Labour Party

Keir Hardie

About: 

James Keir Hardie, originally James Kerr, was the son of Mary Kerr, a Scottish farm servant. His father was probably William Aitken, a miner from Holytown, but Mary Kerr brought up her son alone before meeting David Hardie, a former ship’s carpenter, who she married in 1859. Hardie is said to have raised his wife’s first son as his own, and he became known as James Keir Hardie. The family moved between Glasgow and the nearby countryside, suffering periods of poverty caused by unemployment. Keir Hardie received no formal education and started work as a miner at the age of 10. His early experiences of poverty were formative to his politicization. At the age of 17, he joined the Temperance Movement, and soon afterwards he became involved in miners’ associations becoming secretary of the Hamilton District Branch of the Lanarkshire Miners’ Union at the age of 21. At a similar time, he became a committed Christian, joining the Evangelical Union, a branch of the United Secession Church, in 1877. It was through the church that he met his future wife, Lillias Balfour Wilson, who he married in 1879. The couple had four children.

Hardie left the mines for trade union work in 1879, eventually becoming secretary of the Ayrshire Miners’ Union. He then progressed to party politics, rejecting liberalism for socialism, and launching his own monthly paper, the Labour Leader. Having moved to London in 1891, Hardie was returned for West Ham South as an ‘independent Labour’ candidate in the General Election of 1892. Described by his biographer Kenneth O. Morgan as the ‘prophet and evangelist’ of the Labour Party, Hardie played a key role in the major events of its early history, including the founding of the Independent Labour Party in 1893 and that of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900 - which became the Labour Party in 1906. Defeated in 1896, he was elected MP to Merthyr Tudful in 1900. In 1906, he was elected first chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party but resigned from the post in 1907. Both within and outwith Parliament, he campaigned tirelessly for the unemployed, free schooling, pensions, Indian self-rule and, perhaps most of all, women’s rights. He had a close friendship with the Pankhurst family, particularly Sylvia who was probably his lover. Hardie was also a pacifist and outspoken in his criticism of the First World War.

Hardie was an internationalist and vociferous critic of the British Government in India, frequently calling for Indian self-rule in Parliament. On 20 July 1906, he made a particularly harsh denunciation of conditions in India, including death rates, low wages and the exclusion of Indians from local government, receiving support from many of his fellow Labour MPs. The following year, he toured India. He gave numerous speeches there, exposing the corruption of the Raj, speaking out in favour of Indian self-determination and against racism, advocating non-violent agitation, and encouraging the Congress Party. He was accompanied on his tours by the revolutionary Indian Nationalist B. G. Tilak as well as leaders of the swadeshi movement J. Chowdhury and Surendranath Banerjea, and is said to have peppered his speeches with the slogan ‘Bande Mataram’, even though he advocated a gradual extension of self-government rather than immediate withdrawal. Hardie’s tour of India alarmed the British authorities, and was stirred up by the press. There were calls for him to be deported and accusations of sedition. On his return, he continued speaking out for Indian self-rule in the House of Commons, campaigning (unsuccessfully) for the release from prison of Tilak, and publishing in 1909 India: Impressions and Suggestions which was formative to the Labour Party’s position on India for the next fifty years.

Published works: 

Books: 

From Serfdom to Socialism (London: The Labour Ideal, 1907)

India: Impressions and Suggestions (London: Indendent Labour Party, 1909)

Several pamphlets including:

The Mines Nationalization Bill (1893)

The Unemployed Problem and Some Suggestions for Solving it (1904)

The Citizenship of Women: A Plea for Women’s Suffrage (1906)

Indian Budget Speech, Delivered in the House of Commons on July 22nd, 1908 (1908)

Socialism and Civilisation (1910)

Labour and Christianity (1910)

Killing No Murder! The Government and the Railway Strike (1911)

Radicals and Reform (1912)

Date of birth: 
15 Aug 1856
Connections: 

Surendranath Banerjea, Fenner Brockway (disciple), John Burns, J. Chowdhury, Charlotte Despard, Friedrich Engels, Michael Foot, S. K. Gokhale, Emrys Hughes (son-in-law), Ramsay MacDonald, John Morley, Christabel Pankhurst, Emmeline Pankhurst, Sylvia Pankhurst (friend and lover), George Bernard Shaw, B. J. Tilak, Beatrice Webb.

Independent Labour Party, Labour Party.

