Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth comprises 53 countries, across all continents. The members have a combined population of 2.4 billion people, almost a third of the world population, of which 1.26 billion live in India, 220 million live in Pakistan and 94% live in Asia and Africa combined. After India, the next-largest Commonwealth countries by population are Pakistan (220 million ), Nigeria (170 million), Bangladesh (156 million), and the United Kingdom (65 million). Tuvalu is the smallest member, with about 10,000 people.
1949 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference
The principal topic of the conference was the relationship of India, which was intending to become a republic, to the Commonwealth, which, hitherto, had been an association of Britain and British dominions united by sharing a constitutional link by sharing the British sovereign as their head of state, in particular whether a Commonwealth state could become a republic and remain in the Commonwealth, if so, whether it had the same status in the Commonwealth as the dominions who had the British sovereign as their head of state. The Canadian government feared that if India was not permitted to remain in the Commonwealth as an autonomous republic then Pakistan, Ceylon, and South Africa would soon leave as well, resulting in the Commonwealth's collapse. Australian prime minister Ben Chifley was on one pole during the conference, arguing for maintaining a strong British connection, while South Africa's newly elected nationalist prime minister, D. F. Malan, was on the other pole arguing for complete independence.