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December 2014 23 October 2018
The Commonwealth Connection: Extending India’s Outreach?
Dr Auriol Weigold FDI Senior Visiting Fellow
Summary
India has been a member of the Commonwealth for almost seventy years, joining when the
body was formally constituted under the London Declaration in 1949. India’s membership
did not compromise its sovereignty as a republic and the country has had, from decade to
decade, both more, and less, involvement in the Commonwealth. A high point of
engagement, the Commonwealth Heads of Government Regional Meetings between 1978
and 1982, are not always recalled. India’s present Pacific Islands engagement through the
Forum for India-Pacific Islands Co-operation (FIPIC), and other regional bodies, encompasses
fellow Commonwealth members. India’s considerable experience and current direction in
what is now called the Indo-Pacific region is a focus of this paper, as is a possible future role
for it as an active member of the Commonwealth.
Key Points
India has been a member of the Commonwealth since 1949.
India has had earlier involvement with then-emerging small Pacific Island
Commonwealth member states.
Today, India’s involvement in Pacific regional bodies and organisations,
often overlapping, demonstrates the extent of its outreach.
India must now decide, in light of the outreach aims of the 2018 London
CHOGM, where its efforts may best be directed.
Page 2 of 6
Analysis
India in the Commonwealth
The Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) met in London in April 2018. The
Meeting’s Communiqué anticipated that the Commonwealth would contribute to ‘a future
which is fairer, more sustainable, more secure and more prosperous’, and be a key player in
outreach programmes, suggesting more active and effective regional approaches that
include the Indo-Pacific region. Among the leaders attending, and warmly received, was
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, making his first appearance at a CHOGM and breaking a
now-familiar pattern. No Indian Prime Minister has attended CHOGM since the Trinidad and
Tobago meeting in 2009, despite India’s close connection to the Commonwealth during the
period 2008-16, when senior Indian diplomat, Kamalesh Sharma, served as Secretary-
General.
India has been a member of the Commonwealth for almost seventy years. As background,
the British Commonwealth of Nations, established by the Balfour Declaration in 1926, then
titled the Commonwealth of Nations, was formally constituted by the London Declaration in
1949. This updated the organisation’s early objectives including, importantly, the recognition
of new member states as free and equal. India joined that year. The modern
Commonwealth’s objectives were outlined in the 1971 Singapore Declaration; its principles
on peace and security are similar to today’s “rule of law”. Its outreach commitments
appropriate to the period were updated at biennial CHOGMs hosted by member countries.
India’s long history of Commonwealth involvement post-independence, without
compromising its sovereignty as a republic, became an example for newly-independent
states.1 Commonwealth aid to India had grown from the mid-1960s, but India’s foreign
policy led to shifts away from it during much of the 1970s and 1980s. During the 1990s,
however, the increasing interest of CHOGM in finance, law and trade saw the participation
of relevant Indian ministers, rather than Prime Ministers.
There were arguments in support of the absences from CHOGM of India’s previous Prime
Minister, Manmohan Singh, just as there were arguments, in India’s interest, for Modi to
attend in 2018. In line with Modi’s enthusiastic welcome in London, media outlets
recognised the shift in regional emphasis and promoted India as a country that could take
the lead in revitalising the Commonwealth.
India may thus be characterised both as an established Commonwealth participant and a
potential leader in its extending region of interest. The breadth of India’s engagement as a
long-term member, however, is not always recognised. Its present Pacific Islands
engagement with the Forum for India-Pacific Islands Co-operation (FIPIC) encompasses
1 Carnegie India published CSR Murthy’s brief history ‘India and the Commonwealth: The Redirecting
of the Relationship’, containing useful accounts of India’s initiatives and investments, on 11 April 2018. https://carnegieindia.org/2018/04/11/india-and-commonwealth-redirecting-relationship-pub-76054
Page 3 of 6
Commonwealth members, and the considerable early experience among members in what is
now termed the Indo-Pacific region is a focus of this paper.
Commonwealth Heads of Government Regional Meetings (CHOGRM)
The emerging economic dimension of the Commonwealth in the 1970s shortly predated a
new initiative proposed to the leaders, supported by India’s then Prime Minister, Morarji
Desai, and Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, in which both countries volunteered
to participate in mentoring economically emerging small island states in the South Pacific.
