Self-determination
In 1947, India gained independence from the British Empire. The empire was in decline but adapted to these circumstances by creating the British Commonwealth—since 1949 the Commonwealth of Nations—which is a free association of equal states. As India obtained its independence, multiple ethnic conflicts emerged in relation to the formation of a statehood during the Partition of India which resulted in Islamic Pakistan and Secular India. Before the advent of the British, no empire based in mainland India had controlled any part of what now makes up the country's Northeast, part of the reason for the ongoing insurgency in Northeast India. In 1971 Bangladesh obtained independence from Pakistan.
Jawaharlal Nehru
Nehru led newly independent India from 1947 to 1964, during its first years of independence from British rule. Both the United States and the Soviet Union competed to make India an ally throughout the Cold War. Nehru also maintained good relations with the British Empire. Under the London Declaration, India agreed that, when it became a republic in January 1950, it would join the Commonwealth of Nations and accept the British monarch as a "symbol of the free association of its independent member nations and as such the Head of the Commonwealth." The other nations of the Commonwealth recognised India's continuing membership of the association. The reaction back home was favourable; only the far-left and the far-right criticised Nehru's decision.