What are the principles enunciated in the ‘Panch Sheel’?

The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence or Panchsheel are a series of agreements between the People’s Republic of China and India. It was formed in 1954, within the context of decolonization, to ensure that newly independent nations would not have the same aggressive relationship they once had with colonizers.

The 5 principles called the panchsheel, with form the basis of the Non-Aligned movement, are supposed to have been laid down by Jawaharlal Nehru, but Chinese premier Zhou Entail insisted on putting them into the preamble of the 1954 agreement. This narrow agreement between India, PRC spurred the Asian-African Conference, whose ten principles expanded on the Five Principles below:

1. Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

2. Mutual non-aggression against anyone.

3. Mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs.

4. Equality and mutual benefit.

5. Peaceful co-existence.

The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence were first put forth by China at the start of negotiations that took place in Delhi from December 1953 to April 1954 between the Delegation of the PRC Government and the Delegation of the Indian Government on the relations between the two countries with respect to disputed territory.

Later, the Five Principles were formally written into the preface to the “Agreement Between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of India on Trade and co-operation Between the PRC and India” concluded between the two sides. Since June 1954, the Five Principles have been adopted in many other international documents. As norms of relations between nations, they have become widely recognized and accepted throughout the region, though the Chinese were the first to break these principles in their 1962 aggression.