Key Commonwealth role awaits India

LONDON : There is much poignancy to the 25th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting next week: an Indian minister visiting in 1973 told London not to neglect the group soon after the UK joined the European Union.

“When you find a new girlfriend, you should not forget your wife”, the minister told his British counterpart. But decades went by as the EU occupied centre-stage in London, and the Commonwealth of mainly former colonies of the British empire fell into some neglect.

Now Britain is poised to leave the EU and London finds itself heading an organisation of 53 countries that have much in common, capped by its potential to compensate some of the economic loss that will hit Britain by leaving the European Single Market.

The neglect was also in evidence elsewhere, with limited awareness of the word ‘Commonwealth’ in member states, as the organisation trundled on and contributed particularly to smaller states on best practices on issues such as elections, corruption and youth mobility.

CHOGM 2018 reflects some congruence of interests, with revival being the buzzword: the Theresa May government sees it as a trading bloc for post-Brexit Britain; India is keen to play a greater role in global organisations and leverage its engagements, and the 31 small islandstates (many battling the effects of climate change) hoping to benefit the most from its theme of ‘towards a common future’.