India League

Sunder Kabadia

About: 

Sunder Kabadia was the foreign correspondent in London for the Indian newspaper Amrit Bazaar Patrika in the 1930s. During his time in London, he was involved with Krishna Menon's India League.

Other names: 

Sunder Kabadi

Location: 

London

India Bulletin

About: 

India Bulletin was the published organ of the Friends of India Society. It was initially published monthly. Its objective was to publish a detailed account of events in India to inform the British public and foster a better understanding of the Indian question. It sought to persuade the British that Indian self-governance could be the only resolution for India. It covered in great detail the Civil Disobedience Movement, and paid particular attention to Gandhi. Its February 1936 edition was devoted to Nehru’s visit to London and gave a detailed account of the speeches he made and meetings he attended among the Indian community. The journal also paid particular attention to the national press coverage of Indian events and attempted to redress the balance by informing its subscribers of the repressive measures of the Government in India.

It often reprinted articles, many in abridged form, that were previously published in Indian newspapers including The Hindu, The Indian Social Reformer, The Servant of India, The Maharatta, Harijan and Young India. It also featured articles on the women’s movement in India, the fight for national freedom in Spain, and the question of resistance through non-violent non-cooperation. The publication informed its audience of Gandhian philosophy, in line with the objectives of the Friends of India Society. The publication’s output became ever more sporadic as the Friends of India encountered financial difficulties in the late 1930s. India Bulletin was last published in August 1939 and ceased with the outbreak of the Second World War.

Date began: 
01 Feb 1932
Key Individuals' Details: 

Editors: Horace Alexander, Will Hayes, Atma S. Kamlani, Reginald Reynolds.

Connections: 

Contributors: Horace Alexander, Mulk Raj Anand, C. F. Andrews, Haidri Bhuttacharji, Reginald Bridgeman, Moti Chandra, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya, John L. Clemence, Mahadev Desai, M. K. Gandhi, Agatha Harrison, Laurence Housman, Edith Hunter, Muriel Lester, Leonard W. Matters, Jawaharlal Nehru, V. J. Patel, S. L. Polak, Rajendra Prasad, T. A. Raman, Reginald Reynolds, Romain Rolland, J. T. Sunderland, Rabindranath Tagore, D. V. Tahmankar, Krishna Vir, Monica Whately (member of the India League delegation).

Date ended: 
01 Aug 1939
Archive source: 

British Library Newspapers, Colindale, London

Precise date ended unknown: 
Y
Books Reviewed Include: 

Nehru, Jawaharlal, An Autobiography

Rolland, Romain, Mahatma Gandhi: A Study in Indian Nationalism
 

Locations

30 Fleet Street
London, EC4Y 1 AA
United Kingdom
210 Herne Hill Road
London, SE24 0AN
United Kingdom
46 Lancaster Gate
London, W2 3LX
United Kingdom

Spanish Civil War

Date: 
17 Jul 1936
End date: 
01 Apr 1939
Event location: 

Spain

About: 

The Spanish Civil War was an armed conflict that erupted after a conservative-backed military coup to depose Spain’s republican government failed to gain control over the whole country. A bloody three-year war ensued with the Nationalists supported by fascist states like Italy and Germany, and Republicans supported by the Soviet Union and the Left across Europe and the US. Around 40,000 volunteers fought in Spain as part of the International Brigades, which were largely controlled by the Comintern, among them George Orwell and Mulk Raj Anand. The Spanish Civil War ended with the disbanding and surrender of Republican armies at the end of March 1939. The conflict cost an estimated 500,000 - 1,000,000 lives. For Britain it marked a threat to the post-World War I international consensus which would lead to the outbreak of the Second World War.

The conflict’s political impact reverberated far beyond Spain. It was seen as an international conflict and part of a wider struggle between freedom and democracy versus tyranny, dictatorship and fascism. It became a conflict of different conceptualizations of civil society and a struggle for people’s rights to self-determination, democracy and world peace. In the context of India’s struggle for independence it became evident that its own fight for self-determination was linked to other international conflicts like the Spanish Civil War. Nehru and Krishna Menon in particular realized this.

