A week is a long time in politics, former British prime minister Harold Wilson once famously said, reflecting how fortunes can rise and fall within days. Cut to 2025, and the adage may well be revised as ‘a day is a long time in global politics’, given how rapidly things change in the Trumpian world. What was true in the morning may not be valid in the afternoon and certainly history by the evening.
As the world for long coursing along according to a certain set of values grapples with the new global ‘disorder’, it is time to review and reassess international organisations such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organisation, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Are they fit for purpose in a world in which polarity and multilateralism has acquired new meanings? Note that during reverberations since US President Donald Trump took over in January there has been a deafening silence from global organisations.
One such organisation that has remained silent is the Commonwealth, which was once a major newsmaker, at least in former colonies such as India. In fact, there is a road in Goa named after the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) that took place in 1983. Trump’s actions on trade have adversely impacted several Commonwealth countries, most notably Canada, but the London-based headquarters of the group has remained silent so far.
But then, what exactly is the point of the Commonwealth? This is not a new question. It has been raised several times in the past, particularly by experts and commentators during high-profile CHOGM meetings. For all the trappings of the 56-country group – its secretariat is located in Marlborough House in Pall Mall, just down the road from Buckingham Palace – not many are aware of what exactly it does. It describes itself as a “voluntary association of 56 independent and equal countries. It is home to 2.7 billion people, and includes both advanced economies and developing countries. 33 of our members are small states, including many island nations”.
Founded in 1949 and comprising mostly countries of the erstwhile British Empire, the group’s relevance at this juncture is all the more open to question, when newer groups are formed (such as QUAD, AUKUS), older groups such as the UN face challenges, and the international order itself under strain from various quarters. A CHOGM is usually held every two years: the last one was in October 2024 in Apia Samoa and the next is due in Antigua and Barbuda in 2026.
Some commonalities resonate across the Commonwealth: legal systems, language (English), cricket and culture, but it has long been plagued by the existential question: What is the point of it? Philip Murphy, director of the Institute for Commonwealth Studies, questions its relevance and insists that the Commonwealth is a myth: “For Britain’s administrative elite, the Commonwealth is a bit like a grandfather clock that has been in the family for generations. It hasn’t told the right time for decades, but no one has the heart to take such a treasured heirloom to the tip”. The secretariat, funded by contributions from all member-countries, produces a large number of documents and lofty proclamations on various issues.
The Commonwealth’s infrastructure and network (including affiliated organisations) provide employment to many. Lots of receptions and well-meaning conferences are held to explore how the Commonwealth could achieve its ‘true potential’; there are also claims of a so-called ‘Commonwealth effect’ that can enhance trade between member-countries. But while ministers, diplomats and others admit that the Commonwealth has faced some neglect and under-funding in recent years, it has trundled on, particularly contributing to small island member-countries on issues such as elections, corruption, gender equality, trade and youth mobility.
In some British quarters, the group is redolent of nostalgia about the long-gone empire, indulged wistfully to tick boxes of diversity and difference, while large member-countries such as India, Pakistan and Nigeria have moved on, where the memory of Britain’s colonial past is faint in their mostly young populations.
The Commonwealth was largely absent in Britain’s public discourse in recent decades, but had a revival of sorts due to Brexit, when those campaigning to leave the European Union tried to offset the losses from leaving the EU by highlighting Britain’s long-standing role in the Commonwealth (read: ‘bigger trade potential’). A free trade agreement (FTA) with India has long been held up as one of the lucrative benefits of Brexit, but it has remained elusive so far. Now, trade turmoil driven by Trump’s tariffs is likely to speed up the UK-India talks on FTA.
As with most global events, many headline-grabbing announcements are made at CHOGM, but rarely, if ever, there is follow-up on whether they have been delivered. One interesting project announced at the London CHOGM in 2018 was that India, a cricket superpower, would train 30 boys and 30 girls under the age of 16 from Commonwealth countries at its world-class facilities. The idea was to reach out to smaller countries that do not have such facilities and access to coaches. But in cricket’s high-octane world of commerce and compromise today, not much has been heard of the plan since it was announced.
(Prasun Sonwalkar is a columnist and former academic.)
