London Declaration

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For other uses, see London Declaration (disambiguation).

The Commonwealth Prime Ministers with the King at Buckingham Palace for the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference, 1949.

The London Declaration was a declaration issued by the 1949 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference on the issue of India's continued membership of the Commonwealth of Nations, an association of independent states formerly part of the British Empire, after India's transition to a republican constitution.

Drafted by the Indian statesman V. K. Krishna Menon,[1] the declaration stated the agreement of the prime ministers to the continued membership of India in the organization after it becomes a republic. By that declaration, the Government of India had expressed its acceptance of the king as a symbol of the free association of its independent member nations and head of the Commonwealth.

The declaration dealt only with India, considered as an exceptional case, and it reaffirmed that the other members of the Commonwealth owed common allegiance to the Crown with an initial acceptance of the king as a head of the Commonwealth. However, it did establish a precedent that republicanism is compatible with membership in the organization.[2]

History

The declaration stated vis-à-vis India:

The Government of India have ... declared and affirmed India's desire to continue her full membership of the Commonwealth of Nations and her acceptance of the King as the symbol of the free association of its independent member nations and as such the Head of the Commonwealth.[3]

This formula has since been deemed to be a sufficient precedent for all other countries.

The issue had been discussed at the 1948

Prime Ministers Conference, the agenda of which was dominated by the imminent decisions of two states—India and Ireland—to declare themselves republics.[4] At the meeting, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru proposed a Ten Point Memorandum on the settlement between India and the Commonwealth.[5] The Cabinet Committee on Commonwealth Relations recognised that Nehru's proposals could not constitute a basis for continued Commonwealth membership, and that a further conference would be required.[4]

On 16 May 1949, during the Constituent Assembly Debates for the composing of a republican constitution, Nehru declared in the assembly that:

We join the Commonwealth obviously because we think it is beneficial to us and to certain causes in the world that we wish to advance. The other countries of the Commonwealth want us to remain there because they think it is beneficial to them. It is mutually understood that it is to the advantage of the nations in the Commonwealth and therefore they join. At the same time, it is made perfectly clear that each country is completely free to go its own way; it may be that they may go, sometimes go so far as to break away from the Commonwealth...Otherwise, apart from breaking the evil parts of the association, it is better to keep a co-operative association going which may do good in this world rather than break it.[6]

At the next conference, in April 1949, Nehru, seeking above all to avoid two-tiered membership,

Daniel François Malan, and, during the next two days, the draft was crafted into a final agreement.[4] To avoid criticism about eliminating the word British from the name of the Commonwealth, Nehru conceded a reference to the "British Commonwealth of Nations" in the opening paragraph of the document as an historically appropriate reference.[4]

King

Afrikaner conservatism and with tighter racial segregation.[9]
The London conference – concerned mainly with India and to some degree with Ireland, which recently declared itself a republic – did not pay much attention for the implications for South Africa.

India became a republic in 1950 and remained in the Commonwealth. However, Ireland, which was in the same situation, having passed the

Republic of Ireland Act 1948, declared itself a republic on 18 April 1949,[10]
ten days before the declaration, and therefore quit the Commonwealth.

Appendix

Text of the Declaration

The Governments of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan and Ceylon, whose countries are united as Members of the British Commonwealth of Nations and owe a common allegiance to the Crown, which is also the symbol of their free association, have considered the impending constitutional changes in India.

The Government of India have informed the other Governments of the Commonwealth of the intention of the Indian people that under the new constitution which is about to be adopted India shall become a sovereign independent republic. The Government of India have however declared and affirmed India’s desire to continue her full membership of the Commonwealth of Nations and her acceptance of The King as the symbol of the free association of its independent member nations and as such the Head of the Commonwealth.

The Governments of the other countries of the Commonwealth, the basis of whose membership of the Commonwealth is not hereby changed, accept and recognise India’s continuing membership in accordance with the terms of this declaration.

Accordingly the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan and Ceylon hereby declare that they remain united as free and equal members of the Commonwealth of Nations, freely co-operating in the pursuit of peace, liberty and progress.[11]

Legacy

The London Declaration marked the birth of the modern Commonwealth of Nations.[3][4] After the death of King George VI in 1952, the Commonwealth governments recognised Queen Elizabeth II as "Head of the Commonwealth".[citation needed]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ Brecher cites the negotiations that led to the creation of the modern Commonwealth, Page 20 in Brecher’s India and World Politics: Krishna Menon’s View of the World, Oxford University Press, London 1968.
  2. JSTOR 755789
  3. ^
    JSTOR 1090506
    .
  4. ^
    doi:10.1080/003585399108108
    .
  5. ^ "Status of India in the Commonwealth". Documents on Canadian External Relations. Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. 6 June 2007. Archived from the original on 15 April 2008. Retrieved 25 July 2007.
  6. ^ "Constituent Assembly Debates (India)". Delhi: Parliament of India. 16 May 1949. Archived from the original on 9 November 2013. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
  7. ISBN 1-84212-626-1
    .
  8. doi:10.1080/003585399108072
    .
  9. ^ Muller (1975), p. 508.
  10. ^ The Republic of Ireland Act, 1948 (Commencement) Order, 1949
  11. ^ London Declaration
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