Indian independence movement

United India

About:

The magazine United India (Oct 1919-9 Feb 1921) was continued by The Hind: The United Organ of India in the United Kingdom (1 Aug 1921-20 June 1924) then by India magazine (1927-1928). It returned to its original title United India (Jan. 1929-Aug-Sept. 1937), was continued by India and England (Oct./Nov 1937-June/July 1939). It was revived after the war with its original title United India (Sept./Dec. 1946-Oct.1950); It was not published between July 1939 and Sept.1946.

Date began:

01 Oct 1919

Date ended:

01 Oct 1950

Tags for Making Britain:

journal

magazines

Indian independence movement

Naomi Mitchison

About:

Naomi Mitchison [née Haldane] was a Scottish novelist and social activist. Born in Edinburgh into a wealthy and well-established family, she was brought up in Oxford, where her physiologist father, John Scott Haldane, was a Fellow. In 1916, she married the barrister Gilbert Richard (Dick) Mitchison (later Labour MP and life peer). The couple’s main residence from 1923 to 1939, the River Court house on the Mall in Hammersmith in London, became a lively intellectual centre, frequented by a wide circle of artists, writers, politicians and working-class friends. Among her many friends were Aldous Huxley, Wyndham Lewis, W. H. Auden, and E. M. Forster.

In 1930, she joined the Labour party with her husband, and became an active political campaigner throughout the 1930s. In 1932, she took part in a Fabian Society expedition to the Soviet Union, and in 1934 went to Vienna to assist the socialists who were being persecuted by the Austrian government. She also stood unsuccessfully for election as a Labour Party candidate for the Scottish Universities in 1935. In 1939, she moved to Carradale, Scotland, and became involved in the Scottish renaissance. In the 1960s, she was adopted by the African tribe of Bakgatla, Linchwe, as their councillor and ‘mother’ and wrote many books on them.

In 1934, Mitchison was introduced to Jawaharlal Nehru at King’s Norton, Birmingham, and later that year, she set up a meeting in London between the Labour politician Strafford Cripps and Nehru. After Indian independence, Mitchison visited the Subcontinent several times to spend time with her daughter Sonia Lois, who went to Pakistan to be a teacher. Her brother, the famous geneticist, J. B. S. Haldane, also migrated to India in 1957. Mitchison visited him in 1958.

Published works:

The Conquered (London: Cape; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1923) [novel]

When the Bough Breaks and Other Stories (London: Cape; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1924) [short stories]

Cloud Cuckoo Land (London: Cape, 1925; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1926) [novel]

The Laburnum Branch (London: Cape, 1926) [poetry]

Anna Comnena (London: Gerald Howe, 1928)

Black Sparta: Greek Stories (London: Cape, 1928; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1928) [short stories]

Barbarian Stories (London: Cape, 1929; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1929) [short stories]

Nix-Nought-Nothing: Four Plays for Children (London: Cape, 1928; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1929) [play]

Comments on Birth Control (London: Faber & Faber, 1930)

The Hostages and Other Stories for Boys and Girls, illustrated by Logi Southby (London: Cape, 1930; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1931) [children’s book]

Boys and Girls and Gods (London: Watts, 1931) [children’s book]

Kate Crackernuts: A Fairy Play (Oxford: Alden Press, 1931) [play]

The Corn King and the Spring Queen (London: Cape, 1931; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1931) [novel]

The Price of Freedom (London: Cape, 1931) [play]

The Powers of Light (London: Cape, 1932; New York: Peter Smith, 1932) [novel]

The Delicate Fire: Short Stories and Poems (London: Cape, 1933; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1933) [short stories]

The Home and a Changing Civilization (London: John Lane, 1934)

Vienna Diary (London: Gollancz, 1934; New York: Smith & Haas, 1934)

(with Wyndham Lewis) Beyond This Limit (London: Cape, 1935) [novel]

We Have Been Warned (London: Constable, 1935; New York: Vanguard, 1936) [novel]

The Fourth Pig: Stories and Verses (London: Constable, 1936) [short stories]

An End and a Beginning and Other Plays (London: Constable, 1937) [play]

(with Richard Crossman) Socrates (London: Hogarth Press, 1937; Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole, 1938)

The Moral Basis of Politics (London: Constable, 1938; Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1971)

As It Was In The Beginning (London: Cape, 1939) [play]

The Alban Goes Out (Harrow, Middlesex: Raven Press, 1939) [poetry]

The Blood of the Martyrs (London: Constable, 1939; New York: McGraw-Hill, 1948) [novel]

The Kingdom of Heaven (London: Heinemann, 1939)

(ed. with Robert Britton and George Kilgour) Re-Educating Scotland (Glasgow: Scoop Books, 1944)

The Bull Calves (London: Cape, 1947) [novel]

(with Denis Macintosh) Men and Herring: A Documentary (Edinburgh: Serif, 1949)

The Big House (London: Faber & Faber, 1950) [short stories]

Spindrift. A play in three acts (London: Samuel French, 1951) [play]

Lobsters on the Agenda (London: Gollancz, 1952) [novel]

Travel Light (London: Faber & Faber, 1952) [novel]

Graeme and the Dragon, illustrated by Pauline Baynes (London: Faber & Faber, 1954) [children’s book]

The Swan's Road, illustrated by Leonard Huskinson (London: Naldrett Press, 1954) [children’s book]

To the Chapel Perilous (London: Allen & Unwin, 1955) [novel]

The Land the Ravens Found, illustrated by Brian Allderidge (London: Collins, 1955) [children’s book]

Little Boxes, illustrated by Louise Annand (London: Faber & Faber, 1956) [children’s book]

Behold Your King (London: Muller, 1957) [novel]

The Far Harbour, illustrated by Martin Thomas (London: Collins, 1957) [children’s book]

Five Men and a Swan: Short Stories and Poems (London: Allen & Unwin, 1958) [short stories]

Other People's Worlds (London: Secker & Warburg, 1958) [children’s book]

Judy and Lakshmi, illustrated by Avinash Chandra (London: Collins, 1959) [children’s book]

(with G. W. L. Patterson) A Fishing Village on the Clyde (London: Oxford University Press, 1960)

The Rib of the Green Umbrella, illustrated by Edward Ardizzone (London: Collins, 1960) [children’s book]

The Young Alexander the Great, illustrated by Betty Middleton-Sandford (London: Parrish, 1960; New York: Roy, 1961) [children’s book]

Karensgaard: The Story of a Danish Farm (London: Collins, 1961) [children’s book]

Presenting Other People’s Children (London: Paul Hamlyn, 1961)

Memoirs of a Spacewoman (London: Gollancz, 1962) [novel]

The Young Alfred the Great, illustrated by Shirley Farrow (London: Parrish, 1962; New York: Roy, 1963) [children’s book]

What the Human Race is up to (London: Victor Gollancz, 1962) (editor)

The Fairy Who Couldn't Tell a Lie, illustrated by Jane Paton (London: Collins, 1963) [children’s book]

