‘British to the bootstraps?’

Abstract

Australian policy-makers gave considerable attention to the question of India's relationship to the British Commonwealth in the years following the Second World War. Australia's Minister for External Affairs, H.V. Evatt, was eager to retain India in the Commonwealth, but insisted that the Indians, who were committed to a republican constitution, be required to give some recognition to the royal prerogative. While Evatt's notion of dominion status was consistent with the aspirations and national identities of some of the old dominions, and Australia in particular, it was ill-suited to the ‘new’ Asian members of the Commonwealth in a period of rapid decolonisation in their region. Ultimately, it was only after Australian Prime Minister J.B. Chifley took control of Australia's policy in this field, and adopted a more flexible and less legalistic approach, that a resolution of the difficulty began to emerge. Ultimately, Australian policy contributed to a recasting of the Commonwealth in the late 1940s that can be seen as an effort to extend the life of British Australia.