The conflict mobilized many Indian citizens living in Britain. For example Indira Nehru spoke in support of Republican Spain at a gathering organized by Krishna Menon. The January 1938 India League independence day demonstration also highlighted the conflicts in China, Abyssinia and Spain. Along with banners of Nehru and Gandhi, flags of Republican Spain were visible. The India League in collaboration with the Communist Party of Great Britain and other organizations on the Left held meeting and protest marches in support of Republican Spain. Menon and Nehru visited Spain in summer 1938 and Nehru addressed a crowd of 5,000 in Trafalgar Square as part of a demonstration in Aid of Republican Spain on 17 July 1938, which marked the second anniversary of the start of hostilities. The India League also founded the Indian Committee for Food For Spain, with Feroze Gandhi as organizing secretary. Menon and Clemens Palme Dutt combined forces and engaged in fund-raising activities for an ambulance.

People involved: 

Mulk Raj Anand, Protool Chandra Bhandari, Reginald Bridgeman, Clemens Palme Dutt, Avigodr Michael Epstein, Feroze Gandhi, C. L. Katial, Harold Laski, Krishna Menon, Indira Nehru (Gandhi), Jawaharlal Nehru, George Orwell, Reginald Sorensen, Monica Whately, S. A. Wickremasinghe, Ellen Wilkinson.

Published works: 

Nehru, Jawaharlal, Spain! Why? (London: Indian Committee for Food For Spain, 1938)

Orwell, George, Homage to Catalonia (London: Secker & Waburg, 1938)

Orwell, George, Orwell in Spain (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2001)
 

Secondary works: 

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

Archive source: 

L/PJ/12/451, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

L/PJ/12/293, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Jomo Kenyatta

About: 

Jomo Kenyatta was born in Ngenda around 1895. After moving to Nairobi, he became involved in the political and cultural life. He became general secretary of the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA) in 1928. In March 1929 he travelled to Britain on behalf of the KCA with Isher Dass, an Indian lawyer living in Nairobi. He had hoped to meet the imperial authorities but only briefly met senior officials at the Colonial Office. However, he established contacts with other anti-colonial activists in London and the Communist Party like George Padmore and Shapurji Saklatvala.

Kenyatta returned to Africa in 1930 but was back in Britain in 1931. He stayed almost continuously until 1946, with the exception of a few trips to Europe. During this period he was admitted to the London School of Economics to study anthropology under Professor Malinowski. Here, he wrote a number of articles that were later published as Facing Mount Kenya (1938). During this time, he also met a small group of black activists and campaigners, including C. L. R. James, Kwame Nkrumah, Peter Abrahams, Eric Williams and Paul Robeson. He also associated with the India League and the League of Coloured Peoples and met Gandhi when he visited London in November 1931. Throughout the 1930s, Kenyatta attended India League meetings and would have come into contact with Krishna Menon. In September 1939, Makhan Singh, the General Secretary of the Labour Trade Union of East Africa, asked Kenyatta and Krishna Menon to represent his organization at a conference planned for the end of September in Brussels. However, because of the outbreak of the Second World War, the conference never took place.

Through his involvement in the Pan-African Federation, Kenyatta would possibly have met Jawaharlal Nehru. Kenyatta knew N. G. Ranga from early on. In 1945, Kenyatta attended the fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester along with Amy Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah, Ras Makonnen, Surat Alley, and George Padmore among others. He participated in Fabian Society conferences on post-war colonial affairs. Kenyatta returned to Kenya in September 1946 where he assumed leadership of the Kenya African Union. After the Mau Mau uprising in 1952, he was arrested in 1953 and spent the next seven years in prison. In 1962, he returned to London to negotiate the terms of a Kenyan constitution on behalf of the Kenya African National Union before being elected prime minister in June 1963. Kenya became independent in December 1963 and Kenyatta became president the next year. He ruled Kenya until his death on 22 August 1978.

