Commonwealth membership is an affront to postcolonial India

medium119203724The permanent head of the Commonwealth, a group of 55 former British colonies, is the British monarch. When Queen Elizabeth II died, it was understood that future Commonwealth heads would be by rotation. That is the case in the G20. In other groups — for example, BRICS and the G7 — there is no head.Britain, however, broke its unstated agreement that King Charles III would not inherit leadership of the Commonwealth after the death of his mother. He did, quietly and unobtrusively.India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, had the wisdom at Independence in 1947 to declare that India would not join an imperial club that served Britain’s geopolitical interests, not India’s.The British knew that without India, the Commonwealth would be a motley, irrelevant collection of islands and Anglo-Saxon settlements in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. That would diminish, not enhance, British prestige as it searched for a postcolonial role in the world.The British also knew that Nehru was susceptible to flattery. It assigned its most experienced diplomats to work on Nehru.In 1947, Nehru had publicly announced: “Under no conceivable circumstances is India going to join the British Commonwealth.”By 1949, Nehru had been persuaded to change his mind. At the Commonwealth Prime Ministers Conference in London in April 1949, Nehru said, despite India’s objective of becoming a republic in 1950, it wished to be a member of the Commonwealth.Britain heaved a sigh of relief. It could continue the pretence of still running the world now that its largest ex-colony was a member of a group of global nations that the British monarch headed in perpetuity. medium nocaptionhttp://youtu.be/IcQ9SEB52-c?si=God5c9zNapvDKioxPrime Minister Narendra Modi has mostly ignored the Commonwealth since taking office in 2014, keeping away from the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meet (CHOGM). At the last CHOGM in 2024, he deputed Kiren Rijiju, minister for parliamentary affairs, to travel to Samoa, a former British Pacific island ex-colony where the meet was held.But Modi has been hesitant to break ties with the Commonwealth. He believes it will affect India’s relationship with the United Kingdom (UK), especially the India-UK free trade agreement (FTA), now in its third tortuous year of endless negotiations.Modi is wrong. Britain needs the FTA more than India does. Last month, the British economy contracted by 0.1%. Boosting trade with India is in Britain’s national interest.If India decides to leave the Commonwealth, it will actually enhance its global prestige and give it a stronger hand to deal with global issues like the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the future of Gaza. Today, it defers to the Anglosphere on vital international matters.This week’s Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi, attended by the world’s intelligence and political elite, showed how India can lead the global agenda without needless imperial baggage.However, just as India continues with medieval practices like the pointless Attari-Wagah border ceremony with Pakistan, giving Islamabad a false sense of equivalence, Modi appears reluctant to end ties with a postcolonial organisation like the Commonwealth that is of little use to India.Other Commonwealth members are unenthusiastic as well. Few are prepared, for example, to host the anachronistic Commonwealth Games anymore. The 2026 Games were to be held in Victoria, Australia. It backed out saying it didn’t have the budget. Gold Coast in Queensland stepped in but withdrew its bid almost immediately, citing financial constraints.Finally with no takers, Britain was compelled to keep the Commonwealth Games alive by hosting them for the second successive time. But with funds running low, the number of sports in Glasgow, which has reluctantly agreed to host the Games, has been reduced from 20 to 10 with no separate athletes village. Like the Commonwealth itself, the Commonwealth Games are not worth India’s time or effort. medium nocaptionhttp://youtu.be/kI94INR-khM?si=p6QD7QihGChrCg1dQuit, IndiaFormer foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal minced no words to criticise India’s continuing membership of the Commonwealth. According to the Economic Times, during a two-day Kashmir Literary Festival in December 2024, “Kanwal Sibal advocated for India’s withdrawal from the Commonwealth, citing the need to move past its colonial history.”The popular mood in the country too is against continuing membership of the Commonwealth. Expressing themselves on the popular Reddit site, opinion among young people was unequivocal. One posted this: “The Commonwealth of nations is an unequal, archaic, monarchical organisation that handicaps India’s global perception while offering no material benefits. Commonwealth membership doesn’t befit a nation that aspires to lead the Indo-Pacific and be part of the United Nations Security Council.”Another post reflected the sentiment shared by young Indians: “The Commonwealth is a group of nations acknowledging their enslaved history under the British crown. The US and Ireland are not part of it. Why should India be? The UK’s monarch is the permanent head of the Commonwealth. If the Commonwealth is to be a confluence of equal nations, its leadership ought to have rotated. When India suggested this, it was met with firm resistance from the UK.“All member nations subscribe to the Commonwealth Charter. One of the16 values enshrined in it is commitment to democracy. Yet the UK is a ceremonial monarchy. Another value is separation of power between religion and government. Yet the UK has an official religion Protestant Christianity.”An older generation of politicians, including many in the ruling BJP, still value historic relationships. But if India is to chart out an independent course as the world’s third-largest economy by 2028, as Morgan Stanley projected in a survey published last week, being a member of a Commonwealth group of ex-colonies headed by a hereditary British monarch is not in India’s national interest.Nehru misjudged the issue. Modi should not.Read more from the author here.