When a call for Indian independence echoed in London

“Whether as flesh and blood or as commodities, Indians shaped the peripheries of London since Shakespeare,” academic Arup K Chatterjee writes in Indians in London: From the Birth of the East India Company to Independent India (2020).

But when did the earliest Indians arrive in Britain? And how closely were they connected to the cause of Indian independence?  While much has been said and documented about the Indians who spearheaded the freedom struggle in the subcontinent, here’s a look at those who led independence movements in Britain.

Who were the first Indians in Britain?

Among the earliest Indians to move to Britain were groups of domestic servants (particularly ayahs) and lascars (ex-sailors). According to Chatterjee, “An audit from 1855, conducted by Lieutenant Colonel R.M. Hughes of the East India Company, suggested that there were about 12,000 Indians, Chinese and Australian seamen in the employ of British merchant services.”

Indian lascars on a British Royal Mail ship in the 1930s (Source: Wikipedia)

While no official survey was conducted until 1932, historian Harald Fischer-Tiné estimates in Shyamji Krishnavarma: Sanskrit, Sociology and Anti-Imperialism (2014) that there were at most 200 Indian students in Britain in 1890. By 1910, notes Chatterjee, the strength of the student body crossed 700.

In 1932, the Indian National Congress initiated a survey and found a community of 7,200 Indians settled in Britain. However, Chatterjee argues that the absence of ethnic minorities from the list implies that the numbers were likely greater. In the decade of the 1930s, for instance, Indian students accounted for 87 per cent of all colonial students in Britain. Chatterjee notes, “Back in the mid-19th century, ‘tens of thousands of Indian seamen, servants, scholars, soldiers, students, envoys, royalty officials, merchants, tourists and settlers had all journeyed to Britain’.

The educated Indians

From the mid-nineteenth century, the educated class from India arrived in England for higher education and employment. Barristers Gyanendra Mohan Tagore, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, and Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee were among those who arrived in the 1860s. Cursetji Maneckji Shroff from Bombay became the first Indian to pursue his undergraduate studies at the University of Oxford in 1864. Also part of the educated class was Sarojini Naidu, better known as the Nightingale of India, who studied at King’s College between 1895 to 1898. Around the same time, Cornelia Sorabji enrolled to study law at the University of Oxford.

Cornelia Sorabji in Scotland, 1924 (Source: Wikipedia)

Through debating societies such as the Oxbridge Majlis circles, these English-educated Indians came in contact with nationalists such as Aurobindo Ghosh, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, M K Gandhi, and others. The meetings fostered discussion and political participation in the nationalist movement among the diaspora.

Chatterjee explains that since the 1890s, “the Cambridge Majlis and the Oxford Majlis had been the greenhouses for preparing university graduates for political debates on issues of electoral equality, democracy and fighting British imperialism”.

Swami Vivekananda, after attending the World Parliament of Religions in the United States in 1895, visited London for three months. During his stay, he delivered multiple lectures across the city and in universities such as Oxford, preaching the cause of Indian independence.

“Indian nationalists resolved to ‘flood Great Britain with pamphlets, leaflets, newspapers and magazine articles.’ In 1888, 10,000 copies of the report of the annual meeting of the Indian National Congress were disseminated across Britain. The next year, the journal called India was founded in London, which continued to be published until 1921,” finds Chatterjee.

Institutions and associations serve as hubs

Among the many institutions that showcased the role of the Indian diaspora in the cause of freedom was India House. It was founded by Shyamji Krishnavarma, an assistant to a Sanskrit professor in Oxford, at Highgate in London. Through the India House, Tiné argues, “…Krishnavarma specifically targeted the ever-growing South Asian student community in the Uk…[reflecting] his conviction that Indian independence could only be achieved under the leadership of a small intelligentsia educated abroad.”

“In its early months, India House was widely considered to be a thrifty residential home and Hindustani restaurant catering to Indian students in the city. Secretly, however, it operated as a hub of Indian revolutionaries, and often as a stopover for rebel recruits from India for their journeys to or from Paris or America,” notes Chatterjee.