Published works: 

'Kenya', in Nancy Cunard (ed.) Negro: An Anthology (London: Wishart, 1934), pp. 803-7

'Kikuyu Religion, Ancestor-Worship, and Sacrificial Practices', Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 19.3 (1937), pp. 308-28

Facing Mount Kenya: The Tribal Life of the Gikuyu (London: Secker & Warburg, 1938)

My People of Kikuyu, and the Life of Chief Wangombe (London: United Society for Christian Literature, 1942)

Kenya: The Land of Conflict (Manchester: Panaf Service, 1945)

Harambee! The Prime Minister of Kenya's Speeches, 1963-1964 ... The Text Edited and Arranged by Anthony Cullen, etc [With Portraits] (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1964)

Suffering withour Bitterness: The Founding of the Kenya Nation (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1968)

The Challenge of Uhuru: The Progress of Kenya 1968 to 1970: Selected and Prefaced Extracts from the Pubic Speeches of His Excellency Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, President of the Republic of Kenya (Nairobi: East African Publishing House; Birmingham: Third World Publications, 1971)

Date of birth: 
01 Jan 1895
Connections: 

Peter Abrahams, Ralph Bunche, Isher Dass (travel companion on Kenyatta's first trip to London), Fenner Brockway, N. G. Ranga, M. K. Gandhi (through the League of Coloured Peoples), C. L. R. James, Alexander Korda (extra in Korda's Sanders of the River),Kingsley Martin, Harold Moody, Kwame Nkrumah, Paul Robeson, George Padmore, Shapurji Saklatvala, Eric Williams.

Contributions to periodicals: 

'Give Back Our Land', Sunday Worker 242 (27 October 1929), p. 3

'An African People Rise in Revolt', Daily Worker 17 (20 January 1930), p. 4

'A General Strike Drowned in Blood', Daily Worker 18 (21 January 1930), p. 10

'Unrest in Kenya', Manchester Guardian (18 March 1930), p. 6

The Times (26 March 1930), p. 12

'The Gold Rush in Kenya', Labour Monthly 15 (1933), pp. 691-5

'Hands off Abyssinia!', Labour Monthly 17 (1935)

Labour Monthly

New Statesman and Nation (27 June 1936)

Muigwithania

Precise DOB unknown: 
Y
Reviews: 

Barlow, A. R., Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 12.1 (1939), pp. 114-16 (Facing Mount Kenya)

Cullen, Young, Journal of the Royal African Society 37 (1938), pp. 522-3 (Facing Mount Kenya)

Secondary works: 

Adi, Hakim, and Sherwood, Marika, The 1945 Manchester Pan-African Congress Revisited (London: New Beacon Books, 1995)

Amin, Mohamed, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta: A Photobiography (Nairobi: Marketing & Publishing, 1978)

Archer, Jules, African Firebrand: Kenyatta of Kenya (New York: J. Messner, 1969)

Arnold, Guy, Kenyatta and the Politics of Kenya (London: Dent, 1974)

Assensoh, A. B., African Political Leadership: Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah, and Julias K. Nyerere (Malabar, FL: Krieger Publications, 1998)

Beck, Ann, 'Some Observations on Jomo Kenyatta in Britain, 1929-1930', Cahiers d'Études Africaines 6 (1966), pp. 308-29.

Bennett, George, Kenya: A Political History: The Colonial Period (London: Oxford University Press, 1963)

Berman, Bruce, Control and Crisis in Colonial Kenya: The Dialectic of Domination (London: James Currey, 1990)

Berman, Bruce J., 'Kenyatta, Jomo (c. 1895-1978)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31305]

Berman, Bruce, and Lonsdale, John, Unhappy Valley: Conflict in Kenya and Africa (London: Currey, 1992)

Chege, Michael, 'Africans of European Descent', Transition 73 (1997), pp. 74-86.

Cuthbert, Valerie, Jomo Kenyatta: The Burning Spear (Harlow: Longman, 1982)

Delf, George, Jomo Kenyatta: Towards Truth About 'The Light of Kenya' (London: Victor Gollancz, 1961)

Friedmann, Julian, Jomo Kenyatta (London: Wayland, 1975)

Fryer, Peter, Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain (London: Pluto, 1984)

Good, Kenneth, 'Kenyatta and the Organization of KANU', Canadian Journal of African Studies/Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines 2.2 (1968), pp. 115-36.

Howarth, Anthony, Kenyatta: A Photographic Biography (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1967)

Knauss, Peter, 'From Devil to Father Figure: The Transformation of Jomo Kenyatta by Kenya Whites', Journal of Modern African Studies 9.1 (1971), pp. 131-7.