Contributions to periodicals: 

Wrote articles for several periodicals including:

International Socialist Review

Labour Prophet

New Liberal Review

Nineteenth Century

Socialist Review

Hardie also wrote weeky columns for the Labour Leader and the Merthyr Pioneer

Secondary works: 

Benn, Caroline, Keir Hardie (London: Hutchinson, 1992)

Cole, G. D. H., Keir Hardie (London: Victor Gollancz and the Fabian Society, 1941)

Hughes, Emrys (ed.), Keir Hardie’s Writings and Speeches, from 1888 to 1915, preface by Nan Hardie (Glasgow: Forward Publishing Company, 1928)

Hughes, Emrys, Keir Hardie (London: Allen & Unwin, 1956)

Morgan, Kenneth O., Keir Hardie: Radical and Socialist (London: Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1975)

Morgan, Kenneth O., ‘Keir Hardie’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/33696]

Archive source: 

Correspondence and papers, Baird Institute History Centre and Museum, Cumnock

Correspondence, diary and papers, Labour History Archive and Study Centre, Manchester

Correspondence and papers (including Indian travel notes), National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh

Correspondence with John Burns, Add. MS 46287, British Library, St Pancras

Correspondence with Lord Gladstone, Add. Mss 46062–46068, British Library, St Pancras

Letters to George Bernard Shaw, Add. MS 50538, British Library, St Pancras

Letters to the Fabian Society, British Library of Political and Economic Science

Independent Labour Party National Administrative Council Mss, British Library of Political and Economic Science

Correspondence with Sylvia Pankhurst, Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, Amsterdam

Correspondence with G. W. Balfour, National Archives of Scotland, Edinburgh

Letters to George Saunders Jacobs, Newham Archive and Local Studies Library, London

Emrys Hughes Mss, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh

Letters to niece Agnes, National Register of Archives, private collection

Hedley Dennis Mss, National Register of Archives, private collection

City of birth: 
Laigbrannock, near Glasgow
Country of birth: 
Scotland
Other names: 

James Kerr

James Keir Hardie

Date of death: 
26 Sep 1915
Location of death: 
Glasgow
Location: 

Old Cumnock, Ayrshire, Scotland

Neville’s Court, off Fleet Street, London

Barbara Castle

About: 

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.

Published works: 

NHS Revisited, Fabian Tract 440 (London: Fabian Society, 1976)

The Castle Diaries, 1974-1976 (London: Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1980)

The Castle Diaries, 1964-1970 (London: Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1984)

Sylvia and Christabel Pankhurst (London: Penguin, 1987)

Fighting all the Way (London: Macmillan, 1993)

Date of birth: 
06 Oct 1910
Connections: 

Aneurin Bevan, Fenner Brockway, Edward (Ted) Castle, Stafford Cripps (parliamentary private secretary, 1945-7), Michael Foot, V. K. Krishna Menon, Harold Wilson (parliamentary private secretary, 1947-51).

Anti-Apartheid Movement, Independent Labour Party, Labour Party, Movement for Colonial Freedom, Socialist League.

Contributions to periodicals: 

Daily Mirror

Sunday Pictorial

Tribune

Secondary works: 

Brockway, Fenner, What is the M. C. F.? (London: Movement for Colonial Freedom, 1960)

Crossman, R. H. S., The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, 3 vols (London: Hamilton, 1975-7)

De’ath, W., Barbara Castle: A Portrait from Life (Brighton: Clifton Books, 1970)

Howard, Anthony, ‘Castle, Barbara Anne, Baroness Castle of Blackburn (1910-2002)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2007) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/76877]

Jenkins, R., A Life at the Centre (London: Macmillan, 1991)

Martineau, L., Politics and Power: Barbara Castle, a Biography (London: Andre Deutsch, 2000)

Perkins, A., Red Queen: The Authorized Biography of Barbara Castle (London: Pan, 2003)

Archive source: 

Cabinet Conclusions and Memoranda, CAB 128 and 129, 1964-9, National Archives, Kew

City of birth: 
Chesterfield
Country of birth: 
England
Other names: 

Barbara Anne Betts

Baroness Castle of Blackburn

Date of death: 
03 May 2002
Location of death: 
Ibstone, Buckinghamshire

League Against Imperialism

About: 

The roots of the League Against Imperialism (LAI) lay in the Second Congress of the Communist International (Comintern) in July 1920, which considered the formulation of a colonial policy, and included a debate between Lenin and Manabendra Nath Roy, founder of India’s Communist Party. Some years of debate over the viability of an international union to fight imperialism followed. A joint meeting of the Workers’ International Relief and the Committee Against Atrocities in Syria in February 1926 resulted in the formation of a League Against Colonial Oppression, a precursor to the LAI.

In Brussels in 1927 the LAI was officially founded in the presence of key international political figures, including Jawaharlal Nehru, General Secretary of the Indian National Congress. Shapurji Saklatvala had attended the meeting in the House of Commons to decide on the British delegation, but was not himself present in Brussels, although his name was added to the minutes. Messages of support for the LAI were sent by Albert Einstein, Victor Margueritte and M. K. Gandhi. A Sino-Indian declaration of solidarity, drafted by Nehru, was signed at the congress. The League’s stated aim was to ‘deter imperialist governments from oppressing weak nations’.

Just two months after the Brussels Congress the Government of India banned LAI literature from entering India, but the All-India Congress Committee recommended in May 1927 that the Indian National Congress (INC) seek membership of the LAI, ratified in December 1927. Controversies over the exact political affiliation of the LAI continued for some years, and by 1931 many members had left or been expelled from the League. In April 1930, Nehru, stung by condemnation of the Delhi Manifesto by members of the LAI, directed Congress to cease all correspondence with the LAI; Nehru was expelled from the LAI the following year.