Indian Sociologist (Source: Wikipedia)

Among its activities was the publication of an anti-colonial magazine under the title, The Indian Sociologist. Its purpose, according to Chatterjee, was to warn its English readership that they could “‘never succeed in being a nation of freemen…so long as they continue to send members of the dominant classes to exercise despotism in Britain’s name upon the conquered races’.” Activist Bhikaji Rustomji Cama was also closely associated with India House.

The next was the London Muslim League. Established by Syed Ameer Ali in collaboration with S H Bilgrami in 1908, the League was created to advocate for the rights of Muslims in England and elsewhere, independent of its parent wing, the All India Muslim League (1906).

Meanwhile, influenced by Shapurji Saklatvala, a member of the Independent Labour Party, V K Krishna Menon arrived in England in 1924 and graduated with an MSc from the London School of Economics a decade later. In his youth, spent in Madras, Menon had joined Annie Besant’s Home Rule for India League to fight for Indian independence, inspired by the Irish Home Rule movement. The organisation was later renamed the Commonwealth of India League. At this point, Besant resigned and left the League under Menon’s leadership.

Chatterjee notes that in 1929, the word ‘Commonwealth’ was dropped, making it the India League. “Over that decade, the India League would set up offices in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Coventry and Wales, as well as a branch office in America, attended by Indian students, trade unionists, members of cooperative societies and many university and political elites,” finds Chatterjee.

The branches aimed to advocate for gender equality, civil liberty, and freedom from colonial rule. In 1941, the India League also launched a campaign against the imprisonment of Jawaharlal Nehru and other Congressmen.

Mulk Raj Anand (Source: Wikipedia)

Also deserving mention is Mulk Raj Anand, an Indian writer in London. He quietly followed the activities of the India League and eventually formed the All India Progressive Writers Association. “The surreptitious ceremony was lined up in the backroom of the Nanking Restaurant on Denmark Street, where Mulk Raj Anand, Sajjad Zaheer and Jyotirmaya drafted the manifesto of the Association,” Chatterjee told indianexpress.com. They hoped to address, through the written word, issues of poverty, illiteracy, and caste that plagued India.

With the ‘Quit India’ call in 1942, several other Indian organisations sprang up in London. Among them was the Committee of Indian Congressmen, founded by Amiya Bose, a nephew of Subhas Chandra Bose.

The revolutionary dens

“Restaurateuring in the city,” said Chatterjee, “was conceived as a close cousin of the incendiary spirits of nationalism. Most of these restaurants were run by lascars from the Sylhet district of Bengal, who, after 1971 would be known as Bangladeshis.” Among the ones mentioned in his book are Shah Jolal Restaurant, at 76 Commercial Street in the East End owned by lascar Master Ayub Ali. The space, opened in 1920, was a meeting place for members of the India League.

Another was an Indian restaurant and lodging house for Indians: The Hindustan Community House, managed by Kundan Lal Jalie since 1937. “Inter alia, it also provided free medical services by Indian doctors, and functioned as a cultural centre stocked with English and Indian newspapers, besides the services of a radio and a gramophone,” explains Chatterjee. Another meeting spot of the League was Shah Abdul Majid Qureshi’s India Centre, built on Charlotte Street in 1944.

Despite the many efforts, the Indian diaspora struggled to yield results. They failed at forging meaningful solidarity with Indians back home. Chatterjee remarked in his interview, “Indians did not perceive Indians in London in a very positive light, apart from, let’s say, Madam Bhikaji Cama.”

“V K Krishna Menon can be said to be a mouthpiece of Indian interests in London at the time, but the India League and the Indian diaspora fell short of resonance, barring these influential individuals and organisations. I have no evidence of Indians being particularly involved in collaboration with Indians in London,” he explained.

Readings:

Indians in London: From the Birth of the East India Company to Independent India by Arup K. Chatterjee

Shyamji Krishnavarma: Sanskrit, Sociology and Anti-Imperialism by Harald Fischer-Tiné

Ayahs, Lascars and Princes: The Story of Indians in Britain 1700-1947 by Rozina Visram