All big nations have enduring myths about their foreign policies. India is no exception. One of its principal myths, the presumed commitment to non-intervention in the internal affairs of other nations, has been purveyed widely in the last few days as the world debates the use of force against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in Libya.

At New York, India has gone along with the United Nations Security Council Resolution imposing a few sanctions against the Libyan regime — arms embargo, travel ban, freeze on accounts of the leadership.

But New Delhi has found it necessary to explain its vote because of domestic squeamishness about Western intervention in Libya.

Senior officials have suggested that Delhi was not even for sanctions, but had to go along with the consensus in New York.

The government’s defensiveness suggests that Delhi has reverted to form — with all its humbug and hypocrisy about non-intervention as a high principle of India’s foreign policy — at the very first major diplomatic test since it joined the UNSC as a non-permanent member in January.