The LAI in Britain consistently exploited the Labour Party’s uncertain commitment to the anti-imperialist cause, offering a practical alternative to socialist rhetoric. Furthermore, the LAI claimed that economic troubles in England including rising unemployment were directly related to capitalist investment and involvement in Empire. The British Section of the LAI was held to be one of the most active, particularly in its India operations. These included streams of resolutions, petitions and articles as well as demonstrations and meetings. One such meeting in October 1928 in Limehouse Town Hall protested against the Labour Party’s participation in the Simon Commission, and was attended by Tarini Sinha, member of the Indian Office of the ILP, Sarojini Naidu and Maulana Mohammed Ali, members of the INC.

Ultimately, suspicions of the LAI’s Communist affiliation brought about its downfall, alongside the difficulties of aligning various nationalist movements with different forms of socialism. In December 1931 the LAI’s headquarters in Berlin were raided, and the League then moved to Paris for some months before settling in London. By the mid-1930s, however, the League was barely an international organization, membership had fallen in most countries, and the decision to cease activities was taken early in 1937.

Published works: 

Report of the National Conference of the League Against Imperialism, British Section, February 1931. (London: The League against Imperialism, 1931).

Example: 

Report of the National Conference of the League Against Imperialism, British Section, February 1931 (London: The League against Imperialism, 1931), p. 13

Other names: 

Precursor: League Against Colonial Oppression
Original title: League Against Imperialism and For National Independence

Secondary works: 

Bush, Barbara, Imperialism, Race and Resistance: Africa and Britain, 1919-1945 (London and New York: Routledge, 1999)

Haithcox, John Patrick, Communism and Nationalism in India: M. N. Roy and Comintern Policy, 1920-39 (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1971)

Hargreaves, John D, ‘The Comintern and Anti-Colonialism: New Research Opportunities’, African Affairs 92.367 (Apr. 1993), (Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal African Society), pp. 255-61.

Howe, Stephen, Anticolonialism in British Politics: The Left and the End of Empire, 1918-1964 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993)

Jones, Jean, The League Against Imperialism, Socialist History Society Occasional Pamphlet Series No. 4, (Preston: Lancashire Community Press, 1996)

Saville, John, ‘Reginald Bridgeman,’ in Joyce M. Bellamy and John Saville (eds.) Dictionary of Labour Biography, VII (London: 1984), pp. 40-50.

Content: 

A snapshot of the attitudes and motivations of the British Section of the LAI. This extract is on contemporary interpretations of the movement towards independence in India

Date began: 
10 Feb 1927
Extract: 

In the discussion… a delegate from the Indian Freedom League said that Labour Party leaders in Britain had deserted the struggle against imperialism, but that in India Gandhi had created a psychology of revolt which will never die, even if Gandhi and the leaders of the Indian National Congress were to betray the struggle by compromise with the British Government. Other speakers showed that the great movement of mass revolt in India had arisen not because of Gandhi, but in spite of his policy and that Jawaharlal Nehru, who had said that Indian should not discuss conditions of self-government while British troops remained in India, was now supporting Gandhi in negotiations with the Viceroy. The Congress leaders had done nothing to establish the League in India, although this was proposed at Brussels in 1927.

Connections: 

Indian Delegation, 1927 Brussels Congress:

Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, J. Naidu (Association of Indians in Central Europe), A. C. N. Nambiar (Association of Indian Journalists), Jawaharlal Nehru (member of Executive Committee of LAI), Bakar Ali Mirza (Indian Oxford Union), Tarini Sinha (Indian Office of the ILP),

English Delegation, 1927 Brussels Congress (selected members):

Reginald Bridgeman, Shapurji Saklatvala (member of LAI)

LAI in Britain: Ben Bradley (secretary 1934-40), Bhabani Bhattacharya, Fenner Brockway (chairman, 1928), Clemens Palme Dutt (member of the executive committee of the British Section of the LAI)

Date ended: 
01 Jan 1937
Archive source: 

The International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam. Their main website, http://www.iisg.nl/index.php, gives a list of materials relating to the LAI

Precise date ended unknown: 
Y

Sukhsagar Datta

About: 

Sukhsagar Datta was born in Bengal to father Dwijadas Datta and mother Muktakeshi. He was the youngest of five children. His early life and decision to move to England was very much influenced by the actions of his brother Ullaskar. In 1908, Ullaskar was arrested for making a bomb which was used in the attempted assassination of a local magistrate in Alipore; the magistrate survived but two British women died in the attack. His following death sentence was reduced to life imprisonment and he was released twelve years later. The arrest affected the careers of his father and other brother, Mohini Mohan, and as a consequence Sukhsagar was sent to England in 1908.

