Former US secretary of state Dean Acheson’s gibe that “Great Britain has lost an empire and not found a role” might have been answered in early July when fulsome tribute was paid in London to Sir Shridath “Sonny” Ramphal, the Commonwealth’s longest-serving (1975-90) and most dynamic secretary-general, who was “more general than secretary” according to New Zealand’s former Prime Minister, Robert Muldoon, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Trinidad and Tobago.The 56-member Commonwealth might even succeed in devising a peace formula for a West Asia whose warring entities — Palestine, which became Israel when the Zionists overran it, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt — were all once British controlled. Perhaps no one expects it to provide active backup force to the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue of Australia, India, Japan and the United States that a former Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, had hoped would establish an “Asian Arc of Democracy”. But the promise of American nuclear submarines underlines the Quad’s aim of keeping the Indo-Pacific region free of China’s stratagems. It is also a fact that the Commonwealth, largely but not entirely comprising the old British empire, is today the largest global stage that is not dominated by China’s wealth, technology, strategic priorities, commercial activities or diplomatic presence. Initially, of course, the Commonwealth was seen as a politically correct extension of the Raj. Clement Attlee, the British Prime Minister who had presided over the transformation in 1947, even suggested to Jawaharlal Nehru that he should find a title from “India’s heroic age” for King George VI after he ceased to be Emperor of India. Seeing the humorous side of this when the London Declaration said in 1949 that after becoming a republic, India would remain in the Commonwealth and accept the British sovereign as a “symbol of the free association of its independent member nations and as such the Head of the Commonwealth”, the monarch said to India’s high commissioner in London, V.K. Krishna Menon, who had drafted the declaration: “So, I’ve become ‘as such’.” Nothing — not even dropping the appellation “British” from the Commonwealth — can diminish the psychological position that Britain historically occupies in this multi-lingual, multinational, multi-religious group of sovereign nations that Britain once ruled. Brexit may even have intensified British interest, with 15 Commonwealth countries still acknowledging the British monarch as head of state. As Queen Elizabeth II noted in her 1953 Christmas Day broadcast, she envisioned the Commonwealth as “an entirely new conception — built on the highest qualities of the Spirit of Man: friendship, loyalty, and the desire for freedom and peace”. Nehru’s justification was less enthusiastic because he could not exorcise the ghosts of his generation’s struggle against British rule. But despite his coolness, he loved attending Commonwealth conferences. India also has an emotive reason for bonding with countries like Fiji, Mauritius, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Guyana. That is “Girmitiya” — a corruption of “agreement” — indicating the indentured labour system, labourers being “girmits”. That bitter memory inspires and underlies many poems by the Fiji-born poet, Satendra Nandan. Sir Shridath Ramphal’s great-grandmother was a “girmit” twice over, determined not to commit sati. Going to Dutch Guyana as an indentured labourer, she returned a few years later, to be rejected by her family because she had crossed the dreaded kala pani. So, she became a girmit again, this time in British Guyana. No wonder her great-grandson resolutely opposed any kind of prejudice. I knew from his dedicated aide, Patsy Robertson, through whom I first met Sir Shridath, that after the 1983 New Delhi summit, when he slipped away to visit incognito the Calcutta docks from where his great-grandmother had sailed into exile. Patsy was the founding spirit and first chair of the Commonwealth Association. Her belief in the Commonwealth was unshakeable, and her passion for promoting its relevance, unwavering. As Sir Shridath said in 1985: “One of the functions of the Commonwealth is not to displace the UN but to help the UN to realise its goals by keeping the lines of communication open”. According to his son-in-law, the Caribbean diplomat, Sir Ronald Sanders, who delivered the fifth Patsy Memorial lecture after the memorial service for Sir Shridath, the Reverend C.F. Andrews, who visited Guyana in 1929 at Mahatma Gandhi’s request, looked into the infant Ramphal’s eyes and declared: “This child will have a long and rewarding life”. Another girmit, Guyana’s Cheddi Jagan, made history in 1953 by becoming the first ethnic Indian to head a government outside the subcontinent. A more substantive reason for India’s interest is that it is the biggest Commonwealth country, accounting for 60 per cent of the group’s 2.7 billion people, 95 per cent of whom live in Asia and Africa. Two-thirds of the 600 million young people in the group are Indian. India is the fourth largest contributor to Commonwealth budgets and programmes. It also provides funds and facilities to some of the smaller countries that need help with their international representation. The Commonwealth helped to squash Ian Smith’s racist rebellion in Southern Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) and end the vicious apartheid system in South Africa. It has tackled daunting tasks facing the Global Douth like the perceived conflict between democracy and development, climate change, protectionism, nuclear proliferation and threats to small and vulnerable entities. Given this background, seasoned Commonwealth diplomats might yet be able revive the Oslo negotiations for a two-state solution to Israel’s murderous ethnic cleansing. Many in London believe that but for Queen Elizabeth II’s support, the Commonwealth secretariat would long ago have been turfed out of stately Marlborough House. While Margaret Thatcher called African National Congress activists “terrorists”, Patsy, heading the Commonwealth secretariat’s information department, was at the centre of a worldwide network of politicians and journalists who helped to turn the tide of opinion. “The Commonwealth is not to be trifled with”, she warned me, arching an eyebrow in a telltale gesture. Nani Palkhivala is believed to have lamented that the Commonwealth didn’t have sex appeal. It sometimes seems that it doesn’t have a voice either. It can acquire both if India’s media doesn’t sycophantically follow shortsighted Indian leaders in cozying up to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. “We cannot negotiate for the world,” Ramphal said. “But we can help the world to negotiate”. The Commonwealth’s coherent voice for democracy, equality and international solidarity can help in that.
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