The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library

cordially invites you to a Seminar

at 3.00 pm on Friday, 14 June, 2013

in the Seminar Room, First Floor, Library Building

on

‘The British monarchy and the Commonwealth’

by

 Prof. Philip Murphy,

University of London, UK.

Abstract:

This paper examines the role of the British monarchy in the post-1945 Commonwealth, paying particular attention to the origins, the theory and practice, and the future of the Headship of the Commonwealth. As well as offering an overview of the subject, it will demonstrate the important role played by India at key moments in the development of the Headship. At its inception in 1949, the Headship was essentially a rhetorical device intended to allow India to remain in the Commonwealth by blurring the distinction between monarchies and republics. Despite having no constitutional substance, however, the role has taken on increasing significance during the Queen’s reign through activities such as her broadcasts, visits to Commonwealth countries, involvement in the annual multi-faith observance, and attendance at the Commonwealth Games and heads of government meetings. As the paper will demonstrate, the expansion of the role of Head of the Commonwealth has raised complex constitutional issues, principally the extent to which the Queen is bound by ministerial advice in this capacity, and from where within the Commonwealth that advice should come. The paper will conclude by arguing that although the role is not formally hereditary, it is so intimately bound up with the monarchy that at the end of the current reign it should either be abolished or should pass to the Queen’s heir and successor.

Speaker:

Prof. Philip Murphy is Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and Professor of British and Commonwealth History at the University of London. He is the author of Party Politics and Decolonization: The Conservative Party and British Colonial Policy in Tropical Africa 1951-1964 (1995) and Alan Lennox-Boyd: A Biography (1999), and the editor of British Documents on the End of Empire: Central Africa (2005). He is also co-editor of The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. His study of the British monarchy and the post-war Commonwealth, Monarchy and the End of Empire, will be published by Oxford University Press in December 2013.