In London, Datta enrolled at the London Tutorial College, where he met the writer David Garnett. In The Golden Echo (1953), Garnett describes several meetings and walks with Datta and his two other Indian friends, Niranjan Pal and Ashutosh Mitter. He also describes how Datta introduced him to Vinayak Damodar Savarkar at India House, Highgate (at this time, Krishnavarma was living in Paris). After the assassination of Curzon Wyllie and once India House was closed down, Datta and Savarkar shared a flat 'over a small and extremely dirty restaurant in Red Lion Passage' (Garnett, 148). After Savarkar left for Paris, Datta stayed on a bit longer. The two must have remained in touch, though, because Savarkar persuaded Datta to join Abdul Karim’s resistance against the Spanish in Morocco. However, Datta never made it there and returned to London from Algiers. He then ended all contact with Savarkar.

Datta married Ruby Young on 25 September 1911 and the two of them moved to Milan where Datta wanted to pursue a singing career. However, they soon returned to Bristol where Datta enrolled at the Merchant Venturers' Technical College in 1913 or 1914. He graduated in 1914 and joined the University of Bristol Medical School, where he qualified as a doctor in 1920. He first worked at the Bristol General Hospital in 1920, then the Southmead Infirmary in 1921 and finally the Stapleton Institution (now called Manor Park Hospital) where he stayed until his retirement in 1956.

Datta joined the Labour Party in 1926. He was vocal during the Labour Party Conference in 1944, and passionately spoke in favour of Indian Independence. He became chair of Bristol North Labour Party in 1946. After Indian independence in August 1947, Datta founded the Bristol Indian Association. He died at Southmead Hospital, Bristol, on 3 November 1967. 

Date of birth: 
01 Jan 1890
Connections: 

Stafford Cripps (Datta supported Cripps' campaign for election to Parliament), Madan Lal Dhingra, David Garnett, Shyamaji Krishnavarma, Niranjan Pal, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.

Contributions to periodicals: 

Bristol Labour Weekly, 2 December 1944; 20 January 1945

Precise DOB unknown: 
Y
Secondary works: 

Barot, Rohit, Bristol and the Indian Independence Movement (Bristol: Bristol Branch of the Historical Association, The University, 1988)

Barot, Rohit, 'Datta, Sukha Dagar [Sukhsagar] (1890-1967)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/73197]

Datta, David, Farewell to Empire (Monmouth: Clarke Printing, 2007)

Datta, Ullaskar, Twelve Years of Prison Life (Calcutta: Arya Publishing House, 1924)

Esmail, Aneez, 'Asian Doctors in the NHS: Service and Betrayal', The British Journal of General Practice, 57 (2007), pp. 827-34

Garnett, David, The Golden Echo (London: Chatto and Windus, 1953)

Hardie, Peter, Rammohan Roy: Commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of His Death in Bristol on 27th September 1833 (Bristol, 1983)

Labour Party Annual Report (1944), pp. 185-9

Nandi, S., 'Datta, Ullaskar, 1885-1965', in S. P. Sen (ed.) Dictionary of National Biography (Calcutta: Institute of Historical Studies, 1972-74)

Nelson, Jean, A History of Manor Park Hospital: 150 Years of Caring, 1832-1982 (Bristol, 1982)

Political Agitators in India ([s.n.]: s.n., 19--) [http://www.archive.org/details/politicalagitato00slsnuoft]

Srivastava, Harindra, Five Stormy Years: Savarkar in London, June 1906-June 1911 (New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1983)

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto, 2002)

Involved in events: 

Labour Party National Conference, 1944

City of birth: 
Bengal
Country of birth: 
India
Other names: 

Sukha Sagar Datta

Sukhsagar Dutt

Locations

Stapleton Hospital, Bristol , BS16 2DD
United Kingdom
51° 28' 38.3808" N, 2° 32' 33.0792" W
140 Sinclair Road
London, W14 0NJ
United Kingdom
51° 30' 4.5864" N, 0° 12' 54.3816" W
Date of death: 
03 Nov 1967
Location of death: 
Bristol, England
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Jan 1908
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1908-67

Location: 

Merchant Venturers' Technical College, Bristol

Bristol General Hospital, Bristol

Southmead Infirmary, Bristol

Manor Park Hospital, Bristol

Ellen Wilkinson

About: 

Ellen Wilkinson was a Labour politician and campaigner. She was an active member of the India League. In 1932, she was part of the League's delegation to India with Monica Whately, Krishna Menon and Leonard Matters. She was also a supporter of the Left Book Club. She was an outspoken opponent of the Spanish Civil War and campaigned against fascism.

