of the problem was that the NAM summit was being held under the shadow of major international crises like the international sanctions against Iran, the bloody civil war in Syria and the continuing instability in Afghanistan.

If NAM has to remain relevant it must, as UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon speaking at the summit, said, “Keep pace with the changing times.” He added, “I see two paths rising from this challenge: prevention to help deal with a society’s political grievances; and sustainability to help address society’s development challenges.”