The Jamiat-ul-Muslimin, based at the East London Mosque, was a charitable society for the promotion of Islam, founded in 1934. It membership consisted predominantly of working-class lascars, peddlers and other workers who inhabited the East End of London. The Jamiat’s stated objectives were: ‘To serve the cause of Islam truly and practically by creating facilities for the observance of its Principles: to produce a weekly paper…to collect funds for a Mosque in the East End of London: to provide for the training and education of Muslims generally; to succour poor and needy Muslims: to promote social intercourse between resident Muslims and visitors to this country and generally to adopt all practical and legitimate means to work for the moral, intellectual and economic advancement of Muslims throughout the world’ (L/PJ/12/468). Thus, its objectives combined faith with the social and political. The organization first came to notice by government authorities in 1938 when it staged a protest against H. G. Wells’ A Short History of the World. The Jamiat organized a march to India House, Aldwych, where a deputation presented a petition to the High Commissioner for India, Firoz Khan Noon.

Before the establishment of the East London Mosque in 1941, the organization’s members would gather and worship at King’s Hall in Commercial Road. The Jamiat played a key role in the establishment, inauguration and management of the mosque. In 1943 they were involved in a dispute with the trustees of the mosque, claiming that they should have ultimate control over its management and affairs. There were also active branches of the Jamiat in Glasgow, Cardiff, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham. 

The Lascars' Club was founded in 1909 by K. Chowdry. It was located in close proximity to the Victoria docks, making it an ideal stopping point for lascars in London. From January to June 1910 alone, 4180 lascars made use of the club.

The All India Seamen’s Federation (AISF) was formed in 1937, bringing together the Indian Seamen’s Union, Indian Quartermaster’s Union, Bengal Mariner’s Union, Seamen’s Welfare League of India and Karachi Seamen’s Union to form one of the largest federations of lascar unions. It was instrumental in negotiating a settlement with the British Government and ship owners to resolve lascar strikes in 1939 and 1940. As part of that settlement, lascar pay and working conditions improved.

The negotiating skills of Surat Alley and Aftab Ali were key to breaking the deadlock between British ship owners and striking lascars in 1939. In 1939 the Board of Trade officially recognized the AISF, and the Government of India urged ship owners to follow suit. The AISF fought tirelessly for an increase in sailors’ wages and a war bonus. Surat Alley was the AISF’s representative in London and campaigned on its behalf. In 1941 he published an article in the East London Advertiser to dispel the myth that after the 1940 settlement lascars were adequately provided for. He concluded that the AISF had lobbied the Shipping Federation of Great Britain but the outcome was still disappointing, and the AISF renewed its efforts by negotiating with the Ministry for War Transport, arguing for fixed working hours, provisions for overtime, a welfare fund for aged retired sailors, compensation in the case of invalidity, and provisions for accommodation in port and on board, as well as canteens. These attempts were resisted by the Shipping Federation. At the same time as Alley redoubled his efforts in Britain, Ali continued negotiating in India.

Due to the rivalry between the many lascar unions, the AISF broke up in 1943. Surat Alley went on to form the All-India Union of Seamen Centred in Great Britain in 1943, which was under the auspices of the International Transport Workers' Federation and later became integrated into the Indian Seamen’s Union.

The Lascars' Welfare League (LWL) was formed in December 1922 and a committee toured the East End of London to assess the working conditions of lascar seamen. By 1923 the more radical wing of the organization around Shapurji Saklatvala had broken away to found the Indian Seamen's Association, which was later renamed the Indian Seamen's Union.

The Indian Seamen’s Welfare League offered membership to all Indian seamen resident in Britain on the payment of an annual subscription of one shilling. Its main aim was ‘to look after the economic, social and cultural interests of Indian seamen, to provide them with recreation in Great Britain and to communicate with their relatives in India in the event of any misfortunes befalling them’ (L/PJ/12/630, p. 140). Inaugurated by the former seamen Ayub Ali and Shah Abdul Majid Qureshi, it held its first meeting on Commercial Road in July 1943. This attracted approximately 100 people, including a dozen Europeans among the Bengali seamen who made up the bulk of the audience.

The organization described itself as social rather than political. Indeed it changed its name from the Indian Seamen’s Union precisely because it feared the political connotations of the word ‘union’ would alienate ship owners and attract the attention of the police. However, records of meetings suggest that there were tensions between those who espoused this non-political position and those who considered the concerns of the organization to be inextricable from an anti-colonial politics. Further, surveillance reports warn that the organization attempted to dissuade Indian seamen from risking their lives bringing food to Britain when the Government was responsible for famine in India, and that its ‘extreme elements’ wished thereby to sabotage the war effort.

The Colonial Seamen's Association (CSA) was founded in 1935 to galvanize support against the 1935 British Assistance Act, which discriminated against non-British seamen. The organization's Secretary was Surat Alley. The CSA held its first annual convention in 1936 and remained active throught the latter half of the 1930s.