Published works: 

Peeps at Politicians (London: P. Allan, 1930)

(with Monica Whately, Leonard W. Matters and V. K. Krishna Menon) Condition of India: Being the Report of the Delegation Sent to India by the India League in 1932 (London: Essential News, 1934)

Why Fascism (London: Selwyn and Blount, 1934)

Why War? A Handbook for Those Who Will Take Part in the Second World War (London: N.C.L.C. Publishing Society, 1934)

We Saw in Spain (Labour Party, 1937)

The Town that was Murdered: The Lfe-Story of Jarrow (London: Gollancz, 1939) [Left Book Club edition]

Date of birth: 
08 Oct 1891
Secondary works: 

Harrison, Brian, ‘Wilkinson, Ellen Cicely (1891–1947)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: OUP, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36902]

Vernon, Betty D., Ellen Wilkinson, 1887-1947 (London: Croom Helm, 1982)

City of birth: 
Manchester
Country of birth: 
England
Date of death: 
06 Feb 1947
Location of death: 
London
Location: 

London

Michael Foot

About: 

One of seven children of Isaac and Eva Foot, Michael Foot was born in Plymouth in 1913. He attended a Quaker school and there, shaped by the liberal politics of his family, became involved with the League of Nations and the peace movement. He went on to study politics, philosophy and economics at Wadham College, Oxford. He was an active member of the Lotus Club, an Anglo-Indian dining club comprising fifty English and fifty Indians, founded by G. K. Chettur to counter the impression that Indians did not participate in mainstream university life. He was President of the Liberal Club in 1932 and President of the Oxford Union in 1933. He also became friends with the Indian writer D. F. Karaka, who succeeded him as President of the Union.

Foot joined the Labour Party in 1935 while working in shipyards in Liverpool’s docks. In the same year he stood unsuccessfully as Labour candidate for Monmouth. His socialism was, from the start, ‘framed…in an international context’ and he had ‘a special affinity with India and the Indians’ (Morgan, p. 45). V. K. Krishna Menon was a significant influence on his political development. Foot contributed to Menon’s collection of essays by recent Oxford graduates titled Young Oxford and War, and admired Menon’s work as chairman of the St Pancras Education and Library Committee. He campaigned for the Socialist League with Menon, and joined his India League, heading, in the early 1940s, a campaign for the inclusion of India in the application of the principles of freedom set out in the Atlantic Charter, and speaking at numerous League meetings. He was, however, disturbed by the links between the India League and the Communist Party of Great Britain, forged by Menon, and opposed to the radical politics of Subhas Chandra Bose, advocating, rather, gradualism in the campaign for Indian independence and encouraging Indian nationalists to cooperate with authorities.

In the late 1930s, Foot began his career as a journalist, working on a range of magazines and newspapers, including, the New Statesman, the Evening Standard, the Daily Herald, and the Tribune. A ‘doer as much as a commentator’ (Morgan, p. 94), he was simultaneously involved in a range of protest movements and organizations in addition to the India League, including the League for the Rights of Man, the National Council for Civil Liberties and the Anglo-Palestine Committee, and remained close to the world of literary protest that revolved around the Left Book Club, Searchlight Books, and Horizon, among others.

In 1945, Foot stood as a candidate for the Labour Party for Devenport in Plymouth, and this time he was successfully returned. Throughout his career in the Labour Party, he was associated with its left wing, and at times his views made him unpopular with its leadership. He served as Secretary of State for Employment from 1974 to 1976, leader of the House of Commons from 1976 to 1979, and finally leader of the Labour Party from 1980 to 1983, when the party was heavily defeated in the General Election.

In 1949, Foot married Jill Craigie who died in 1999. He died on 3 March 2010.

Published works: 

Books:

Armistice, 1918-1939 (London: Harrap, 1940)

(as ‘Cato’, with Peter Howard and Frank Owen) Guilty Men (London: Gollancz, 1940)

(as ‘Cassius') The Trial of Mussolini (London: Gollancz, 1943)

Brendan and Beverley: An Extravaganza (London: Gollancz, 1944)

Un Inglese Difende Mussolini (Milan: Edizioni Riunite, 1946)

(with Donald Bruce) Who are the Patriots? (London: Gollancz, 1949)

Chapters in:

Menon, V. K. Krishna (ed.) Young Oxford at War (London: Selwyn & Blount, 1934)

Cripps, Stafford, et al., The Struggle for Peace (London: Gollancz: Left Book Club, 1936)

Crossman, R. H. S., A Palestine Munich (London: Gollancz, 1946)

Pamphlets:

(with R. H. S. Crossman et al.) Keep Left (New Statesman, 1947)

If the Tories had Won (Labour Party, 1947)

Still at Large (Tribune pamphlet, 1950)

Full Speed Ahead (Tribune pamphlet, 1950)

Example: 

L/PJ/12/453, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras, p. 11

Date of birth: 
23 Jul 1913
Content: 

This Indian Political Intelligence file contains documents relating to the activities of V. K. Krishna Menon’s India League during the period 1940–1. The extract below is from a New Scotland Yard Report, dated 27 November 1940.

Connections: 

Mulk Raj Anand, Aneurin Bevan, Dr P. C. Bhandari, H. N. Brailsford, Ritchie Calder, Barbara Castle, Stafford Cripps, Rajani Palme Dutt, Victor Gollancz, Keir Hardie, Professor J. B. S. Haldane, D. F. Karaka, George Lansbury, Harold Laski, Kingsley Martin, V. K. Krishna Menon, Indira Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru, J. B. Priestley, Reginald Sorensen, H. G. Wells, S. A. Wickremasinghe.

