Political activist Amiya Nath Bose was from a family of radicals. He was the son of Sarat Chandra Bose who was interned in India in 1941 for Forward Bloc activities, and the nephew of the better known Subhas Chandra Bose, founder and leader of the Forward Bloc movement and notorious for his allegiance to the Axis powers during the Second World War. It is perhaps no surprise then that Amiya Nath Bose was already involved in student politics in India, before his departure for Britain.

Bose went to England to attend university in 1937. He studied economics at the University of Cambridge, gaining a Second Class, and was called to the Bar in 1941, living between London and Oxford. According to Indian Political Intelligence documentation, he was strongly influenced by his uncle who recommended reading for him, attempted to secure for him correspondentships on Indian newspapers, and put him in touch with Pulin Behari Seal with whom he began a close working relationship. Soon after his arrival in Britain, he made trips to Germany and Austria, which the government considered to be suspicious behaviour. Further, rumours circulated about his dislike of the English, and fellow students of the Oxford Majlis claimed he was opposed to the politics of both Nehru and Gandhi, perhaps considering them to be insufficiently radical in their approach to British imperialism. On the arrest of his father in India for associating with the Japanese, Bose became increasingly embittered and his views increasingly in line with those of his uncle. In the early 1940s, surveillance reports claim that Amiya Nath Bose was circulating his uncle’s ‘Manifesto’ and listening to his speeches on a radio purchased specifically for this purpose, and that he had a large photo of him in his room.

Amiya Nath Bose, with his close associate Seal, was key to the formation of the Committee of Indian Congressmen in 1942, assuming the position of General Secretary. Also closely involved with the organization were the Birmingham-based doctor Diwan Singh and Said Amir Shah. Bose's and Seal's alleged pro-Axis leanings, however, caused tensions within this organization, eventually causing the departure from it of numerous Indians, as well as strong opposition from without. In 1944 Bose moved to Birmingham, with Seal and his family, to escape the bombings. As a consequence the CIC became active in the Midlands and the north, recruiting from among the Indian workers based there. In August 1944, Bose, together with Drs Dutt and Vakil, organized the Indian Political Conference in Birmingham. Bose also established the Council for the International Recognition of Indian Independence in the USA as a sub-group of the CIC in order to spread his political message internationally.

Bose left for India on 2 November 1944, citing family reasons and the desire to obtain recognition for the CIC from the Indian National Congress, and delegating his responsibilities in Britain to Pulin Behari Seal and Said Amir Shah. Once in India, he was appointed special correspondent for Cavalcade.

Lawrence John Lumley Dundas, second Marquess of Zetland, was an administrator in India, politician, and author. Zetland was educated at Harrow School and at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1900, he became aide-de camp to Lord Curzon, who was viceroy of India at the time. While in India, Zetland travelled widely through Asia. His experiences would later become the inspiration for a number of fictional and non-fictional works. From 1917 to 1922 he was appointed Governor of Bengal. He held the post at one of the most critical times, having to deal with the fall-out from the partition (1905) and re-unification (1911) of Bengal and rising political activism and unrest in the province. While his appointment initially provoked protests from Bengali nationalists because of his close association with Curzon, by the end of his governorship, he was widely respected even among initially critical nationalist politicians.

Zetland returned to Britain in 1922 and changed careers to become a writer. He was an active member of the Royal Central Asian, the India, and the Royal Asiatic societies. He was elected President of the Royal Geographical Society in 1922. He published a travel book, Lands of the Thunderbolt: Sikhim, Chumbi and Bhutan (1923), followed by The Heart of Aryavarta (1925), for which he was elected to the British Academy in 1929. In the book Zetland explores Indian religion and philosophy, which he saw as closely connected to an understanding of Indian nationalism. Zetland admired many of Gandhi's ideas, but differed with him on the point of his rejection of Western civilization and British rule. In 1928 Zetland published the three-volume official biography of Lord Curzon to critical acclaim. 

During the 1930s, Zetland played an important role in the ongoing constitutional reform process of the Government of India. He was present at the Round Table conferences in the early 1930s and also served on the joint select committees of the House of Lords and House of Commons. Prime Minister Baldwin invited him to join his government in 1935 as Secretary of State for India, to help guide the 1935 Government of India Act through parliament. With his political skills he was able to by-pass conservative opposition and implement further steps towards future dominion status for India and a devolution of power, by granting complete provincial responsibility which he saw part of a new conceptualization of ‘cooperative imperialism’.

With the outbreak of the Second World War, Zetland had to deal with the fall-out from the constitutional crisis triggered by Linlithgow’s unilateral declaration of war, without consulting Indian representatives. This led to Congress’s non-cooperation in the war effort. In March 1940, Zetland survived Udham Singh’s assassination of Michael O’Dwyer at Caxton Hall. Zetland was present at the lecture, when Singh shot at the podium from close range. Zetland was only grazed by a bullet, receiving bruises to his ribs. After Neville Chamberlain’s resignation as Prime Minister, Zetland also resigned from office, conscious that his approach to Indian affairs differed markedly with Winston Churchill, who succeeded Chamberlain as Prime Minister.

After leaving office, Zetland pursued his other interests. He was made a Knight of the Order of the Garter. He served as Lord Lieutenant of the North Riding, devoted more time to his long-standing role as provincial grand master of the freemasons of the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire and was Governor of the Bank of Scotland.

Barbara Castle spent her formative years in Bradford before attending the University of Oxford where she read philosophy, politics and economics. In 1937, after working for her local Labour Party in Hyde and as a columnist for the left-wing paper Tribune, she became a Labour Party councillor for the borough of St Pancras, where she worked alongside Krishna Menon.

Castle was elected as Labour MP for Blackburn in the 1945 General Election, becoming the youngest woman in the Commons and holding her seat for the next thirty-five years. In the 1960s, she held several ministerial offices, including Minister of Overseas Development, Minister of Transport, Secretary of State, and Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity.

Julius Silverman was a Labour politician and MP. He had a long-standing association with Indian organizations in Britain. He was chairman for the Birmingham branch of Krishna Menon's India League and also attended meetings of the Committee of Indian Congressmen. As a Birmingham councillor, Silverman took up the causes of the South Asian community in his ward and lobbied on their behalf. He was good friends with Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Nehru. Julius Silverman became President of the India League in 1947 and its Chairman in 1974.

Mary Hobhouse was married to Lord Arthur Hobhouse, who served on the Viceroy's Legal Council in India. Upon their return to England in 1877, they became members of the National Indian Association. Mary Hobhouse often chaired the committee meetings of the Association, particularly from 1886 until 1901. She and her husband were leading figures of the Association until they died within months of each other in 1904 and 1905. The couple had no children.

After Cornelia Sorabji wrote to the National Indian Association in 1888, Lady Hobhouse was instrumental in raising funds for Cornelia Sorabji to study in Britain. Hobhouse wrote a letter to The Times and established a fund that was also advertised in the Queen. Contributors included E. A. Manning, Florence Nightingale, Madeleine Shaw Lefevre, Sir William Wedderburn and many other British figures. When Sorabji came to England in 1889, the Hobhouses saw Sorabji regularly and encouraged her to take up the teaching and then the legal line rather than medicine as Sorabji had originally envisaged.

Mary Hobhouse often contributed to the Journal of the National Indian Association (Indian Magazine at this time). Contributions included a review of Manmohan Ghose and Laurence Binyon's Primavera in 1890 and an edited selection of extracts from the diary of Mehdi Hasan Khan's visit to London in the same year.