Making the new commonwealth

Though the transfer of power to India and Pakistan in August 1947 was a turning point in world history, it left in question the future relations of South Asia with Britain and the Commonwealth. The Attlee Government hoped to consolidate the new Dominions' membership of the Commonwealth in the interests of defence and economic development, and as a precedent for the colonial empire. The immediate consequences of the partition-the communal holocaust in the Punjab and hostilities over Kashmir-bedevilled its objectives. Its primary task was to avoid the alienation of either India or Pakistan by its approach to their disputes. Its essential problem was to devise a form of Commonwealth that would accommodate them both, while reconciling the Dominion members of the old 'White Man's Club' to their full membership.

This book is therefore concerned with British diplomacy towards the sub-continent in the aftermath of its partition, and with the tortuous path to the formula of the 'London Declaration' of April 1949, on which the new Commonwealth was founded. The hope of an integrated defence structure was disappointed, but in the context of the Cold War the retention of South Asia to the Commonwealth for 'the pursuit of peace, liberty, and progress' has been regarded as the Labour government's greatest contribution to civilization. This is the first systematic study of that achievement.