Alexander the Great, illustrated by Rosemary Grimble (London: Longmans, Green, 1964) [children’s book]

Henny and Crispies (Wellington, New Zealand: Department of Education, 1964) [children’s book]

When We Become Men (London: Collins, 1965) [novel]

Ketse and the Chief, illustrated by Christine Bloomer (London: Nelson, 1965; New York: Nelson & Nashville, 1967) [children’s book]

A Mochudi Family, illustrated by Stephen John (Wellington, New Zealand: Department of Education, 1965) [children’s book]

Friends and Enemies, illustrated by Caroline Sassoon (London: Collins, 1966; New York: Day, 1968) [children’s book]

Return to the Fairy Hill (London: Heinemann, 1966; New York: Day, 1966)

Highland Holiday, photographs by John K. Wilkie (Wellington, New Zealand: Department of Education, 1967) [children’s book]

The Big Surprise (London: Kaye & Ward, 1967) [children’s book]

African Heroes, illustrated by William Stobbs (London: Bodley Head, 1968; New York: Farrar, Straus, 1969) [children’s book]

Don't Look Back, illustrated by Laszlo Acs (London: Kaye & Ward, 1969) [children’s book]

The Family at Ditlabeng, illustrated by Joanna Stubbs (London: Collins, 1969; New York: Farrar, Straus, 1970) [children’s book]

Sun and Moon, illustrated by Barry Wilkinson (London: Bodley Head, 1970; Nashville: Nelson, 1973) [children’s book]

The Africans: A History (London: Blond, 1970)

Cleopatra's People (London: Heinemann, 1972) [novel]

A Life for Africa: The Story of Bram Fischer (London: Merlin Press, 1973; Boston: Carrier Pigeon, 1973)

The Danish Teapot, illustrated by Patricia Frost (London: Kaye & Ward, 1973) [children’s book]

Small Talk: Memories of an Edwardian Childhood (London: Bodley Head, 1973)

Sunrise Tomorrow (London: Collins, 1973; New York: Farrar, Straus, 1973)

Oil for the Highlands? (London: Fabian Society, 1974)

All Change Here: Girlhood and Marriage (London: Bodley Head, 1975)

Sittlichkeit (London: Birkbeck College, 1975) [children’s book]

Solution Three (London: Dobson, 1975; New York: Warner, 1975) [novel]

Snake!, illustrated by Polly Loxton (London: Collins, 1976) [children’s book]

The Little Sister, with works by Ian Kirby and Keetla Masogo, illustrated by Angela Marrow (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1976) [children’s book]

(with Megan Biesele) The Wild Dogs, illustrated by Loxton (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1977) [children’s book]

The Brave Nurse and Other Stories, illustrated by Loxton (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1977) [children’s book]

The Cleansing of the Knife and Other Poems (Edinburgh: Canongate, 1978) [poetry]

(with Dick Mitchison) The Two Magicians, illustrated by Danuta Laskowska (London: Dobson, 1978) [children’s book]

You May Well Ask: A Memoir 1920-1940 (London: Gollancz, 1979)

Images of Africa (Edinburgh: Canongate, 1980) [short stories]

The Vegetable War, illustrated by Loxton (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1980) [children’s book]

Mucking Around: Five Continents Over Fifty Years (London: Gollancz, 1981)

What Do You Think Yourself? Scottish Short Stories (Edinburgh: Harris, 1982) [short stories]

Not By Bread Alone (London: Boyars, 1983) [novel]

Among You, Taking Notes: The Wartime Diary of Naomi Mitchison 1939-1945, ed. by Dorothy Sheridan (London: Gollancz, 1985)

Naomi Mitchison (Saltire Self-Portrait; Edinburgh: Saltire Society, 1986)

Early in Orcadia (Glasgow: Drew, 1987) [short stories]

A Girl Must Live: Stories and Poems (Glasgow: Drew, 1990) [short stories]

The Oath-takers (Narin: Balnain, 1991) [novel]

Sea-Green Ribbons (Narin: Balnain, 1991) [novel]

Example:

Naomi Mitchison, Mucking Around: Five Continents Over Fifty Years (London: Gollancz, 1981), 89-90, 101.

Date of birth:

01 Nov 1897

Content:

Mitchison describes her experience of visiting India.

Connections:

Joe Ackerley, Horace Alexander, W. H. Auden, Tom Baxter, Stella Benson, Henry Noel Brailsford, Jonathan Cape, Margaret Cole, Douglas Cole, Stafford Cripps, Krishna R. Dronamraju, Hugh Gaitskell, E. M. Forster, Victor Gollancz, Norman Haire, Graeme Haldane, J. B. S. Haldane, Tom Harrisson, Gerald Heard, Aldous Huxley, Julian Huxley, Storm Jameson, C. E. M. Joad, Andrew Lang, Harold Laski, Doris Lessing, Cecil Day Lewis, Wyndham Lewis, Bronislaw Malinowski, Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, Gilbert Murray, E. M. S. Namboodiripad, Jawaharlal Nehru, Gilbert Richard Mitchison, John Pilley, Horace Plunkett, Lady Rhondda, George Bernard Shaw, Stevie Smith, Olaf Stapledon, Dora Russell, Khushwant Singh, Osbert Sitwell, Dylan Thomas, Beatrice Webb, Rebecca West, Leonard Woolf.

Labour Party, World Peace Appeal (vice-chair).

Contributions to periodicals:

Left Review

Liberal Woman’s News

New Republic

New Statesman

Spectator

Journal of Modern African Studies

Modern Scot

Scots Magazine

Time and Tide

Twentieth Century

Woman’s Leader

Time and Tide (‘Anna and the Apes’, 19 July 1930) [review of The Apes of God by Wyndham Lewis]

Nash’s Pall Mall Magazine (‘Forty Years of Aldous Huxley’, 93.491, 1934)

Spectator (‘What does a Socialist woman do?’, 156.5616, 14 February 1936)

Current History (‘Leaders of British Labour’, 44.1, 1936)

Pakistan Horizon (‘Socialist Britain’, 4.1, 1951)

New Statesman and Nation (‘Banned Bodies’, 45, 7 March 1953)

Manchester Guardian (‘Sitting for Wyndham Lewis’, 9 July 1956)

New Statesman (‘India from Inside’, 56.1443, 8 Nov 1958) [review of Taya Zinkin, India Changes]

Listener (‘Free Fun in New Delhi’ 60.1546, 13 November 1958)

Cairo Studies in English (‘On Writing Historical Novels’, 1960)

The Glasgow Herald (‘Passages to India’, 8 June 1961) [reviews of Ved Mehta, Walking the Indian Streets; Peter Schmid, India: Mirage and Reality; Selig Harrison (ed.), India and the United States]

Harper’s Magazine (‘A Scottish Mother for an African Tribe’, 233.1396, 1966)

Community Development Journal (‘What community development is not’, 5, January 1967)

Shenandoah (‘Young Auden’, 18.2, 1967)

