India saw heated debate on this topic of 'to be or not to be'. It was so heated that it even created a schism within the leading Indian Freedom Fighters party, the Indian National Congress.

The British Raj had consistently maintained that it (through the British Parliament) reserved the rights to decide when and the extent to which India could have self governance. This was enshrined in the Government of India Act 1919. During this period (till about the mid 20's), the concept of "Purna (Total) Swaraj (Freedom)" was very limited in the Indian freedom movement, and the general push was for 'dominion status'. A fully independent state, but one that recognised the supremacy of the British Monarch.

It was at this stage that many powerful events sort of coalesced together which would about a decade later set the stage for the total unity (for the most part) in the demand for Purna Swaraj.

The Jalianwallah Bagh Massacre revolted Indians, and this act lead to the most powerful Indian leader of his era, Gandhi to declare that while his (and the INC's) goal was "Swaraj" and a political and spiritual freedom from Britain, Britain's behaviour to Indians alone would determine his future course of action. The gauntlet...had been dropped.

In 1921, another Congress leader, Hasrat Mohani for the first time (for the INC) openly called for Purna Swaraj and a complete breaking of ties with Britain.

In 1922, Britain constituted (in my own view, a tasteless, and tactless) a Committee to look into India and suggest reforms. The problem was that, the committee, named the Simon Commission was comprised entirely of white men from Britain. This enraged the Indians, who promptly (the INC that is) set up a Nehru Committee comprised of Indians to propose 'counter reforms'.

This is where the schism starts to form. The Nehru Committee, headed by Motilal Nehru proposed amongst other things that India not push for Purna Swaraj, but for Swaraj, and that it remain a dominion. That is, something similar to Canada or Australia - independent nation, but the Crown is sovereign and the British Parliament would have the ability to intervene in India's constitutional affairs.

This set the cat amongst the pigeons and sparked a massive row within the INC. M Nehru's own son, Jawaharlal Nehru (the first PM of India) and one of the most powerful INC leaders, Subash Chandra Bose, renounced this report and said nothing less than Purna Swaraj would do.

The biggest roadblock to Purna Swaraj though was, Gandhi. He totally and completely dominated the INC, and was a total force to be reckoned with, and he wasn't convinced that Purna Swaraj was an acceptable solution. He wanted India to push for dominion status. Gandhi had other reasons for wanting to retain ties to Britain (but that is not within scope for this discussion). In this he had the support of the second most influential party in India at that time, the All India Muslim League who wanted only dominion status.

This caused a complete break between Subash Chandra Bose and the rest of the INC who, including J Nehru acceded to Gandhi's demands that India retain dominion status.

By January 26, 1930, the 'hardliners' gained in numbers and strength, J Nehru became the Congress President, the utter failure of the Irwin-Gandhi talks (when Irwin refused to even commit to Dominion status) had all pushed Gandhi away from Dominion Status to Purna Swaraj.

From then on, till January 1950, the Indian political movement (and its people) were united in a desire to cut all ties with Britain as they...to answer your question, saw even commonwealth status as a tie into her colonial past.