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The Commonwealth is the largest world grouping to profess the same system of values and to function in the same language. Its survival over the decades can be attributed to its lack of a constitution, charter or rules of procedure. This flexibility stems largely from the formula embodied in the London Declaration of 1949, which enabled India to remain in membership after declaring itself a republic after independence. The author suggests that occasional signs that India believes that the Commonwealth is an Anglo-centric hangover from Empire is a relic of a misinformed theory exploded by Nehru in 1949.
TIMES HAVE CHANGED SO DRAMATICALLY. India was to become a Republic in 1950; and it is hard to imagine today, 50 years later, that the matter of allegiance to the British crown could have been such an emotive issue in 1949 as to threaten to abort the creation of the new multi-racial, multi-ethnic Commonwealth. And it was not only a question of the British crown. There was the highly sensitive issue of decolonization and sovereignty. Would India, only two years independent, wish to remain in a group which to its critics smacked of empire and neo-colonialism? And yet another factor. The world at that time was beginning to coalesce into two major contesting blocs, militarily, politically and ideologically. At the Commonwealth conference India was the only country out of eight which was not ideologically aligned to the West in the context of the Cold War.
The London Declaration of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers meeting which ended on 27 April 1949 referred to India's intention to become a republic, to continue its full membership of the Commonwealth, and its acceptance of King George as the symbol of the free association of the member nations and as such, head of the Commonwealth. The Indian position was apparently the sole subject of discussion at that meeting of Prime Ministers.
Many leaders of India's freedom movement had expected independent India to exit rapidly from the Commonwealth association. Indeed one of those was none other than India's current Prime Minister, A. B. Vajpayee. But Indian leaders of all political stripes trusted in Nehru's judgement. They appreciated that the separation with the United Kingdom had been a velvet divorce. And Nehru had...