1941 Committee, Independent Labour Party, Labour Party, League of Nations, League for the Rights of Man, Liberal Party, National Council for Civil Liberties, Socialist League.

Contributions to periodicals: 

Art Quarterly

Daily Herald

Evening Standard

Guardian

Hampstead and Highgate Express

Les Lettres Europeennes

Llafur (Journal for the Society for the Study of Welsh Labour History)

New Left Review

New Statesman

Observer

Tribune (sometimes under the name of ‘John Marullus’)

Extract: 

Michael Foot was in the chair and the speakers were: V. K. Krishna MENON, H. H. ELVIN (secretary, National Union of Clerks), Dr. Maude ROYDEN, S. S. SILVERMAN (Socialist MP for Nelson and Colne), H. N. BRAILSFORD, R. SORENSEN (Socialist MP for Leyton), Mrs Charlotte HALDANE, R. Palme DUTT and F. W. ADAMS (National Council for Civil Liberties).

Michael FOOT opened the meeting and said that it had been called to demand the release of NEHRU and others detained in India for making anti-war speeches and to obtain support for the Indian demand for independence and self-determination. He then read a resolution incorporating these terms. The speakers, he announced, represented all shades of political opinion and it was testimony to the large section of opinion in this country that was opposed to the Government’s policy in India. 

Secondary works: 

Karaka, D. F., Then Came Hazrat Ali (Delhi: Popular Press, 1972)

Morgan, Kenneth O., Michael Foot: A Life (London: HarperCollins, 2007)

 

Relevance: 

This extract underlines Michael Foot’s commitment to the campaign to free India from colonial rule, and highlights the connections forged between Indians and the British Left in this key period of mobilization for independence.

Archive source: 

L/PJ/12/453, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Involved in events: 

Numerous India League meetings

General Election, 1935

General Election, 1945

City of birth: 
Plymouth
Country of birth: 
England
Date of death: 
03 Mar 2010

Krishna Menon

About: 

V. K. Krishna Menon was an activist, councillor, diplomat, lawyer and editor. Born in Calicut, south India, he attended the Native High School there before studying for a BA at Presidency College, Madras, and attending Madras Law College. Encouraged by Annie Besant, he travelled to England in 1924, originally to take up a job at a Theosophists' school in Letchworth. In England, he continued studying law, and was called to the Bar in 1934. He also studied at the London School of Economics under Harold Laski, gaining a BSc and an MSc in politics as well as a teaching diploma.

Menon joined the Commonwealth of India League on his arrival in England, becoming joint secretary in 1928 and transforming the organization into the India League, with Indian self-rule as its stated goal. For the next two decades, he campaigned tirelessly for the India League alongside key British political figures such as Bertrand Russell, Harold Laski, Michael Foot and Fenner Brockway, as well as other Indians in Britain. Financing most of the activities himself, he held meetings, organized events, addressed groups, produced articles and pamphlets, and lobbied key Labour MPs. In 1932 he organized and, with Labour MPs, participated in a delegation to investigate social, economic and political conditions in India, publishing the findings one year later. The publication, Condition of India, with a preface by Russell and a cover by artist Eric Gill, was banned in India. Menon also enjoyed a close working relationship and friendship with Jawaharlal Nehru, helping to put forward Congress's position in Britain and coordinating Nehru's visit to England in 1935.

Krishna Menon edited the Twentieth Century Library series for the Bodley Head from 1932 to 1935, and became founding editor of Pelican Books, the non-fiction, educational imprint of Penguin Books, in 1935. A committed socialist, he was concerned with the plight of working-class Indians in Britain - supporting the lascar strikes of the late 1930s, for example - as well as that of their British counterparts. He was Labour councillor for the Borough of St Pancras from 1934 to 1939 and from 1944 to 1947, working alongside Barbara Castle, and an independent councillor from 1940 to 1944. In 1944 he established the St Pancras Arts and Civil Council, and in 1945 he was appointed chairman of the Education and Public Library Committee. In 1955, Menon was made a freeman of the Borough of St Pancras in recognition of his significant contribution. Menon came close to becoming a British Member of Parliament when he was pre-selected by the Labour Party for the safe seat of Dundee in 1939. His candidature was cancelled, however, because of his primary allegiance to India, and he resigned from the Labour Party in protest, rejoining again in 1944.

In 1947, Krishna Menon was appointed independent India's first High Commissioner in the UK. He held this post until 1952 when he returned to India to pursue his political and legal careers there. He died in Delhi in 1974.

