politics

Savitri Devi Chowdhary

About: 

Having worked as a high school teacher in her native Punjab, Savitri Chowdhary arrived in Britain in 1932 after a four- or five-year separation from her husband, Dr Dharm Sheel Chowdhary, who had come to Britain for postgraduate medical studies and recently begun work at a practice in the small Essex town of Laindon. On arrival, she found her husband had, to a large extent, adapted to English life and encouraged her to do the same. Shedding her saris for dresses and cutting her hair short, Chowdhary sought to fulfil the role of a doctor’s wife in an English town and to immerse herself in community life.

However, she also remained in touch with her Indian self, wearing saris for evening engagements, cooking curry at home, and socializing with the middle-class Indian community in London. Not only did she and her husband help establish early British Hindu organizations such as the Hindu Association of Europe and the Hindu Centre, but Savitry Chowdhary, on the encouragement of an English friend, Miss Cresswell, also became involved with the India League, attending – and occasionally speaking at – political meetings in London.

In the early 1950s Savitri Chowdhary published one of the earliest Indian cookery books with Andre Deutsch, subsequently giving talks on Indian cooking and even making television appearances to demonstrate her skills.

Published works: 

I Made My Home in England (Laindon: Grant-Best Ltd, nd)

Indian Cookery (London: Andre Deutsch, 1954)

In Memory of My Beloved Husband (Laindon: Grant-Best Ltd, nd)

Example: 

Chowdhary, Savitri, I Made My Home in England (Laindon: Grant-Best Ltd, nd), pp. 7, 9, 65

Content: 

In her memoir, Savitri Chowdhary recounts her experiences of migration to and settlement in Britain in the 1930s. She describes her adaptation to the role of a doctor’s wife, and then to that of a mother, in the rural Essex town of Laindon, and the ways in which she balanced Indian cultural practices with English provincial life. Her involvement with the Indian community in London, and participation in V. K. Krishna Menon’s India League, is also documented, as are the effects of the Second World War on the local community. Finally, she recounts her first return trip to India thirteen years after migration.

Connections: 

Dharm Sheel Chowdhary, Sir Learie Constantine, Agatha Harrison (involvement with India League), Krishna Menon (involvement with India League, both visited India Club), Paul Robeson (visited India Club).

Extract: 

[Sheel] had mostly mixed with the English people, got accustomed to their way of life…He liked the various styles of dresses worn by the British ladies and the bobbed hair seemed to have a great appeal to him…I kept my beautiful saris for wearing on our days off, when we went to London to see our Indian friends and for evening wear in Laindon. After I got over the initial strangeness of English dress, I found I could move about and work more freely in that than in a sari. After a little hesitation, I consented to have my hair cut short as well. So now I was all ready to get down to my duties’ (pp. 7, 9)

It wasn’t easy to belong to two countries…Was it possible, or even wise for a person like myself, who had been born and brought up in India, a country which had its own strong culture and traditions, to get completely absorbed in this country…? (p. 65)

Secondary works: 

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

Relevance: 

These extracts, and the memoir in general, are interesting for what they reveal about one early migrant’s response to issues of integration and assimilation. Savitri Chowdhary appears to balance a desire to adapt to normative British culture (and to please her husband who clearly wishes her to do this) with a keen recognition of the importance of maintaining Hindu Indian cultural practices and traditions. Ultimately, despite her self-conscious westernization, she doesn’t seem to perceive a contradiction in belonging to two countries or cultures.

Involved in events: 

 

Celebration of Indian Independence at the Albert Hall, 1947

 

India League meetings

City of birth: 
Multan
Country of birth: 
India
Current name country of birth: 
Pakistan

Location

Laindon, SS15 6ET
United Kingdom
51° 34' 31.3176" N, 0° 25' 20.0028" E
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Jan 1932
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1932 until death

Iqbal Singh

About: 

Iqbal Singh was a Punjabi author, journalist and broadcaster. Fearing that their son would become radicalized by the political climate of the Punjab in the 1920s and 1930s, his parents sent him to England and France to complete his education. In London, however, he became involved with a group of politically active writers and intellectuals, including Mulk Raj Anand, Sasadhar Sinha and Krishnarao Shelvankar. With Sinha, Shelvankar and the Ceylonese writer Alagu Subramaniam, he founded the magazine Indian Writing which combined literature with politics and was based at the Bibliophile Bookshop. Indian Political Intelligence surveillance files place him at several meetings of the Progressive Writers’ Association, and he contributed a short story to the first (and probably only) edition of their magazine New Indian Literature. He also attended numerous India League meetings, where he associated with British political figures of the left such as Reginald Bridgeman and Ben Bradley, as well as his fellow Indian writers and activists.

