London Declaration

Drafted by the Indian statesman V. K. Krishna Menon,[1] the declaration stated the agreement of the prime ministers to the continued membership of India in the organization after it becomes a republic.

By that declaration, the Government of India had expressed its acceptance of the king as a symbol of the free association of its independent member nations and head of the Commonwealth.

[4] At the meeting, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru proposed a Ten Point Memorandum on the settlement between India and the Commonwealth.

[4] News of the agreement was hailed by all those of the opposition party in the British House of Commons, including Winston Churchill and Clement Davies.

[4] By contrast, Jan Smuts, who had been defeated by Malan in the South African general election the previous year and was considered second only to Churchill as a Commonwealth statesman,[7] was strongly opposed.

[9] The London conference - concerned mainly with India and to some degree with Ireland, which recently declared itself a republic - did not pay much attention for the implications for South Africa.