Re-imagining the Commonwealth

It may be time to anoint New Delhi as a hub for a reimagined Commonwealth, writes India Inc. CEO Manoj Ladwa.

This week the Commonwealth Secretariat has launched a report which claims that if the UK and India sign a Free Trade Agreement (FTA), this could boost bilateral trade by a staggering 26 per cent. I am somewhat sceptical about the speed at which an FTA could be agreed and the figures. But nonetheless any moves in this direction is positive.

It is also here that the larger canvas of the Commonwealth could provide a fillip to a much more meaningful UK-India relationship of the future. There are, however, some practical and emotional hurdles to overcome before we get there. For instance, India has been Independent for 70 years but even now some quarters in the country are still very prickly when it comes to discussions on the colonial era and India's relations with the UK.

Fortunately, such mindsets are fast becoming a thing of the past as the post-Cold War, post-9/11, post-Brexit world gets set for the next big challenges. As one of the former colonies that has, especially with the rise of Modi - India's first Prime Minister to be born after India's independence - made a decisive break with the past, India has in my view everything to gain and very little, if anything, to lose from this approach. The Commonwealth could be one such institution that can become a vehicle to drive large parts of the world into the 21st century. Though there is an urgent need to reimagine it, not as Empire 2.0 as some misguided apologists for the past have done in Britain but as a modern, forward-looking trade bloc that can help its members navigate through the choppy and highly complex waters of the global economy.

I have consistently argued that the UK has to do much of the heavy lifting following Brexit. This may be a good time to put its considerable global heft and prestige behind the move to reform and reinvigorate the Commonwealth and reimagine it as a global trading platform fit for the 21st century and beyond. It is for Her Majesty's government to convince India, by far the largest Commonwealth member, to become its partner in the process. It is the world's fastest growing major economy and clearly the nation to watch out for in this century. But over the years, India has viewed the Commonwealth with less than full enthusiasm. Today, though, the world is a different place. In the era of Donald Trump and with winds of isolationism gathering pace in some Western democracies, India′s global aspirations and its far-sighted and global minded leader Narendra Modi stand out as a bellwether in the global community. Given his penchant for getting things done and for carrying other countries along - as he did with the International Solar Alliance - the place to start would be New Delhi. To re-imagine the Commonwealth, the following steps need to be taken:

• Recognition of a rebalancing and redistribution of power within the Commonwealth - not just India, but in key countries like Nigeria, Australia, Canada, Singapore and the East African economies
• Structural reform with some stronger weightage placed on India from an administrative perspective
• Anoint New Delhi as the hub or head office of the Commonwealth trading bloc
• Re-imagining the shared values and shared aspirations on the lines of Modi's inclusive Sabka Ka Saath, Sabka Vikas credo as large swathes of the Commonwealth remain impoverished
• The fight against poverty must take centre-stage, not through lecturing but real programmes, such as the export of the Jan Dhan Yojana, India's highly successful financial inclusion scheme.