music

Atiya Fyzee

About: 

Born in Istanbul, Atiya Fyzee was the daughter of Hasanally Feyzhyder, an Indian merchant attached to the Ottoman Court, and his first wife, Amirunissa. Belonging to the prominent Tyabji clan of Bombay, Atiya was one of the first elite Indian Muslim women to receive a modern education, appear in public unveiled and participate in women’s organizations. In her youth, she made important contributions to reformist journals for women in Urdu, including Tahzib un-niswan (Lahore) and Khatun (Aligarh).

While studying at a teachers’ training college in London in 1906-7, she also kept a travel diary that was first serialized in a monthly journal then published as Zamana-i-tahsil ('A Time of Education', 1921). Along with her sisters, Zehra (1866-1940) and Nazli Begum of Janjira (1874-1968), she patronized celebrated Muslim intellectuals such as Maulana Shibli Nomani and Mohammad Iqbal. Their published correspondence, Khutut-i Shibli ba-nam-i muhtarma Zahra Begum sahiba Faizi va ‘Atiya Begum sahiba Faizi (ed. Muhammad Amin Zuberi, 1930) and Iqbal (1947), attests to the close friendships that brought Atiya notoriety in literary and social circles.

Following her marriage to the artist and writer Samuel Rahamin, in 1912, Atiya pursued a variety of cultural activities on the international stage. Among their collaborations was an authoritative book in English on classical Indian music that ultimately went into three editions: Indian Music (1914), The Music of India (1925) and Sangt of India (1942). In this work, Atiya’s impressionistic and colourful prose was used to explicate Samuel’s illustrations of Indian melodies (ragmalas). Atiya also arranged music and choreography for two of her husband’s plays, Daughter of Ind and Invented Gods, when they were staged in London in the 1930s. While abroad, she gave lectures on Indian women, like ‘Epic Women of India’ (1919), which were published in international journals.

At partition, Atiya and Samuel migrated to Karachi with Nazli where they continued to bring together artistes in their private salon at their home, Aiwan-e-Rifat, modelled on their famous Bombay residence. After being evicted in the 1950s, they lived in reduced circumstances, suffering great hardship in their final years.

Published works: 

Indian Music (London: Goupil Gallery and W. Marchant, 1914)

Zamana-i-tahsil (Agra: Matba‘ Mufid-i-‘Am, 1921)

The Music of India (London: Luzac, 1925)

Sangt of India (Bombay, 1942)

Iqbal (Bombay: Victory Printing Press, 1947)

Gardens (Karachi: Ameen Art Press, n.d.)

Date of birth: 
01 Jan 1877
Connections: 

Shaikh Abdul Qadir, Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Syed Ali Bilgrami, Alma Latifi, Syed Ameer Ali, (Arthur) Oliver Villiers Russell Ampthill, M. A. Ansari, Thomas Walker Arnold, Badruddin Tyabji, the Maharaja and Maharani of Baroda, Emilie Barrington, Emma Josephine Beck, Mancherjee M. Bhownaggree, Mary Frances Billington, Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Blood, Hemangini Bonnerjee, Camruddin Abdul Latif, Vazirunnisa Latif, William Coldstream, Sunity Devi - the Maharani of Cooch Behar, Sir Henry Cotton, Catherine Crisp, Frank Crisp, Major-General John Baillie Ballantyne Dickson, Princess Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh, Princess Sophia Alexandra Duleep Singh, Lady Alice Louisa Elliott, Sir Charles Alfred Elliott, Bhagwatsinghji Sagramsinhji - the Thakur of Gondal, Mrs K. G. Gupta, Lala Har Dayal, Major Saiyid Hasan Bilgrami, Edward Hughes, Syed Husain Bilgrami, Mohammad Iqbal, Jabir Ali, Margaret Elizabeth Child-Villers, countess of Jersey, Jagatjit Singh - the Maharaja of Kapurthala, Emily Kinnaird, Dame Maude Agnes Lawrence, Esther Lawrence, Sir William Lee-Warner, Sidney Low, Sir Charlies Lyall, Lady Florences Lyall, Miss A. J. Major, Mrs Sarala Bala Mitter, Theodore Morison, Nazli Begum of Janjira, Rafia Tyabji, Donald James Mackay, the eleventh Lord Reay, Lady Margaret Rice, George Frederick Samuel Robinson - first Marquess of Ripon, John Gerald Ritchie, Mrs P. K. Roy, Mrs P. L. Roy, Salman Tyabji, Sarhan Camruddin Latif, Flora, Mozelle Sassoon, Rachel Sassoon, Lady Edgeworth Leonora Scott, Lady Sinha, Cornelia Sorabji, Sydney Sprague, Navajbai Tata, Ratan Tata, Lady Mary Augusta Temple, Tyab Ali Akbar, Mary Augusta Ward, Helen Webb, Raymond West, Alice Augusta Woods, Sir (William Hutt) Curzon Wyllie.