Reviews:

Charques, R. D., TLS, 28 April 1935, p. 270 (We have been Warned)

Wintringham, Thomas Hardy, Left Review, June 1935, pp. 381-3 (We have been Warned)

Sparrow, John, Spectator, 7 February 1936, pp. 209-210 (We have been Warned)

The Hindu (Madras), 9 August 1959 (Judy and Lakshmi)

Extract:

In the laboratory there were visitors from other countries. Once it was Ho Chi Minh, and Professor Mahalanobis insisted on marshalling us in lines to be shaken hands with. This displeased my brother; he and a Russian colleague – could it have been Oparin? – and Helen and I all went for a walk through the grounds instead of standing in line and met Ho Chi Minh with less formality later…
India and all its memories: one especially remains. I had walked round the garden of the Prime Minister’s house with Jawaharlal Nehru. We had I suppose talked politics, though simply being with him was always great happiness in itself. Then we went to see his pandas. He bent over stroking them; I tried to do the same but they didn’t like me. ‘Wait’, he said, and spoke to them. Then it was all right; I was properly introduced and allowed to touch. One of them had recently had a night out, ‘and had’, he said, I thought approvingly, ‘bitten a policeman’.

Secondary works:

Benton, Jill, Naomi Mitchison: A Biography (London: Pandora Press, 1990)

Calder, Jennu, The Nine Lives of Naomi Mitchison (London: Virago, 1997)

Joannou, Maroula, ‘Naomi Mitchison at One Hundred’, Women: A Cultural Review 9.3 (Autumn 1998), pp. 292-304

Leavis, Q. D., ‘Lady novelists and the lower orders’, Scrutiny 4.2 (Sept 1935), pp. 112–32

Montefiore, Jan, Men and Women Writers of the 1930s (London and New York: Routledge, 1996)

Relevance:

In 1958, Mitchison visited her brother, J. B. S. Haldane, who was working in the Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta. Haldane was a committed communist, and Mitchison witnesses international networks which her brother was creating in India. Mitchison does not specify in which year she visited Nehru, but the extract gives an interesting insight into her relationship with, and admiration of Nehru.

Archive source:

Lady Naomi Mitchison, Botswana papers, diaries and writings, Borthwick Institute of Historical Research,York University

Correspondence, diaries, literary manuscripts, family papers, Manuscript Collections, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh

Letters from E. M. Forster to Naomi Mitchison and Mitchison’s Memoir, Papers of Edward Morgan Forster, King’s College Archive Centre, Cambridge

Correspondence and literary papers, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center Library, University of Texas, Austin

Correspondence with Bodley Head, University of Reading Library, Reading

Correspondence and literary papers, Buffalo State College, Buffalo,State University of New York

Naomi Mitchison Papers 1909-1979, Archive Collections, Columbia University Library, New York

1914-45: Correspondence, Imperial War Museum Department of Documents, London

Papers relating to Botswana (1964-74), SOAS, London

Letters to the Manchester Guardian (1949-54), John Rylands Library, University of Manchester

Correspondence and papers relating to visit to Australia, University of Melbourne, Australia

Letters to Olaf Stapledon (1936-50), Special Collections and Archives, Liverpool Unviersity

Correspondence with Julian Huxley, Julian Huxley Papers 1899-1980, Fondren Library, Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA

City of birth:

Edinburgh

Country of birth:

Scotland

Other names:

Naomi Margaret (Haldane) Mitchison

Date of death:

11 Jan 1999

Location of death:

Carradale, Scotland

Location:

River Court House, Mall Road, Hammersmith, London (1923-39)

Carradale in Kintyre (1939-99)

Tags for Making Britain:

literature

political activism

Indian independence movement

Sajjad Zaheer

About:

Born in a small village just outside Lucknow, northern India, Sajjad Zaheer remains one of the most prominent and iconic literary and political voices in South Asia and beyond. Zaheer was one of four sons in a privileged family. His father was Sir Wazir Hussain, a notable judge and Chief Justice of the Oudh Court. After completing his studies in politics and law at the University of Lucknow, Zaheer travelled to the UK to enrol at the University of Oxford. Initially, this was a course mapped out for him by his father, who wanted his son to become a barrister. However, Zaheer’s eight year sojourn in the colonial heartland would prove to be a defining moment in shaping his political sensibilities and the alternative path he would follow on his return to India.

Once he had reached Britain, the struggles against colonial rule in his homeland were thrown into sharp focus for Zaheer. His response was similar to that of his contemporary, Mulk Raj Anand. Together, these pre-independence diasporic intellectuals developed a keen appreciation of the urgent need for emancipation in their country. Formative to this was the presence of a South Asian community already vocalizing its concerns in the metropolitan capital. This included figures like Shyamaji Krishnavarma and V. D. Savarkar who played a leading role in the Ghadar Party. The injustices of colonial rule became apparent to Zaheer, as did the need to challenge the status quo through a marked socialist political activism. He established links with the Communist Party of Great Britain and was one of its first South Asian members. During his time in Britain Zaheer also became editor in chief of the periodical Bharat. This was a journal of socialist politics headed by South Asian students at Oxford and concerned with the struggle for independence and the plight of the poor in India. In the literary arena, he and Anand had several encounters with members of the Bloomsbury Group, and were deeply influenced by the modernist literary movement, if not its politics. Zaheer and Anand’s attendance of the International Congress for the Defence of Culture in Paris in 1935, organized by some of the most prominent names in the European artistic and literary landscape, was also a key influence. The previous year, Zaheer and Anand had laid the foundations for the All-India Progressive Writers’ Association at a gathering in a London restaurant where they drafted the manifesto. The organization sought to marry the political and social with the literary, and held numerous meetings in London where students and aspiring writers discussed articles and stories. Zaheer also began his novella, London Ki Ek Raat (‘A Night in London’, 1938) when in London, completing it on his return to India.

Zaheer left London for India via Paris in 1935. Once in India, he continued to develop the organization, which held its official inaugural meeting in Lucknow from 9 to 10 April 1936, with the writer Premchand presiding. The group published several texts inspired by Marxist, oppositional and subversive politics, including a translation of Tagore’s Gora (‘White Man’), and Zaheer’s own anthology of progressive Urdu literature, Roshnai (‘Light’). After partition, Zaheer left for Pakistan, and continued to be an active socialist campaigner in his country’s tumultuous political landscape. This saw him jailed at various points throughout his life. His continued commitment to express the political through literature resulted in the creation of the Afro-Asian Writers’ Association. It was en route to a conference arranged by this organization in Kazakhstan that Zaheer suffered a massive heart attack which ended his life.