Makonnen, Ras, and King, Kenneth, Pan-Africanism from Within (Nairobi; London: Oxford University Press, 1973)

Malhotra, Veena, Kenya under Kenyatta (Delhi: Kalinga Publications, 1990)

McClellan, Woodford, 'Africans and Black Americans in the Comintern Schools, 1925-1934', International Journal of African Historical Studies 26 (1993), pp. 371-90

Murray-Brown, Jeremy, Kenyatta (London: Allen and Unwin, 1972)

Ng'weno, Hilary, The Day Kenyatta Died (Nairobi: Longman Kenya, 1978)

Pegushev, A., 'The Unknown Jomo Kenyatta', Edgerton Journal 1/2 (1996), pp. 173-98

Savage, D., 'Jomo Kenyatta, Malcolm Macdonald and the Colonial Office, 1938-9', Canadian Journal of African Studies 3 (1970), pp. 315-32

Slater, Montagu, The Trial of Jomo Kenyatta (London: Secker & Warburg, 1955)

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

Wepman, Dennis, Jomo Kenyatta (New York: Chelsea House, 1985)

Archive source: 

PRO CO 533/384/9, fols. 86-7, Scotland Yard report, 18 June 1929, National Archives, Kew, UK

PRO CO 533/501/11, Scotland Yard report, National Archives, Kew, UK

Documentary footage, National Film and Television Archive, British Film Institute, London

News footage in the National Film and Television Archive, British Film Institute, London

Documentary footage, Film and Video Archive, Imperial War Museum, London

News footage, Film and Video Archive, Imperial War Museum, London

Oral history interview, Sound Archive, Imperial War Museum, London

City of birth: 
Ngenda
Country of birth: 
British East Africa
Current name country of birth: 
Kenya
Other names: 

Kamau wa Ngengi, Johnstone Kamau, Johnstone Kenyatta

Date of death: 
22 Aug 1978
Location of death: 
Mombasa, Kenya
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
08 Mar 1929
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

8 March 1929 - September 1930; 22 May 1931 - 5 September 1946

Location: 

57 Castletown Road, London W14 (Boarded with Ladipo Solanke, leader of the West African Students' Union)

23 Cambridge Street, London

95 Cambridge Street, London

Quaker Woodbrook College, Selly Oak, Birmingham

University College, London

London School of Economics, London

Storington, Sussex

Indian Committee for Food for Spain

Published works: 

Jawaharlal Nehru 'Spain! Why?’ [pamphlet published by The Indian Committee for Food for Spain]

Key Individuals' Details: 

Feroze Gandhi, C. L. Katial, Protool C. Bhandari

Connections: 

India League

Tags for Making Britain: 

Ceylon Students' Association

About: 

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.


 

Published works: 

Wickremasinghe, S. A., Ceylon: A Study of the 'Report of the Special Commission on the Constitution'

Articles in Fourth International and British Militant

Secondary works: 

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

Date began: 
01 Jan 1920
Precise date began unknown: 
Y
Key Individuals' Details: 

D. B. Jayatilleke, N. M. Perera, C. R. de Silva (Secretary),  S. A. Wickremasinghe.

Connections: 

Fenner Brockway, Rajani Palme Dutt, Philip Goonewardene, Pieter Keneuman, Harold Laski, Krishna Menon, Selina Perera, Shapurji Saklatvala, Drummond Shiels.

Julius Silverman

About: 

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.

Date of birth: 
08 Dec 1905
Secondary works: 

Dalyell, Tam, 'Obituary: Julius Silverman', The Independent (24 September 1996)

Archive source: 

L/PJ/12/448-456, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

City of birth: 
Leeds
Country of birth: 
England
Date of death: 
21 Sep 1996
Location of death: 
Birmingham, England

Bridget Tunnard

About: 

Bridget Tunnard was Secretary of the India League and worked closely with Krishna Menon. She worked for the India League, like many others, as a volunteer.

Connections: 
Secondary works: 

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

Location: 

London

Tags for Making Britain: 

T. Subasinghe

About: 

Was active in the India League; he helped to organize the Pan-African Congress in Manchester in 1945.

Location

Manchester, M3 5LH
United Kingdom
53° 28' 55.5132" N, 2° 15' 32.6952" W

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

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