Published works: 

Condition of India: Being the Report of the Delegation Sent to India by the India League in 1932 (London: Essential News, 1933)

Why Must India Fight? (London: India League, 1940)

Britain’s Prisoner (London: India League, 1941)

India, Britain and Freedom (London: India League, 1941)

The Situation in India (London, India League, 1943)

Unity with India against Fascism (London: India League, 1943)

Date of birth: 
03 May 1896
Contributions to periodicals: 

Daily Worker

Indian News

India Pictorial

Information Bulletin

Manchester Guardian

New Statesman

News India

Secondary works: 

Arora, K. C., V. K. Krishna Menon: A Biography (New Delhi: Sanchar Publishing House, 1998)

Chakravarty, Suhash, V. K. Krishna Menon and the India League, vols 1 and 2 (New Delhi: Har-Anand, 1997)

Chakravarty, Suhash, Crusader Extraordinary: Krishna Menon and the India League, 1932–6 (New Delhi: India Research Press, 2006)

George, T. G. S., Krishna Menon: A Biography (London: Jonathan Cape, 1964)

Lengyel, Emil, Krishna Menon (New York: Walker Books, 1962)

Ram, Janaki, Krishna Menon: A Personal Memoir (Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997)

Silverman, Julius, ‘The India League’, in A Centenary History of the Indian National Congress, 1885–1985 (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1985)

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto Press, 2002)

Archive source: 

L/PJ/12/448-56, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Krisha Menon Papers, Nehru Memorial Library and Museum, New Delhi

‘India League Collection with Handbills, 1941-1960’, Serial No. 439, Nehru Memorial Library and Museum, New Delhi

‘Documents Relating to the India League’, Miscellaneous Microform Collections, Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge

Involved in events: 

Delegation to investigate conditions in India, 1932

World Peace Congress in Brussels, 1936 (as nominee of Congress)

Second World War (air warden in St Pancras)

Indian Independence, 1947 (appointed High Commissioner in the UK)

City of birth: 
Calicut
Country of birth: 
India
Other names: 

Vengalil Krishnan Krishna Menon

V. K. Krishna Menon

Location

57 Camden Square
London, NW1 9XA
United Kingdom
51° 30' 26.5428" N, 0° 7' 41.4768" W
Date of death: 
06 Oct 1974
Location of death: 
New Delhi, India
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Jun 1924
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1924–59

Jainti Saggar

About: 

Jainti Saggar originally came to Britain to study medicine at University College, St Andrews. He settled in Dundee – becoming, quite possibly, the town’s first South Asian resident – and remained in Scotland for the rest of his life. After completing his medical degree, he went on to gain diplomas in ophthalmic medicine, public health, surgery. He had a keen interest in education as well as in health, serving as chairman of the Public Libraries Committee and as a member of the committee of the local branch of the Nursery Schools Association of Great Britain. His concern for social welfare also led him into the sphere of politics. He joined the Labour Party and was elected town councillor in 1936, becoming the first black or Asian local authority councillor in Scotland – and in a district where there was not a single ‘black vote’. Saggar went on to serve as a Labour councillor for eighteen years, and was instrumental in the adoption of Krishna Menon as parliamentary candidate for Dundee in 1939.

Saggar married Jane Quinn, the daughter of a bailie and a town councillor of Dundee. On his death, the Lord Provost of Dundee, William Hughes, said: ‘He was a man of compassion for everyone in need…he came to Dundee from halfway across the world but no son of Dundee had greater love for its people or worked harder in their interest. Dundee is much poorer by his passing’ (Maan, p. 128). The naming of a Dundee street and local library after Saggar and his brothers (one of whom, Dhani Ram, also worked as a doctor in the town) is further evidence of the great esteem in which he was held.

Date of birth: 
01 Jan 1898
Connections: 

V. K. Krishna Menon

Labour Party, National Health Service.

Precise DOB unknown: 
Y
Secondary works: 

Maan, Bashir, The New Scots: The Story of Asians in Scotland (Edinburgh: Donald, 1992)

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto, 2002)

Visram, Rozina, 'Saggar, Jainti Dass (1898–1954)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2012) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/71/101071631/]

City of birth: 
Daherra, Ludhiana, Punjab
Country of birth: 
India
Other names: 

Jainti Dass Saggar

Dr Saggar

Location

Dundee, Scotland, DD1 1DB
United Kingdom
56° 27' 35.6076" N, 2° 59' 19.8024" W
Date of death: 
01 Jan 1974
Precise date of death unknown: 
Y
Location of death: 
Dundee, Scotland
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Jan 1919
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1919 until his death

Harbans Lall Gulati

About: 

Harbans Lall Gulati completed his medical training in Lahore, becoming an officer in the Indian Medical Service in 1916. On his arrival in England, he discovered that his medical qualifications were not recognized and so repeated his training at Charing Cross Hospital, doing unskilled work by night in order to pay his fees. He qualified in 1926 and began work as a GP in Battersea shortly afterwards. In his obituary in the British Medical Journal, he is described as a pioneer of the ‘meals-on-wheels’ service, as well as an active member of the St John and Red Cross organizations. He was also associated with the Royal Westminster Opthalmic Hospital.