Published works:

‘Jannat Ki Basharrat’ (‘A Feel For Heaven’), in Khalid Alvi (ed.) Angare: An Anthology (New Delhi: Educational Publishing House, [1932] 1995)

London Ki Ek Raat (‘A Night in London’) (1938)

A Case for Congress League Unity (Bombay: People’s Publishing House, 1944)

Roshnai (‘Light’) (1959)

‘Reminiscences’, in S. Pradhan (ed.) Marxist Cultural Movement in India, Vol. 1 (Calcutta: National Book Agency, 1979)

The Light: a History of the Movement for Progressive Literature in the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent, trans. by Sibte Hassan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)

Date of birth:

05 Nov 1905

Connections:

Mulk Raj Anand, Ahmed Ali, Kaifi Azmi, Suniti Kumar Chatterji, Rajani Palme Dutt, Salmi Murrik (Dutt’s wife and representative of the Communist International Party in Britain), Faiz Ahmed Faiz (eminent Pakistani poet who found sympathy with Zaheer’s socialist literary imperative), E. M. Forster, Ralph Fox, Jyotirmaya Ghosh, Attia Hosain, Sardar Jafri, Rashad Jahan, Mahmudeezzafar, Hiren Mukherjee, Premchand, Amrit Rai, Iqbal Singh, Taseer, Razia Sajjad Zaheer (wife and fellow dramatist, author and political activist).

Afro-Asian Writers’ Association, Communist Party of Great Britain.

Secondary works:

Anand, Mulk Raj, ‘On the Progressive Writers’ Movement’, in S. Pradhan (ed.) Marxist Cultural Movement in India, Vol. 1 (Calcutta: National Book Agency, 1979)

Bose, Hiran K., ‘Sajjad Zaheer: The Voice of the Common Man’, Chowk [http://www.chowk.com/articles/10111]

Coppola, Carlo, ‘The All-India Progressive Writers Association: The European Phase’, in Coppola (ed.) Marxist Influences and South Asian Literature, Vol. 1 (Winter 1974) Asian Studies Center, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, pp. 1-34

Gopal, Priyamvida, Literary Radicalism in India: Gender, Nation and the Transition to Independence (New York: Routledge, 2006)

Involved in events:

Meetings of Bharat

Meetings of the Indian National Congress

Meetings of the Communist Party of Great Britain

Founding meeting of the Progressive Writers’ Association, Nanking Restaurant, London, 24 November 1934

International Congress for the Defence of Culture, Paris, 21-6 June 1935

City of birth:

Golaganj, Lucknow

Country of birth:

India

Date of death:

13 Sep 1973

Location of death:

Alma Ata, Kazakhstan

Date of 1st arrival in Britain:

01 Dec 1927

Precise 1st arrival date unknown:

Dates of time spent in Britain:

1927-35

Location:

Oxford, London.

Tags for Making Britain:

Indian independence movement

T. Subasinghe

About:

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

Connections:

Krishna Menon, George Padmore, S. A. Wickremasinghe.

Location

Manchester, M3 5LH

United Kingdom

53° 28' 55.5132" N, 2° 15' 32.6952" W

See map: Google Maps

Tags for Making Britain:

India League

Indian independence movement

Swaraj House

About:

Swaraj House was formed in 1942 as a break-away group from the Committee of Indian Congressmen in Great Britain because of the pro-Japanese stance of A. N. Bose and P. B. Seal. The purpose of the organization was to provide a space where Indians would be able to meet freely and exchange frankly political ideas. It offered its premises to all Indians, in particular students, professionals, businessmen, workers, and seamen.

Swaraj House offered its members a reading room with newspapers from India and Britain as well as a library on India. It actively organized lectures, discussions and study circles on India and international affairs. It offered accommodation to Indian groups and organizations who needed it. It was financed through private donations and subscriptions. Swaraj House would also organize English classes for Indians as well as Hindustani lessons for those interested in learning the language. By 1945 it had a membership of seventy seven people; its influence had grown more in proprotion to its growth in membership. The organization was hampered by not having good Parliamentary contacts and it entered into a bitter rivalry with other Indian organizations in Britain to speak offically on behalf of the Indian National Congress. Swaraj House campaigned actively in India in support of the Indian National Congress and its leadership. Its other purpose was to look after the welfare of the Indian community in Britain, while also providing a central meeting place for Indians in London.

In 1943, Swaraj House made arrangements to stage a 'satyagraha' movement in London, to organize groups of around thirty Indian protesters to picket Whitehall and the Houses of Parliament to demand the release of Gandhi and othe Congress leaders. Swaraj House attempted to recruit 150 Indian workers from the Midlands, but the event was not realized as the organization could not secure sufficient support there and because Krishna Menon refused to endorse it. It tried to raise awareness of the famine in India in 1943, organizing a joint meeting with the Hindustani Social Club on 21 November 1943. It also campaigned actively for the release of Suresh Vaidya, one of its secretaries, after he refused to obey a military call-up notice in January 1944; the issue was subsequently taken up by the Independent Labour Party and its subsidiary organization the Indian Freedom Campaign. He was released in mid 1944.

In August 1946, Swaraj House purchased New Vision, the organ of the Independent Labour Party from Fenner Brockway, its former editor. The first issue appeared in October 1946 as India: A Nationalist Review of India Affairs, edited by N. Gangulee.

There were clear rivalries between the India League and Swaraj House. In 1946, Swaraj House was asked by Congress and Nehru to align itself more closely with the India League because of its political clout and close connections with British MPs. In a letter to the Secretary of the Organization, Nehru stated that Congress did not wish to be represented by Swaraj House in Britain, but by the India League. In late 1946, Krishna Menon pressed for the dissolution of Swaraj House as the India League was the offical representation of Congress in the UK. The organization also faced serious financial difficulties at the time and also had to confront serious in-fighting. Financial difficulties also arose with the publication of the first issue of India as many advertisers had not paid up. By mid 1947, the organization's importance was rapidly declining.

Example:

L/PJ/12/658, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Secondary works:

Owen, Nicholas, The British Left and India: Metropolitan Anti-Imperialism, 1885-1947 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)

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

Content:

This is an excerpt from the cyclostyled statement setting out the purpose of the organization:

Date began:

25 Nov 1942

Extract:

For a long time now Indians in this country have been in need of a central place where they can meet freely. This is especially true of poltically-minded Indians who cherish the freedom of our country and are supporters of the Indian NAtioanl Congress.

The SWARAJ HOUSE has been openend to meet this urgent and long standing need. It offers its premises to all Indians - students, professional men, business men, workers, seamen and others, and it is hoped that they will take full advantage of the facilities it offers.

...

The Swaraj House is a public institution of Indians in this country and is conducted democratically. It derives its finances from donations and subscriptions.

Key Individuals' Details:

Advisory Council: Tayab Ali, Surat Alley, Rashid Anwar, Dr A. C. Bannerji, Dr D. N. Dutt, Dr N. Gangulee, Professor J. C. Ghosh, Islam-Ul-Haq, Dr A. V. R. Menon, Dr Koba, Babu Rao, Dr S. Sinha, C. B. Vakli (treasurer), Dr S. B. Warden.