The initiative, titled Commonwealth Heads of Government Regional Meetings (CHOGRM),
followed the July 1977 CHOGM held in London when the new endeavour was sanctioned by
then Secretary-General, Shridath (Sonny) Ramphal. The purpose of the CHOGRMs was to
give the leaders of small island states opportunities to debate the issues that affected their
stages of development at regional meetings. CHOGRMs were important for regional
stability, and acknowledged that the small island states frequently had little voice in the
presence of influential “old” Commonwealth leaders at CHOGMs.2
The initiative moved quickly and the first CHOGRM was held in Sydney in February 1978, the
second in New Delhi in September 1980 and the third in Fiji, in October 1982. The Sydney
meeting was attended by the Prime Ministers of Fiji, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua
New Guinea, Singapore, Tonga and Western Samoa, and the Presidents of Bangladesh,
Nauru and Sri Lanka. Discussions were broad and canvassed a range of issues, from the
dangers of great power rivalry in the Indian Ocean – something regularly heard today – to
regional issues appraised by the leaders present, and agreement to oversee and monitor
negotiations on the New International Economic Order proposals, as agreed at the then-
recent 32nd UN General Assembly.
The subjects addressed in 1978 are familiar today: terrorism, disarmament, trade policy,
industrial development, energy, rural development and drug trafficking. Follow-up action
saw agreement that a Consultative Group on trade would be co-ordinated by Australia, on
energy by India, and Working Groups on drugs and terrorism by Singapore and Malaysia,
respectively. Desai looked forward to following up the working group activities ‘in order to
make the Delhi meeting in 1980 a worthy successor’.
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, back in power, chaired the second CHOGRM in Delhi in
September 1980 attended by the Prime Ministers and Presidents present at the Sydney
meeting and four new participants: the Prime Ministers of the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and
Vanuatu, and the President of Kiribati. At the Delhi meeting, threats to regional stability
could not be ignored and Mrs Gandhi invited discussion on regional trends that inevitably
returned to the escalation of great power presences in the Indian Ocean. Ratu Sir Kamisese
2 Weigold, A., 2013, ‘Australia-India Relations in Insecure Times: Malcolm Fraser’s Engagement’, L.
Brennan & A. Weigold (Eds.), Re-thinking India: Perceptions from Australia, Readworthy, New Delhi, pp. 19-24. A version, written with the support of the Australian Prime Ministers Centre, Canberra, is available at http://static.moadoph.gov.au/ophgovau/media/images/apmc/docs/Weigold-Australia-India-relations-Ch-1.pdf. Reports on the CHOGRMs are in files A1838, 625/13/5, Part 4, at the NAA.
Page 4 of 6
Mara, Prime Minister of Fiji, hosted the last CHOGRM in October 1982,3 when much of the
discussion again focussed on unresolved regional tensions and progress on economic
development. Debate continues on a wide range of issues among Commonwealth Island
leaders who are now members of the Modi-initiated Forum for India-Pacific Islands Co-
operation (FIPIC).
India in the Pacific
India’s motivation for extending its activity in the Pacific is, on the one hand, China’s
increasing presence there, and, on the other, the sense of its encirclement of India in both
the maritime and terrestrial spheres. It is also China’s disturbance of India’s regional
relations and exacerbation of border tensions, its increasing presence in the Indian Ocean
and, as previously noted, its push to gain footholds in the Pacific. Each is motivation for
India’s recent initiatives towards the Pacific Islands from both political and strategic
viewpoints, and it is establishing a substantial profile there.
India’s regional multilateral engagement, however, is already broad, from BRICS to BIMSTEC.
ASEAN is central to the regional architecture and shapes India’s Act East policy that primarily
engages South-East Asia, although India’s President, Pranab Mukherjee, sees economic
linkages and co-operation with Pacific Island states as an extension of that policy.
The Forum for India-Pacific Islands Co-operation (FIPIC) encompasses Commonwealth
members and met in Suva at Modi’s instigation in November 2014, some six months after
his election. It was formed to strengthen and extend India’s relationships with Pacific Island
countries and, to some extent, builds on the CHOGRMs. The first summit was held at heads
of government level, and regular future meetings were expected to include business leaders,
academics, civilians and young people, similar in structure to the Indian Ocean Research
Association (IORA), led over recent years by India, Australia and Indonesia, with a
membership drawn largely from Indian Ocean Rim states.
The second FIPIC Summit, held in Jaipur in August 2015, resolved to co-operate on a number
of issues including energy sources, oil and natural gas, Information Technology, health care,
fishing, marine research and other aspects of the blue economy, in some replication of the
action plans of IORA and of the Pacific Island Forum (PIF), of which India is not a member.
