Seldom before has a Commonwealth summit been held against a more sombre background. It may be a mere coincidence that the Reagan administration should have invaded Grenada or the so-called Turkish Cypriot assembly should have made a unilateral declaration of independence just as the Commonwealth heads of government were preparing for the meeting in New Delhi. But it is not a mere coincidence that a new generation of US missiles should have started arriving in Western Europe at about this time, or that the Soviet Union should have boycotted the Geneva talks on limiting medium-range missiles in Europe. The deployment of US missiles in Western Europe was settled a long time ago and the Soviet boycott is a logical corollary to the actual implementation of the decision which Moscow did its best to avert. And coincidence or no coincidence, these developments only help spotlight the grim problems facing the world. The scene would have been frightening even if these specific events had not taken place. The deterioration in Soviet-US relations in recent years would have sufficed to ensure that. That explains one aspect of the Indian Prime Minister, Mrs. Gandhi’s inaugural address at the Commonwealth summit – the one emphasizing the need for a dialogue between the two superpowers and some move towards disarmament.
Then there have been other developments in the past decade. It is exactly ten years that the world experienced the first oil shock. Since then the world economy has moved from one trouble to another. Which accounts for the second theme of Mrs. Gandhi’s address – the need for world-wide cooperation in the interest of the economic health and well-being of all countries. But, as in the case of Soviet-US relations, the Commonwealth can only give expression to the voice of sanity and reason in this regard. And that too is not the end of the difficulty. We cannot even be sure that this supposed voice of sanity and reason is relevant. While we all know that the world economic system, which the Brettonwoods agreement launched, as it were, under US auspices, is in a shambles, we are all the time appealing to the Americans to resume the leadership role which in reality they are no longer capable of playing. The Americans confuse the issue by a display of truculence. This truculence is, however, only a cover for the decline in their power. Reaganism is an expression of this decline in a typically American (aggressive) form. So we are addressing ourselves not only to a chief guest who is absent but a chief guest who is unable to come and occupy the empty chair at the head of the table. We are in a quandary. Another prominent guest is missing. But quite candidly, we are not too worried on this account. The party can go on without him even if he explodes an occasional cracker from some side room. The post-war world has not been centred on the Soviet Union as it has been on the United States. Two points follow. First, it would be idle to expect the US to play its old role; it cannot even if it so wished. Secondly, we need US cooperation for whatever progress we can expect to make towards a saner world order.