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.

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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

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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.

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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)

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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,

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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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