Singh published his first book, Gautama Buddha, an analysis of the Buddha’s life, in 1927 when in his early twenties. It shows the influence on him of European writers such as Shakespeare and Baudelaire, as well as Indian writers. In addition to short fiction, he wrote essays on Indian literature, art, history and politics which he contributed to a number of magazines. He published a book on the poet-philosopher Mohammad Iqbal, and co-edited an anthology of short stories by Indian writers with Mulk Raj Anand, and a collection of socio-political essays on India on the cusp of independence with Raja Rao. It is uncertain exactly when he returned to India. Once there, he continued to work as a journalist and writer, as well as a broadcaster.

Published works: 

Gautama Buddha (London: Boriswood, 1937)

(ed. with Raja Rao) Changing India (London: Allen & Unwin, 1939)

(ed. with Mulk Raj Anand) Indian Short Stories (London: New India Publishing Company, 1946)

(ed. with Raja Rao) Whither India? (Baroda: Padmaja Publications, 1948)

The Ardent Pilgrim: An Introduction to the Life and Works of Mohammed Iqbal (London: Longmans, 1951)

Rammohun Roy: A Biographical Inquiry into the Making of Modern India (London: Asia Publishing House, 1958)

Date of birth: 
28 Sep 1912
Connections: 

Surat Alley, Mulk Raj Anand, Ben Bradley, Reginald Bridgeman, D. P. Chaudhuri, D. N. Dutt, Mrs Dutt, P. N. Haksar, Sunder Kabadia, Narayana Menon, V. K. Krishna Menon, Syedi Mohamedi, Raja Rao, K. S. Shelvankar, Sasadhar Sinha, Alagu Subramaniam, Sajjad Zaheer.

London Indian Majlis

Contributions to periodicals: 

Indian Writing

Life and Letters (‘India: A Contemporary Perspective’, 21.20, 1939; ‘Indian Art: Perspective for a Revaluation’, 28.42, 1941; ‘Tagore: A Determination’, 32.55, 1942)

New Indian Literature (‘When One Is In It’, 1, 1936)

Reviews: 

Mulk Raj Anand, Life and Letters 18.11 (1938), pp. 178-80 (Gautama Buddha)

Archive source: 

L/PJ/12/450, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

L/PJ/12/453, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

L/PJ/12/499, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Involved in events: 

Meetings of the India League and the Progressive Writers’ Association

City of birth: 
Abottabad
Country of birth: 
India
Current name country of birth: 
Pakistan
Date of death: 
01 Jan 2001
Precise date of death unknown: 
Y
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1936-41 at least

India House

About: 

Not to be confused with the offices of the Indian Embassy in Aldwych, India House was set up as a hostel for Indian students and became a hotbed for Indian revolutionaries in Europe. The House was opened on 1 July 1905 by H. M. Hyndman in Highgate. Other prominent figures present at the opening included Dadabhai Naoroji, Charlotte Despard and Bhikaji Cama. The Indian Home Rule Society held weekly Sunday meetings at India House, passing resolutions condemning arrests in India and advocating total independence for India. They held Annual Martyrs’ Day celebrations to commemorate the 1857 Rebellion.

Founded by Shyamaji Krishnavarma, leadership was taken up by V. D. Savarkar in 1907 as Krishnavarma was exiled to Paris. Krishnavarma's journal, The Indian Sociologist, was an organ of India House. The organization disbanded after its implication in the murder of Sir Curzon Wyllie in July 1909. The assassin, Madan Lal Dhingra, had been known to frequent India House and Savarkar refused to condemn his actions. Following their arrests, India House was closed down and sold.

Published works: 

The Indian Sociologist, journal edited by Krishnavarma (1905-14 and 1920-2)

Savarkar’s Indian War of Independence, translated from Marathi to English at India House and published in London in May 1909

Secondary works: 

Garnett, David, The Golden Echo (London: Chatto & Windus, 1953)

Ker, J. C., Political Troubles in India, 1907-1917 (Calcutta: Superintendent Govt Printing, 1917)

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 Press, 2002)

Date began: 
01 Jul 1905
Connections: 

Madame Cama, Lala Har Dayal, Charlotte Despard, Madan Lal Dhingra, M. K. Gandhi (stayed there on a visit in 1906), David Garnett, H. M. Hyndman, Dadabhai Naoroji.