In 1934 Gullati became a Conservative member of the local council, resigning from the party in 1947 because of their lack of support for the National Health Service. He went on to join the Socialist Medical Association as well as the Labour Party becoming a Labour member of the LCC for South Battersea and later standing (unsuccessfully) for parliamentary candidature. He was an active member of the committee of the Indian YMCA in London, as well as a magistrate and a Freemason.

He was married and had two sons and a daughter.

Date of birth: 
01 Jan 1896
Connections: 

Conservative Party, Indian YMCA, Labour Party, London County Council, National Health Service, Red Cross, Socialist Medical Association.

Precise DOB unknown: 
Y
Secondary works: 

Obituary, British Medical Journal (22 July 1967), p. 247

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto, 2002)
 

City of birth: 
Punjab
Country of birth: 
India
Other names: 

Dr Harbans Lall Gulati

Locations

Charing Cross Hospital
Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8RF
United Kingdom
51° 29' 14.4708" N, 0° 13' 18.2892" W
Royal Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital
City Road
London, EC1V 2PD
United Kingdom
51° 31' 45.318" N, 0° 5' 44.34" W
Date of death: 
13 Jun 1967
Location of death: 
England
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Jan 1920
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y

Ayana Deva Angadi

About: 

Ayana Angadi came to Britain in 1924. His original intention was to prepare for the ICS examination but instead he became involved in political activism, writing, and lecturing about imperialism and India. As well as contributing to a range of journals in Britain, he wrote several political pamphlets under the pseudonym Raj Hansa. A committed Trotskyist, he joined the Labour Party and worked as a lecturer for the Central Advisory Council for Adult Education in HM Forces and then for the Imperial Institute, travelling to schools and colleges around the country to speak about Indian matters. He also travelled to Scandinavia to lecture and was there suspected of being a Cominform agent (L/PJ/12/518, p. 48).

Arguably, Angadi's most significant achievement while in Britain was the establishment with his wife Patricia Fell-Clarke of the Asian Music Circle in 1946. This organization introduced Indian music, dance and yoga to the British public, paving the way for musicians such as Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan.

Published works: 

(as Jaya Deva) Japan’s Kampf (London: Gollancz, 1942)

Numerous pamphlets written under the name Raj Hansa

Example: 

'Secret’ IPI memo, 1 February 1949, L/PJ/12/518, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras, pp. 42–3

Date of birth: 
12 Mar 1903
Content: 

This file contains British government surveillance reports on Ayana Angadi’s activities in Britain and Europe during the period 1937–47.

Connections: 

E. F. Bramley (CPGB), R. F. O. Bridgeman, Benjamin Brittan, J. R. Campbell (CPGB), Patricia Fell-Clarke, George Harrison, B. K. S. Iyengar, Krishna Menon, Yehudi Menuhin, Shapurji Saklatvala, Ravi Shankar.

Contributions to periodicals: 

New Leader

Spectator

Time and Tide

Extract: 

AYANA VEERAYASWAMI ANGADI has lived mainly in the United Kingdom since 1930. He is an individual of ordinary status who has made a livelihood as a lecturer and journalist. His book 'Japan’s Kampf' attracted the favourable attention of the Ministry of Information during the war and for a time he was engaged as a lecturer to troops. However he was relieved of this occupation because he introduced his political views into the lectures.

ANGADI is described as being a revolutionary Communist. His record includes a sentence in 1937 of a month’s imprisonment for stealing a typewriter.

Since 1946 ANGADI has toured and lectured in the Scandinavian countries more than once and many of his lectures have been marked by a strong anti-British bias. He has made himself unpopular both in Norway and Denmark and the former has decided to refuse him a visa should he apply for one again.

It has been stated that his visit to Norway in February 1947 was under the auspices of the Imperial Institute, and has been suggested that the Institute should be told about his undesirability. You may be able to find out if it is correct that the Institute sponsored ANGADI in any way, and may be able to tell someone in the Institute about the kind of individual he is.

Secondary works: 

Massey, Reginald, Azaadi! Stories and Histories of the Indian Subcontinent After Independence (Abhinav Publications, 2005)

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto, 2002)

Relevance: 

The detailed documentation kept on Angadi and his activities while in Britain is evidence of the high level of surveillance of South Asians who were politically active during this period. This in turn suggests the anti-imperialist campaigning of Angadi and his contemporaries was considered dangerously effective. The extensive travel Angadi undertook, both within Britain and beyond, is evidence of a keen commitment to educating the British and Europeans about imperialism and to mobilizing for the struggle for Indian independence and international socialism.

Archive source: 

L/PJ/12/518, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Asian Music Circle 1954–1960: Correspondence with Ayana Deva Angadi, founder and director, regarding the Circle’s programmes, with copies of leaflets and programmes, MSS 157/3/MU/A/1/1–26, Papers of Victor Gollancz, Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick Library

Involved in events: 

Numerous concerts and lectures

India League meetings

City of birth: 
Jakanur, Mysore State
Country of birth: 
India
Other names: 

Ayana Veerayyaswami Angadi

Raj Hansa

Jaya Deva

 

Date of death: 
01 Oct 1993
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Jan 1924
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1924-?

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