what does it mean to be part of the commonwealth

On a visit to India in November 2017, Prince Charles extended an invitation on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II, the organization’s head, to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to be held later this month in London.

Despite India’s institutionalized ties with the Commonwealth since independence, has the organization mattered to the country’s vital security and development objectives in past decades? Furthermore, when many alternative forums also address the Commonwealth’s values of “democracy, freedom, peace, the rule of law and opportunity for all,” what is the importance of the organization today to a rising international power like India? Equally important is the present task of regularizing the kind of close engagement India brought in, particularly during the years 2008 through 2016, when Indian diplomat Kamalesh Sharma served as the Commonwealth secretary general. This absence has not gone unnoticed among those who watch the Indo-Commonwealth relationship’s potential for serving India’s long-term strategic goals.

However, in recent years, India’s political leaders have not attended its summits, either for want of time or out of deliberate avoidance. Murthy has been a professor of international organization at the Center for International Politics, Organization and Disarmament at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi since 2003.

What does it mean to be part of the commonwealth