Ghadr Party

Date ended: 
01 Jan 1909
Archive source: 

Metropolitan Police Report, File 3264 (2 Sep 1908), L/PJ/6/890, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Location

65 Cromwell Avenue Highgate
London, N6 5HH
United Kingdom
Involved in events details: 

Murder of Curzon Wyllie, July 1909

Sarojini Naidu

About: 

A student at King’s College, London, and Girton College, Cambridge in the early 1890s, and a writer of precocious if imitative verse, Naidu was feted in London in the 1900s as the poet of an exoticized India.

From a Bengali family based in Hyderabad, Naidu was sent to Britain in 1895 on the Nizam's scholarship on the strength of her poetry. She was then not married and known as Sarojini Chattopadhyaya. However, she had already embarked on a romantic relationship with Dr Govindarajalu Naidu, in Hyderabad, who had studied medicine at Edinburgh; her father, Aghorenath Chattopadhyaya had also been a student at Edinburgh University.

She became the ward of Elizabeth Manning, the Secretary of the National Indian Association, whose step-mother had been involved in the foundation of Girton College, Cambridge. Naidu was heavily influenced by the poets Edmund Gosse, Arthur Symons and W. B. Yeats. Particularly interesting accounts of her very early Europeanized work appear as the introductions to her second and third collections, by Arthur Symons, and Edmund Gosse respectively. Her poetry also appeared in the Savoy. Appearances and readings by Naidu in the 1900s were reported in the Indian Magazine.

Naidu returned to India in 1898, beset by ill-health, that dogged her throughout her life. She maintained correspondence with poets in Britain but also embarked on a political career. Her returns to Britain were marked by poetry readings and receptions, convalescence in British nursing homes, as well as political rallies and meetings. She joined the Indian National Congress in 1904 and was vocal about women's rights. She gave evidence in 1919 to a Select Committee in favour of the women's vote in India. She also had a public confrontation with Edwin Montagu over the Amritsar Massacre. Naidu had met M. K. Gandhi in London in 1914 and became very close to him. She accompanied him on the famous Dandi salt march and accompanied him to the Round Table Conference in 1931. Naidu was appointed Governer of United Provinces in 1947 and died in office in February 1949.

Published works: 

Songs (1895)

The Golden Threshold (William Heinemann, 1905)

The Bird of Time (William Heinemann, 1912)

The Broken Wing (1917).

Also nationalist speeches, for an extract see Susie Tharu and K. Lalita, Women Writing in India, Vol. 1 (1991)

Date of birth: 
13 Feb 1879
Contributions to periodicals: 

Journal of the National Indian Association / Indian Magazine and Review

The Modern Review

'Eastern Dancers', Savoy (1896)

Reviews: 

The Academy

The Athenaeum

The Bookman

Manchester Guardian

Observer

Saturday Review

The Speaker

Secondary works: 

Boehmer, Elleke, ‘East is East’ in Stories of Women: Gender and Nationalism in the Postcolonial Nation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), pp. 158-171

Banerjee, Hasi, Sarojini Naidu: The Traditional Feminist (Calcutta: K. P. Baghci & Co., 1998)

Baig, Tara Ali, Sarojini Naidu (New Delhi: Government of India, 1974)

Paranjape, Makarand (ed.), Sarojini Naidu: Selected Letters 1890s to 1940s (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1996)

Raychaudhuri, Tapan, ‘Naidu , Sarojini (1879–1949)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2010) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/47743]

Sengupta, Padmini, Sarojini Naidu: A Biography (Delhi: Asia Publishing House, 1966)

Sturgeon, Mary C., Studies of Contemporary Poets (London: Harrap & Co., 1920)

Archive source: 

Photo of Naidu as the little ‘Indian princess’ appears in Maud Gonne’s The Servant of the Queen

Mss Eur A95, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Mss Eur F341/152 (notes on Naidu in Geraldine Forbes collection), Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

National Archives of India, Delhi

Nehru Memorial Library, Delhi

Involved in events: 

Poetry readings, London, 1900s

Second Round Table Conference, 1931

City of birth: 
Hyderabad
Country of birth: 
India
Other names: 

née Chattopadhyaya

Location

Girton College Cambridge, CB3 0JG
United Kingdom
52° 13' 42.168" N, 0° 4' 41.8332" E
Date of death: 
01 Feb 1949
Location of death: 
United Provinces, India
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Jan 1895
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1895-8 (as a student), 1905 (book tour of Britain for The Golden Threshold), 1912-14, 1919-21 (with All India Home Rule League), 1931 (Second Round Table Conference with M. K. Gandhi).

Tags for Making Britain: 

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