The Ceylon Students' Association in London worked closely with the Majlis and the India League. It was very active in the 1920s. D. B. Jayatilleke and S. A. Wickremasinghe worked with Krishna Menon and Shapurji Saklatvala. They wrote the Study of the Report on Constitution together in 1928, on their responses to British constitutional reforms with particular reference to Ceylon’s Donoughmore Constitution. Many of its members were Sinhala-speaking socialist students from Buddhist Theosophist Schools who came to Britain for undergraduate or postgraduate study at the University of London. Its members went on to found the Marxist Lanka Sama Samaja Party in Sri Lanka in 1935. This London group opposed both A. E. Goonesinghe and the British Labour Party’s claims that the Ceylon National Congress were oligarchs, arguing that they preferred indigenous oligarchs to foreign rule. The Ceylon Students' Association along with the Pan-African Federation, WASU, the Federation of Indian Associations in Britain and the Burma Association, organized the Anti-Colonial Peoples' Conference in June 1945, which called for an end to imperialism.

The writer, lecturer and political activist Sasadhar Sinha opened the Bibliophile Bookshop in 1935. Selling new and second-hand books, it soon became a hub and meeting place for literary and political Indians in Britain. The magazine Indian Writing, launched in 1940 and edited by the writers Iqbal Singh, Ahmed Ali, K. S. Shelvankar and Alagu Subramaniam, was based at the bookshop. Indian Political Intelligence reports claim that by autumn 1941 Sinha was burdened by debt and running the bookshop at a loss. The Communist Party encouraged Surat Alley to set up an alternative organization to Krishna Menon’s India League and to base it at the Bibliophile. It would appear that the following year Sinha in fact handed over control of the bookshop to Menon himself, while retaining his position as manager.

The Oriental Film Artistes’ Union was a body formed to protect the interests of Asians working as extras in crowd scenes, for example in London Film Studio's empire films such as The Four Feathers and The Drum. These films provided much-needed casual work for Indian migrants. To ensure better working conditions and pay, it was thought that through unionization their needs could be represented more effectively. The OFAU was founded by trade unionist Surat Alley, who became its secretary, and Chaudhri Akbar Ali Khan, who was its President. Akbar Ali Khan was also involved with the India League and Indian Workers' Union.

Established in early 1938, the OFAU had attraced 194 members by the end of the year. It achieved official Union recognition in January 1939. The Union worked in close cooperation with J. Cox's and Peter Blackman's Coloured Film Artistes' Association (located at 65 Warren Street, London, W.1). The Union sought affiliation to the Trade Union Congress in 1939, but a final decision was deferred until 1940.

The Strangers Home was built on the initiative of a number of missionary societies working in the East End of London, foremost among them Henry Venn, Secretary of the Church Missionary Society, who launched an appeal for funds. The first donation of £500.00 was made by Maharaja Duleep Singh. The foundation stone was laid by Prince Albert on 31 May 1856. The home would open one year later. Throughout its existence, it served a double purpose as a centre for government-subsidized shelter for lascars and a centre for religious instruction.

The Home provided temporary accommodation and food for foreign sailors. Furthermore, it served as a repatriation centre where sailors were recruited for ships returning East. It was also used as a missionary centre with Joseph Salter of the London City Mission as its resident missionary. Among the facilities provided by the home, were a library of Christian books in Asian and African languages, a depository for valuables, and remittance of their earnings to India. The dormitories could accommodate 220 people; the home provided store rooms, laundry rooms, bathrooms and sanitation as well as a dining hall. Attached to it was the Lascar Shipping Office, which registered unemployed sailors. From 1857 to 1877 according to the Home’s own figures, it cared for 5,709 people, of which 1,605 were destitute and gratuitously provided for. The Strangers’ Home was subsidised with £200.00 annually by the India Office for the temporary maintenance of lascars before their return to India.

In 1923 the Strangers Home was recommended by the India Office to ship owners as the only place for suitable accommodation in London. In the 1920s the union activist Nathalal Jagivan Upadhyaya attempted to recruit lascars at the Strangers’ Home for the Indian Seamen Union. He was banned from the Strangers Home in December 1926.

The Home closed down in 1937 due to a lack of funds and a dwindling number of occupants. Having run at a yearly loss of £2,000.00, the Indian High Commission made arrangements for destitute Indian sailors to be taken in by other organizations. The proposed closure caused concern among Poplar’s South Asian community. Syed Fazal Shah, secretary of the Jamiat-ul-Muslimin, expressed his concern about the disappearance of ‘a place of refuge for the people of Asia in London’ (L/E/9/967). 

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.