London Declaration

The London Declaration was a declaration issued by the 1949 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference on the issue of India's continued membership of the Commonwealth of Nations, an association of independent states formerly part of the British Empire, after India's transition to a republican constitution.

For other uses, see London Declaration (disambiguation).

Drafted by the Indian statesman V. K. Krishna Menon, 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.

The declaration dealt only with India, seen as an exceptional case, and it reaffirmed that the other members of the Commonwealth owed common allegiance to the Crown with an initial acceptance of the king as a head of the Commonwealth. However it did establish a precedent that republicanism is compatible with membership in the organization.

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