Standing Committee: Rafique Anwar, P. K. Basu (Bose), Tarpur Basu, Homi Bode, H. K. Das Gupta, Jabol Hoque, Dr K. D. Kumria, N. Datta Majumdar, S. P. Mitra, Iqbal G. P. Singh, Suresh Vaidya (Secretary).

Connections:

Surat Alley, A. V. Angadi, Raffi Anwar, Rashid Anwar, A. C. Bannerji, P. K. Basu, Fenner Bockway, Mrs. Haidri Bhuttacharji, Tarapur Bose, Kamal Athon Chunchie, Mayahud Din (secretary of Swaraj House 1944), J. C. Ghosh (professor of Bengali at Oxford), Sudhil Gosh, Dr H. K. Handoo, Jabol Hoque (Bengal India Restaurant), Islam-ul-Huq, Suleman Jeth (a curry powder merchant), I. T. A. Wallace Johnson (Sierra Leonean black activist), Mohamed Ali Khan, Manohar Govind Kore (technical inspector in the Ministry of Supply), Dr K. D. Kumria, N. Datta Mazumdar, Tirath Ram Mehra, S. P. Mitra, George Padmore, David J. Pinto, K. C. Sarkar, Iqbal G. P. Singh (worked in civil defence), Marha Sinha, Sasadhar Sinha, V. S. Sastrya (secretary of the Indian Workers Union, Birmingham), Stanley De Soyza, Alagu Subramaniam, D. V. Thamankar, S. Telkar, Mrs. Vaidya, Suresh Vaidya, Dr C. B. Vakil, Lal C. Wadhwa.

Archive source:

L/PJ/12/646, L/PJ/12/658, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Location

32 Percy Street

London, W1T 2DE

United Kingdom

See map: Google Maps

Tags for Making Britain:

Committee of Indian Congressmen

political activism

Chaudhri Akbar Ali Khan

Indian independence movement

Leonard Matters

About:

Leonard W. Matters was a Labour MP and freelance journalist. He accompanied Krishna Menon, Monica Whately and Ellen Wilkinson on the India League's Mission to India in 1932. Their findings were published in 1933 under the title Conditions of India. He was also a contributor to India Bulletin.

Published works:

Whatley, Monica, et. al., Condition of India: Being the Report of the Delegation sent to India by the India League in 1932 (London: Essential News, 1933)

Date of birth:

01 Jan 1881

Connections:

Krishna Menon, Monica Whately, Ellen Wilkinson.

Precise DOB unknown:

Secondary works:

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

Date of death:

01 Jan 1951

Precise date of death unknown:

Tags for Making Britain:

India League

political activism

Indian independence

Indian independence movement

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

Connections:

Stafford Cripps, Rajani Palme Dutt, Leonard Matters, Krishna Menon, Jawaharlal Nehru, Paul Robeson, Monica Whately.

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

Tags for Making Britain:

politician

political activism

Labour Party

Indian independence movement

Stafford Cripps

About:

Stafford Cripps was born in 1889 in London to Charles Alfred Cripps and his wife Theresa. His father was a Conservative MP and later a Labour cabinet minister.

After turning down a scholarship to New College, Oxford, in 1907 he studied for an MSc degree at University College, London. In 1911, he married Isobel Cripps (née Swithinbank), whom he had met a year earlier when helping out with his father's campaign. When war broke out in 1914, Cripps, still recovering from a breakdown, did not join the forces. Instead, he became a lorry driver for the Red Cross. In 1929, Cripps joined the Labour Party and became a minister in Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government the year after. His campaign to become an MP was supported by Sukhsagar Datta. In 1933 he became chairman of the Socialist League, which he dissolved in 1937. Cripps was also heavily involved with the Left Book Club.

At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Cripps went on a tour of India, China, Russia and the United States. Cripps' first visit to India was intended to explore the possibility of self-government; he was warmly received by Jawaharlal Nehru. After India he went to China where he befriended Chiang Kai-shek, then he went to Russia where he met Foreign Minister Molotov. From June 1940 to January 1942 he served as the British Ambassador to the Soviet Union. Cripps succeeded in bringing Russia and Britain together as allies during the war, and consequently, in February 1942, Churchill brought Cripps into the government as Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons. Only a month later, on 22 March, Cripps would fly to Delhi on the so-called Cripps Mission, which was intended to secure Indian self-government after the war in return for support in the British war effort. The Cripps Mission failed and the Indian National Congress and the British Government became further estranged. The failure of the mission was the catalyst for Gandhi to launch the Quit India movement in August 1942. After his return to Britain, Cripps' status within the Government had diminished and in the autumn of that year he resigned from the War Cabinet and took up the post of Minister of Aircraft Production.

After Clement Attlee's Labour victory in 1945, Cripps remained interested in the question of Indian independence, and from March to June 1946 Cripps travelled to India for the third time, along with Secretary of State, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, and Lord of the Admiralty, A. V. Alexander. The Cabinet Mission's offer of a three-tier structure was accepted by Jinnah and the Muslim League but Gandhi and the Congress turned it down. Cripps realized that the future government of India lay in the hands of the Indian leaders. By the end of 1946, at the behest of Cripps, Attlee appointed Lord Mountbatten the last Viceroy of India and set a date for British withdrawal. This paved the way to Independence and Partition in 1947.

In 1947, Cripps was appointed Minister for Economic Affairs but took over the post of Chancellor of Exchequer six weeks later. He fought hard to restore the British economy in the post-war years. At this point, Cripps was also seriously ill and was reconvalescing at the Bircher Benner clinic in Zürich. Cripps resigned as Chancellor and as MP on 20 October 1950 on grounds of ill health. He died at the Bircher Benner Clinic on 21 April 1952.

Published works:

The Choice for Britain: Capitalism in Crisis, vol. 4 (London: Socialist League, 1934)

Why This Socialism? (London: Victor Gollancz, 1934)

'National' Fascism in Britain (London: Socialist League, 1935)

(with Michael Foot) The Struggle for Peace (London: Victor Gollancz, 1936)

(with James Maxton and Harry Pollitt), The Unity Campaign (London: National Unity Campaign Committee, 1937)

Empire (Speech Delivered at the Conference on Peace and Empire Organised by the India League and the London Federation of Peace Councils (London: India League, 1938)

Democracy Up-to-Date: Some Practical Suggestions for the Reorganization of the Politcal and Parliamentary System (London: Allen & Unwin, 1939)

The Petition: The Speech (London, 1939)

Shall the Spell be Broken? Rectorial Address the the University of Aberdeen Delivered on 6 February 1943 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1943)

Britain and Austria (London: Anglo-Austrian Democratic Society, 1945)

Towards Christian Democracy (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1945)

Democracy Alive: A Selection from Recent Speeches ([S. I.]: Sidgwich and Jackson, 1946)

The Church and the World Economic Crisis (Westminster: Industrial Christian Fellowship, 1948)

The Survival of Christianity (London: World's Evangelical Alliance, 1948)

God in Our Work Religious Addresses ([S. I.]: Thomas Nelson and sons, 1949)

The Spiritual Crisis: A Sermon Preached in St. Paul's Cathedral (London: A. R. Mowbray & Co, 1950)

Stafford Cripps in Moscow, 1940-1942: Diaries and Papers, ed. by Gabriel Gorodetsky (Edgware: Vallentine Mitchell, 2007)

Are You a Worker? Where the Middle Class Stands ([S. I.]: Labour Party, n.d.)