FIPIC, progressing its Pacific Island countries engagement, hosted with India’s Energy and
Resources Institute (formerly known as the Tata Energy and Resource Institute, or TERI),
the India-Pacific Islands Sustainable Development Conference, held appropriately in Suva in
May 2017. Broadening key partnerships, it included the Federation of Indian Chambers of
Commerce & Industry (FICCI), the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), and the National
Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), with each expected to add expertise to the
growing programme and facilitate the exchange of knowledge, paving the way for public-
3 Sir Robert Muldoon, then Prime Minister of New Zealand, argued that duplication of other South
Pacific fora could create concern in Wellington and Canberra that their special relationships were being undermined. PM Hawke (elected 1983), picked up the baton and the CHOGRMs ended at a one-day meeting in Port Moresby on 8 August 1984. (Straits Times, 8 August 1984, p. 3)
Page 5 of 6
private partnerships and collaborations with and between other conference participants.
Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF) representatives were also invited.
While India is not a member of PIDF – open to all Pacific Island Countries – it is a member of
the Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and Pacific (CIRDAP), a regional
organisation established in 1979. An initiative of countries of the Asia-Pacific region and the
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), CIRDAP operates through
ministries and linked institutions, rather than at leader level. Its foundation coincided with
CHOGRM meetings and promotes rural development, sustainable management and the
efficient use of natural resources. At a meeting held in Nadi in April 2018, the focus was on
climate change, strengthening resilience and improving the ability to adapt. Its fifteen
member countries include Fiji, a former CHOGRM member, and Indonesia.
Continuing its push to engage South-East Asia, in May 2018, India and Indonesia issued a
joint statement that elevated their bilateral relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic
Partnership that included maritime co-operation in the Indo-Pacific region. Chandramohan
argues that Indonesia will also support the extension of India’s Act East Policy into the Pacific
and, on the diplomatic front, support India’s engagement with the Melanesian Spearhead
Group (MSG). That group is made up of the states of Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon
Island, Vanuatu, and an alliance of political parties in New Caledonia. Again, there is a
degree of overlap. Indonesia is an associate member of the MSG and India is likely to seek
the same recognition, while offering military and technical aid. One direction in India’s path
since Modi’s election has been to further establish its spheres of interest in the Pacific.
Conclusion
As noted, India’s outreach in the South Pacific has been substantially boosted by Modi, who
is nearing the end of his first term as Prime Minister.
He was fêted at CHOGM 2018 and there were convincing arguments that an active
Commonwealth connection could reinforce India’s efforts to curtail China’s advances in the
Indian Ocean region and in the Pacific. As demonstrated above, however, India has engaged
widely in its own and regional organisations – without a noteworthy Commonwealth
connection – enhancing its international recognition as a global player. Notionally, at least, it
has expanded its “ACT East” policy to gain influence in the face of Chinese advances in the
Pacific.
One value of Commonwealth membership for India is that it is a body in which China is not
present. To emphasise its position, India might offer to host a CHOGM; something which it
has not done since 1983. Geographically, that would support an aspect of the London
CHOGM’s expansionist aims and India’s position as a desirable and longstanding participant
in the Commonwealth could ensure the acceptance of such an offer.
In advancing Commonwealth interests and aims, India’s stakes in Africa should not be
overlooked. In fact, a push to extend India’s footholds in Africa’s Commonwealth states,
Page 6 of 6
where China is an ever-present contender, may be the “development partnership” that the
Commonwealth derives from India.
*****
About the Author: Dr Auriol Weigold is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of
Government and Politics, Faculty of Business, Government and Law at the University of
Canberra. She has been a Fellow and Honorary Fellow at the Australian Prime Ministers
Centre at Old Parliament House, Canberra, between 2010 and 2015, publishing on Australian
and Indian prime ministerial relationships. In 2016, she spent a period as a Guest Scholar at
the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies at Shimla. Previously, she was Convenor of the BA
International Studies at the University of Canberra and an Editor of the South Asia Masala
weblog, hosted by the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. In
2008, she published her first book: Churchill, Roosevelt and India: Propaganda during World
War II. Since then, she has co-edited and contributed to two further books. Her research
interests include the Australia-India bilateral relationship, India’s energy and security needs,
and Indo-British relations in the 1940s.
*****
Any opinions or views expressed in this paper are those of the individual author, unless stated to be those of
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