The Coloured Men’s Institute (CMI) was an organization founded by Kamal Athon Chunchie in response to the racism the black and Asian communities suffered in Canning Town, east London. It became a physical reality when Chunchie, on behalf of the Methodist Church, for which he had been working among the lascar community since 1921, acquired premises at 13-15 Tidal Basin Road, Victoria Docks, Canning Town, London. The space had formerly been a Chinese lodging house, with the cellars used as opium dens. After Chunchie refurbished it, the building boasted a meeting room that could accommodate around 100 people, where Chunchie conducted services on Sundays. During the week it was used as a meeting place with chairs, tables and a canteen that catered for the local community from nine in the morning to ten at night. The first floor housed a writing and newspaper room, a prayer room and a billiard room. Chunchie and his family occupied the top floor. The CMI was more of a community centre than a religious institution; around 200-300 people could pass through it in one week. Chunchie had designed and subsequently ran it as a place where the black and Asian communities could socialize in safety. In a way, it was a ‘separatist’ institution, a place of refuge from the prevalent white racism and discrimination in 1920s London.

The CMI had to vacate the premises in 1930 when the building was demolished in a road widening scheme. Chunchie tried for the next twenty years to rehouse the CMI at a different location. However his efforts did not come to fruition, partly because the Methodist Church withdrew its support. Subsequently most CMI functions were held at the Presbyterian Church Hall, Canning Town. The closure of its premises did not mean the the CMI ceased to exist. Chunchie continued its work and toured tirelessly across the UK to raise funds for the CMI, which he used to fund food, clothes, Christmas and New Year’s parties and summer day trips. The CMI was dependent on his leadership and guidance and did not survive after his death in 1953.

Like the Hindustan Community House, the main purpose of the Hindustani Social Club was to do social and educational work among seamen and pedlars in the East End. A key figure in the HSC was Surat Alley, a political activist whose main concern and area of activism was the working conditions of Indian seamen. The Club also served as a social centre for Indians in the East End. In 1939, Alley organized a charity performance by the Indian dancer Ram Gopal and his troupe for the entertainment of the Club’s members (L/PJ/12/630, p. 60).

The Club also functioned as a political meeting place and as a forum where Indian activists could educate and mobilize working-class Indians against British colonial rule. Alley issued to its members news bulletins in Urdu and Bengali on the British Government’s oppression of Indian workers and peasants, and in 1942 the Club hosted an ‘Indian Independence Day’ meeting, attended by Mulk Raj Anand as well as numerous well-known activists (L/PJ/12/454, pp. 13-16). Further, with Surat Alley as its Honorary Secretary, it inevitably had links with the Colonial Seamen’s Association as well as with other organizations for lascars, and, according to a government surveillance report, in 1939 it served as a meeting place for striking lascars (L/PJ/12/630, p. 25). In the eyes of the Government, Surat Alley’s association with the Club made it particularly suspect; in 1940, its premises (also Alley’s home at the time) were searched because of Alley’s links with Udham Singh (ibid., p. 81). 

The Indian Workers’ Association had a dual aim: to raise consciousness of the struggle for Indian independence among working-class Indians in Britain, and to protect and enhance their welfare. While there was some overlap between the IWA and the India League, the former was a working-class organization whose membership was composed almost uniquely of Indians. The founders and protagonists of the organization were mainly Sikh and Muslim Punjabis who had turned to peddling on their arrival in Britain, later finding factory work or construction work at the aerodromes and militia camps that had sprung up in the Midlands during the Second World War. Meetings were conducted predominantly in Hindustani, which often excluded Bengali seamen and ex-seamen from participation, although there were also bi-monthly ‘open meetings’ conducted in English and with invited British speakers.

In the Indian Political Intelligence files, many of the Sikh pioneers of the IWA are described as having ‘Ghadr sympathies’, their main concern being to raise money for Ghadr Party initiatives such as the Desh Bhagat Parwar Sahaik Committee, which helped the dependents in India of ‘Sikh martyrs’, or the Udham Singh Defence Fund. Generally, the political activity and mobilization of working-class Indians was a source of grave concern to the India Office. IPI records reveal discussion of ways in which the organization’s leaders could be dispersed to different parts of the country where there were few Indians and less opportunity to stir up anti-British feeling among their fellow countrymen. Indeed, the IPI kept lists of IWA men who they considered particularly seditious and who should be interned in the event of an invasion during the war.

In terms of welfare work, the IWA leadership helped working-class Indians to avoid army conscription if they wished. It also provided a forum for discussion of employment grievances. Records of speeches at IWA meetings reveal the link between the oppression of Indians in Britain and their subjugation to the British in India; for example, Indian machinists in British factories are described as being reallocated to unskilled labouring jobs because of the fear that if they acquire the same skills as Englishmen they will return to India and teach their fellow countrymen the trade, thereby undermining the rationale for British rule.

Although it began as early as 1937, the IWA gained real momentum when Vellala Srikantaya Sastrya, an educated Madrassi, became secretary of the Birmingham branch in 1942. He gave the organization leadership and coherence. By 1944, however, signs of discord among the main players were evident, with Akbar Ali Khan relocating from Coventry to East London to open a rival IWA in the capital.