Can Socialism Come by Constitutional Methods? (The Socialist League, n.d.)

Parliamentary Institutions and the Transition to Socialism (n.d.)

The Ultimate Aims of the Labour Party (Labour Party, n.d.)

Date of birth:

24 Apr 1889

Connections:

Albert Alexander, Clement Attlee, Claude Auchinleck, Abul Kalam Azad, Barbara Castle, Winston Churchill, Sukhsagar Datta, Michael Foot, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Agatha Harrison, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Louis Johnson, Chiang Kai-shek, Harold Laski, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, Lord Linlithgow, Krishna Menon, Naomi Mitchison, Lord Mountbatten, Jawaharlal Nehru, George Padmore, Vallabhbhai Patel, Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, Paul Robeson, Lord Wavell, Lord Zetland.

Contributions to periodicals:

The Listener

Secondary works:

Addison, Christopher, Problems of a Socialist Government (London: Gollancz, 1933)

Baume, Eric, India! We Call on the People of Britain!! (London: India League, 1942)

Bryant, Christopher, Stafford Cripps: The First Modern Chancellor (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1997)

Burgess, Simon, Stafford Cripps: A Political Life (London: Gollancz, 1999)

Chatterji, Prashanto K., The Cripps Mission, 22 March-11 April 1942: An In-Depth Study (Kolkata: Minerva Associates, 2004)

Clarke, Peter, The Cripps Version: The Life of Sir Stafford Cripps (London: Allen Lane, 2002)

Clarke, Peter, and Toye, Richard, 'Cripps, Sir (Richard) Stafford (1889-1952)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/32630]

Cooke, Colin Arthur, The Life of Richard Stafford Cripps (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1957)

Coupland, Reginald, The Cripps Mission (London: Oxford University Press, 1942)

Economic Survey for 1947 (1947)

Estorick, Eric, Stafford Cripps: A Biography (London: William Heinemann, 1949)

Gorodetsky, Gabriel, Stafford Cripps' Mission to Moscow, 1940-42 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984)

Hall, Robert Lowe, The Robert Hall Diaries, 1947-1953, ed. by Alec Cairncross (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989)

Harrison, Agatha, and Bailey, George William, India, 1939-1942: A Summary of Events up to and Including the Cripps Mission (London: National Peace Council, 1942)

India League Executive Committee, India and the British Proposals (London: India League, 1942)

Labour Party Annual Conference Report (1935)

Mishra, B. K., The Cripps Mission: A Reappraisal (New Delhi: Concept Pub. Co., 1982)

Nehru, Jawaharlal, Jawaharlal Nehru on the Cripps Mission: An Authoritative Statement on the Breakdown of the Negotiations at New Delhi (London: India League, 1942)

Patel, Harbans, Cripps Mission: The Whole Truth (New Delhi: Indus Pub. Co., 1990)

Patil, V. T., Jawaharlal Nehru and the Cripps Mission (Delhi: BR Pub. Corp., 1984)

Singh, Bhim Sen, The Cripps Mission: A Handiwork of British Imperialism (New Delhi: Usha, 1979)

Strauss, Patricia, Cripps: Advocate and Rebel (London: Victor Gollancz, 1943)

Subrahmanyam, M., Why Cripps Failed, 2nd edn (New Delhi: Hindustan Times Press, 1943)

Tyler, Froom, Cripps: A Portrait and a Prospect (London: G. G. Harrap & Co., 1942)

Weigold, Auriol, Churchill, Roosevelt, and India: Propaganda during World War II (London: Routledge, 2008)

Archive source:

Private papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford

Private papers, Nuffield College, Oxford

CAB 127/57-154, Correspondence and papers, National Archives, Kew

Beatrice Webb Diary, Passfield MSS, British Library of Political and Economic Science, London School of Economics

Corespondence with Clement Attlee, Bodleian Library, Oxford

Correspondence with Lord Monckton, Bodleian Library, Oxford

Correspondence with Arthur Creech Jones, Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies, Rhodes House, Oxford

Correspondence with Bristol South East Labour Party and Its Secretary H. E. Rogers, Bristol Record Office

Correspondence with A. V. Alexander, Churchill College, Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge

Correspondence with Dame Caroline Haslett, Institution of Electrical Engineers, London

Correspondence with Sir B. H. Liddell Hart, Liddell Hart Centre, King's College, London

Correspondence with Huw T. Edwards, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth

Correspondence with Thomas Jones, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth

Correspondence with Lord Cherwell, Nuffield College, Oxford

Current affairs footage, British Film Institute, National Film and Television Archive, London

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

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

Propaganda film footage (Ministry of Information), British Film Institute, National Film and Television Archive, London

Actuality footage, Film and Video Archive, Imperial War Museum

Documentary footage, Film and Video Archive, Imperial War Museum

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

Current affairs recording, Sound Archive, British Library, St Pancras

15271, 'What Has Become of Us?', Channel 4, November 1994, Sound Archive, Imperial War Museum, London

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

Involved in events:

Cripps Mission

Indian Independence and Partition

City of birth:

London

Country of birth:

England

Other names:

Sir Richard Stafford Cripps

Date of death:

21 Apr 1952

Location of death:

Bircher Benner Clinic, Zurich, Switzerland

Tags for Making Britain:

politician

Second World War

Quit India

Indian National Congress

Cripps Mission

Indian independence

Indian independence movement

H. N. Brailsford

About:

Henry Noel Brailsford was a left-wing intellectual and political journalist, famous as a vociferous critic of British imperialism. Born in Yorkshire, he was brought up and educated in Scotland. After graduating from Glasgow University, he joined the Greek Foreign Legion in 1897 to assist the Greeks in their fight against the Ottoman Empire; he subsequently worked as a special correspondent for the Manchester Guardian in Crete and Macedonia.

In 1899, he moved to London, and worked as a leader-writer for a series of liberal newspapers, such as the Morning Leader, the Echo, the Tribune, the Daily News, Reynolds's News, New Statesman and Nation. In 1907 he joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP), and edited the ILP weekly, the New Leader (1922-6). He came in contact with revolutionary Russians, including Lenin and Trotsky, and was a supporter of Soviet Russia in its early days.

In 1930, Brailsford visited India, and became a supporter of Indian independence. After his first tour of India he published his book Rebel India (1931). In 1943, Subject India was published as part of the Left Book Club monthly selection. He visited India again in 1945. He was an executive member and active supporter of Krishna Menon’s India League. He first met Gandhi during the Round Table Conference in London, and then during his second Indian trip. He co-wrote his biography Mahatma Gandhi (1949). He visited Jawaharlal Nehru in an Allahabad prison during his first visit to India, and on his second trip, was a house guest of Nehru and his daughter Indira.

Published works:

The Broom of the War-God: A Novel (London: William Heinemann, 1898)

Macedonia: Its Races and their Future (London: Methuen & Co., 1906)

Adventures in Prose. A Book of Essays (London: Herbert & Daniel, 1911)

The Fruits of our Russian Alliance (London : The Anglo-Russian Committee, 1912)

Shelley, Godwin, and their Circle (Home University Library; London: Williams & Norgate; New York: H. Holt & Co.,1913)

The War of Steel and Gold. A Study of the Armed Peace (London: G. Bell & Sons, 1914)

A League of Nations (London: Headley Bros., 1917)

Across the Blockade. A Record of Travels in Enemy Europe (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1919)

After the Peace (London: Leonard Parsons, 1920)

The Russian Workers’ Republic (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1921)

Socialism for To-day (London: I.L.P. Publication Dept., 1925)

Olives of Endless Age: Being a Study of this Distracted World and its Need of Unity (London: Harper & Bros., 1928)

How the Soviets Work (New York: Vanguard Press, 1928)

Rebel India (London: Leonard Stein, 1931)

Property or Peace? (London: Victor Gollancz,1934)

Voltaire (Home University Library; London: Thornton Butterworth, 1935)

India in Chains (London: Socialist League, 1935)

Why Capitalism means War (London: Victor Gollancz, 1938)

Democracy for India (London: Fabian Society, 1939; Tract series. no. 248).

From England to America: A Message (New York and London: McGraw-Hill Book Co.,1940)

America Our Ally (London: Victor Gollancz, 1940)

Subject India (London: Victor Gollancz, 1943)

Our Settlement with Germany (Harmondsworth and New York: Penguin Books, 1944)

(with H. S. L. Polak and Lord Pethick-Lawrence) Mahatma Gandhi, foreword by Sarojini Naidu (London: Odhams Press, 1949)

The Levellers and the English Revolution (London: Cresset Press, 1961)

Example:

Nehru, Jawaharlal, A Bunch of Old Letters (London, Asia Publishing House, 1958), p. 173.

Date of birth:

25 Dec 1873

Content:

Extract from H. N. Brailsford’s letter to Jawaharlal Nehru, dated 8 March 1936

Connections:

Jane Esdon Brailsford, Jagadhis Bose, Subhas Bose, Stafford Cripps, Rajani Palme Dutt, Leonard Elmhirst, Michael Foot, E. M. Forster, Alfred George Gardiner, Indira Gandhi, M. K. Gandhi, G. T. Garratt, Victor Gollancz, J. B. S Haldane, J. A. Hobson, Clara Ellaline Hope Leighton, Christopher Hill, Julian Huxley, J. M. Keynes, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Allen Lane, Harold Laski, Kingsley Martin, Harold John Massingham, V. K. Krishna Menon, Naomi Mitchison, Gilbert Murray, Sarojini Naidu, Jawaharlal Nehru, H. W. Nevinson, H. S. L. Polak, S. K. Ratcliffe, William Rothenstein, C. P. Scott, George Bernard Shaw, John Strachey, Rabindranath Tagore, Edward Thompson, Leonard Woolf, Fredrick William, Jack Yeats, H. G. Wells.

Contributions to periodicals:

Speaker (‘The Origins of Imperialism’, 1 September 1900)

Speaker (‘India’s Burden’, 15 April 1905) [review of Romesh Dutt, India in the Victorian Age]

New Republic (‘The Vicious Circle of Nationality’ 8.98, 16 September 1916)

New Republic (‘Justice for India?’, 27 November 1929)

Aryan Path (‘The Permanent thing that is India’ 3.9, September 1932)

New Republic (‘MacDonald and Gandhi’ 62.806, 14 May 1930)

Nation and Athenaeum (‘The Economic Background in India’ 48.10, 6 Dec 1930)

New Republic (‘Can Indians Govern India?’ 65.839, 31 December 1930)

New Statesman and Nation (‘The Dancing Girl of Sind’ 1.15, 6 June 1931)

New Statesman and Nation (‘The Future of the Indian Worker’ 2.19, 4 July 1931)

New Republic (‘Gandhi and the Future of India’ 68.881, 21 October 1931)

Aryan Path (‘The Permanent Thing That is India’ 3.9, September 1932)

The World Tomorrow (‘India wins Unity’ 15.24, Dec 1932)

The World Tomorrow (‘The India Drama’ 16.4, Jan 1933)

Aryan Path (‘Morality and the Social Structure’ 7.4, April 1936)

New Statesman and Nation (‘The life of an Indian Leader’ 11.272, 9 May 1936)

New Statesman and Nation (‘Rebel India’ 13.320, 10 April 1937)

Aryan Path (‘Educating and Organizing For Peace: Community of Blood or of Thought’ 10.1, January 1939)

New Statesman and Nation (‘Indians on India’ 20.496, 24 August 1940) [review of R. Palme Dutt, India To-day and K. S. Shelvankar, The Indian Problem]

New Statesman and Nation (‘What Happened at Delhi?’ 23.586, 16 May 1942)

India Quarterly (‘The International Outlook’ 2.2, May 1946).

Contemporary Jewish Record (‘Solution for Palestine: A British View’ 1, 1945/1946)

New Statesman and Nation (‘The Indian Settlement’ 31.796, 25 May 1946)

New Statesman and Nation (‘How to Quit India’ 33.834, 15 February 1947)

Contemporary Review (‘India: To-day and To-morrow’ 171, Jan-June 1947)

New Statesman and Nation (‘Shaws and the Fabians’ 46.1182, 31 October 1953) [review of C. E. M. Joad (ed), Shaw and Society]

Listener (‘Shaw on Himself’ 41.1056, 21 April 1949)

New Statesman and Nation (‘Tribute to Shaw’ 40.1028, 18 November 1950)

Reviews:

Rabindranath Tagore, Modern Review 53, January 1933, pp. 2-3 (Rebel India)

Maurice T. Price, American Journal of Sociology 41.1, July 1935, pp. 114-15 (Rebel India)

Taraknath Das, Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science 233, May 1944, pp. 219-21 (Subject India)

George Matthew Dutcher, Far Eastern Quarterly 3.3, May 1944, pp. 284-6 (Subject India)

Extract:

You must have dreaded this blow, I suppose for many a month, yet always hoping that Nature would work a miracle. Now it has fallen, I fear that all your long period of anxiety may have sapped your strength to confront it. Your friends can say nothing to lessen your loss. Indeed, we who had met her, though it was in my case only for a moment, can only confirm your distress, for we knew what a fine and unusual woman your wife was. But may I say, if it is of any help to you, how deeply and sincerely we join with you in sympathy?

Don’t undervalue yourself in this hour of misery. India has great need of you – especially, personally, of you. For I think I know, more or less, the other possible leaders. No one has your courage, your mental power and above all, your vision of a humane classless society. Try to draw strength from the belief that history has named you to lead.

May I thank you for your courtesy in sending me your history? I shall read it with keen interest. I am touched that you remembered me.

Secondary works:

Leventhal, F. M., The Last Dissenter: H. N. Brailsford and his World (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985)

Martin, Kingsley, Editor: A Second Volume of Autobiography, 1931-45 (London: Hutchinson, 1968)

Relevance:

Brailsford’s condolence letter to Nehru, on hearing of the death of his wife Kamala Kaul Nehru on 28 February 1936, gives insight into Brailsford’s relationship with Nehru. At the end of the letter, Brailsford refers to Nehru’s Autobiography, which was soon to be published by the Bodley Head in April 1936.

Archive source:

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

Correspondence with Society of Authors and League of Dramatists, British Library, St Pancras

Letters to Millicent Fawcett (1911-12), Manchester Archives and Local Studies, Manchester,

Correspondence with the ILP (Independent Labour Party, London University), London School of Economics Library, Archives Division, London

Letters to Gilbert Murray, Bodleian Library, Special Collections and Western Manuscripts, Oxford University, Oxford

Letters to the Manchester Guardian (1897-1951), John Rylands Library, Guardian archives, Manchester University, Manchester

Correspondence with Sir BH Liddell Hart (1939-49), Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King's College, London

William Rothenstein Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University

BBC Sound archive (23 Aug 1956 about Gandhi)

Jawaharlal Nehru Papers, Nehru Memorial Library, New Delhi

City of birth:

Mirfield, Yorkshire

Country of birth:

England

Other names:

Henry Noel Brailsford

Date of death:

23 Mar 1958

Location of death:

London, England

Tags for Making Britain:

Indian independence movement

Bertrand Russell

About:

Bertrand Russell was a philosopher, journalist and political campaigner. From 1890 to 1893, Russell studied mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1914 he took up a visiting lectureship at Harvard University, where he befriended T. S. Eliot. Russell’s opposition to Britain’s participation in the First World War played a key role in his politicization. Russell supported the No-Conscription Fellowship, which led to his sacking from his lectureship at Cambridge.

In 1932, he became Chairman of the India League, presiding over meetings and regularly chairing India League events. He was heading the organization at the time of the India League’s delegation to India in the Autumn of 1932. He wrote the introduction to the delegation’s report published under the title The Condition of India. By 1938 Russell had moved away from political activism and back to philosophy and academic life, accepting a temporary lectureship in Chicago in 1938 and moving to the University of California in 1939. He remained in the United States for most of the Second World War. He returned to Britain in 1944 to take up a five-year fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1950. In 1958 he became one of the founders of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. He died in 1970.

Published works:

German Social Democracy (London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1896)

An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry (Cambridge: University Press, 1897)

The Principles of Mathematics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903)

Philosophical Essays (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1910)

(with Alfred North Whitehead) Principia Mathematica , 3 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910-13)

The Problems of Philosophy (London: Williams & Norgate, 1912)

Principles of Social Reconstruction (London: Allen & Unwin, 1916)

Justice in War-Time (Chicago: Open Court, 1916)

Political Ideals (New York: The Century Co., 1917)

Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (London: Allen & Unwin, 1917)

Proposed Roads to Freedom: Socialism, Anarchism, and Syndicalism (New York: Holt, 1919)

Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (London: Allen & Unwin, 1919)

The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (London: Allen & Unwin, 1920)

The Analysis of Mind (London: Allen & Unwin, 1921)

The Problem of China (London: Allen & Unwin, 1921)

(with Dora Russell) The Prospects of Industrial Civilization (London: Allen & Unwin, 1923)

The ABC of Relativity (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1925)

What I Believe (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1925)

On Education, Especially in Early Childhood (London: Allen & Unwin, 1926)

The Analysis of Matter (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1927)

An Outline of Philosophy (London: Allen & Unwin, 1927)

Why I Am Not a Christian (London: Watts, 1927)

Sceptical Essays (London: Allen & Unwin, 1928)

Marriage and Morals (London: Allen & Unwin, 1929)

The Conquest of Happiness (London: Allen & Unwin , 1930)

The Scientific Outlook (London: Allen & Unwin, 1931)

Education and the Social Order (London: Allen & Unwin, 1932)

Freedom and Organization, 1814–1914 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1934)

In Praise of Idleness (London: Allen & Unwin, 1935)

Religion and Science (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1935)

Which Way to Peace? (London: Jonathan Cape, 1936)

(with Patricia Russell) The Amberley Papers: The Letters and Diaries of Lord and Lady Amberley, 2 vols (London: Hogarth Press, 1937)

Power: A New Social Analysis (London: Allen & Unwin, 1938)

Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (London: Allen & Unwin, 1948)

Authority and the Individual (London: Allen & Unwin, 1949)

Unpopular Essays (London: Allen & Unwin, 1950)

New Hopes for a Changing World (London: Allen & Unwin, 1951)

The Impact of Science on Society (London: Allen & Unwin, 1952)

Satan in the Suburbs and Other Stories (London: Allen & Unwin, 1953)

Human Society in Ethics and Politics (London: Allen & Unwin, 1954)

Nightmares of Eminent Persons and Other Stories (London Allen & Unwin, 1954)

Portraits from Memory and Other Essays (London: Allen & Unwin, 1956)

Logic and Knowledge: Essays 1901–1950, ed. by Robert C. Marsh (London: Allen & Unwin, 1956)

Why I Am Not A Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects, ed. by Paul Edwards (London: Allen & Unwin, 1957)

Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare (London: Allen & Unwin, 1959)

My Philosophical Development (London: Allen & Unwin, 1959)

Wisdom of the West, ed. by Paul Foulkes(London: Macdonald, 1959)

Fact and Fiction (London: Allen & Unwin, 1961)

Has Man a Future? (London: Allen & Unwin, 1961)

Unarmed Victory (London: Allen & Unwin, 1963)

War Crimes in Vietnam (London: Allen & Unwin, 1967)

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, 3 vols. (London: Allen & Unwin, 1967-9)

Dear Bertrand Russell...A Selection of his Correspondence with the General Public 1950-1968, ed. by Barry Feinberg and Ronald Kasrils (London: Allen and Unwin, 1969)

Date of birth:

18 May 1872

Connections:

Horace Alexander, C. F. Andrews, H. N. Brailsford, Reginald Bridgeman, Fenner Brockway, Rajani Palme Dutt, Richard A. Harman, Agatha Harrison, G. Hicks, H. F. Horrabin, Atma S. Kamlani, Fred Landon, George Lansbury, Freda Laski, Harold Laski, D. H. Lawrence, James Marley, Leonard Matters, Krishna Menon, Syed Mohamedi, Mrs Brij Lal Nehru, S. L. Polak, A. A. Purcell, S. Radhakrishnan, Shapurji Saklatvala, Krishnarao Shelvankar, Wilfired Wellcock, Monica Whately, Tom Williams (MP), Ellen Wilkinson (MP).