Maria Grey Training College

Contributions to periodicals: 

The Indian Magazine and Review (‘Some Reminiscences of Kashmir’, 432, December 1906, pp. 314-16)

Asia (as “Shahinda” (Begum Fyzee-Rahamin), 'Epic Women of India’, 19.6, June 1919, p. 580)

Tahzib un-niswan (series of articles on studying in Britain in issues dated 26 January 1907 - 30 November 1907)

Precise DOB unknown: 
Y
Reviews: 

Kathleen Schlesinger, ‘The Basis of Indian Music’, The Musical Times (London) 56.868, 1 June 1915, pp. 335-9

Secondary works: 

In English:

Lambert-Hurley, Siobhan and Sharma, Sunil, Atiya’s Journeys: A Muslim Woman from Colonial Bombay to Edwardian Britain (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010)

Justuju, Naeem-ur Rahman, ‘Portrait of a Lady’, http://www.pakistanlink.com/Letters/2003/June/13/04.html

In Urdu:

al-Qadri, Mahir, 'Atiya Faizi', in Yadgar-i-raftagan, vol. 2 (Lahore: al-Badr, 1984)

Jafri, Ra’is Ahmad, 'Atiya Begum Faiz', Nigar 58.5 (November 1979), pp. 25-7

Nasrullah, Shaikh, 'Atiya Begam Faizi', Kya qafila jata hai (Karachi: Tahzib o Fan, 1984)

City of birth: 
Istanbul
Country of birth: 
Turkey
Other names: 

A. H. Fyzee (used in print)

Atiya Fyzee-Rahamin (used after marriage in 1912)

Atiya Begum (used after marriage in 1912)

Shahinda (pen-name)

Date of death: 
01 Jan 1967
Precise date of death unknown: 
Y
Location of death: 
Karachi, Pakistan
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
17 Sep 1906
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1906-7, 1908, 1914, perhaps mid-1920s, 1937-9.

Location: 

Primarily London

Maud MacCarthy

About: 

MacCarthy was a talented violinist who had trained at the Royal College of Music and toured with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. From an early age, MacCarthy claimed to experience mystical visions and she maintained an interest in esoteric spirituality throughout her life. In 1905, she accompanied the soon-to-be president of the Theosophical Society, Annie Besant, on a visit to India where MacCarthy was deeply influenced not only by the religious practices of South Asia, but also its music.

This is an interest she further developed with her second husband, the composer John Foulds, whom she married in 1915. They collaborated on his World Requiem and MacCarthy wrote and spoke about Indian music in the UK. She also had an interest in the visual arts and was a founder member of the Theosophical Arts Circle (1907-14) and wrote for their journal, Orpheus. Foulds and MacCarthy met a young man, referred to only as 'The Boy' in her writings, who was employed in a gas works in the East End of London. According to MacCarthy, 'The Boy' possessed great spiritual powers and could channel an initiated spiritual group known as 'The Brothers'. In 1935, MacCarthy, Foulds and 'The Boy' moved to India where they established an ashram to promulgate these spiritual teachings. After Foulds death, MacCarthy took the name Swami Omananda Puri.

Published works: 

Some Indian Conceptions of Music (London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1913)

The Temple of Labour: Four Lectures of the Plan Beautiful in relation to Modern Industrialism (London: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1926)

The Boy and the Brothers by Swami Omananda Puri (London: Victor Gollancz, 1959)

Example: 

McCarthy, Maud, ‘Music in East and West’, Transactions of the Theosophical Art-Circle 3 (1907), p. 10.

Date of birth: 
04 Jul 1882
Connections: 

Annie Besant, John Foulds.

Contributions to periodicals: 

Transactions of the Theosophical Art-Circle (‘Music in East and West’, 3 (1907), pp. 10-11; ‘International Arts’, 4 (1908), pp. 18-22)

Theosophist (‘True Art: Letter to a Young Painter (Benares, May 1908)’, 30 (1908), pp. 203-6)

Proceedings of the Musical Association (‘Some Conceptions of Indian Music’, 38 (1911-12), pp. 41-65)

Vâhan (‘The Brotherhood of the Arts’, 23.8 (March 1914), p. 159)

Extract: 

People speak vaguely of the genius of East or West, as though there existed a fixed impassable gulf between the two. Is it not rather true that genius of an identical nature all the world over - or of identical types, as political, scientific, or artistic - although [in] widely different circumstances, and national or religious prejudices, may for the time being veil these identities? Is it not likely that, could we pierce these veils, we might in freeing genius of its shackles discover the purely human - the international - type beneath?

Secondary works: 

Mansell, James, 'Music and the Borders of Rationality: Discourses of Place in the Work of John Foulds' in Grace Brockington (ed.) Internationalism and the Arts in Britain and Europe at the Fin de Siècle (Bern: Peter Lang, 2009)

Turner, Sarah Victoria '“Spiritual Rhythm” and “Material Things”: Art, Cultural Networks and Modernity in Britain, c.1900-1914', unpublished PhD thesis (University of London, 2009)

City of birth: 
Clonmel, County Tipperary
Country of birth: 
Ireland
Other names: 

Maud Mann

Swami Omananda Puri

Date of death: 
02 Jun 1967
Tags for Making Britain: 

Alice Richardson

About: 

Alice Richardson met Ananda Coomaraswamy around 1910, most probably at a recital of folk songs given by pupils of the collector of folk songs and cultural revivalist, Cecil Sharp. Richardson accompanied Coomaraswamy on a trip to India in 1911 and became his second wife. They lived on a houseboat in Srinagar, Kashmir, whilst she studied Indian music with Abdul Rahim of Kapurthala, and Coomaraswamy researched Rajput painting of northern India.

Once back in London, Alice Coomaraswamy became noted for her recitals of Indian music which were often introduced by an explanatory lecture given by her husband. She performed widely in the UK (including at the Theosophical Society Summer Schools) under the name Ratan Devi and in Indian dress. When the Coomaraswamys first went to the US, it was for her concert tour. Alice had two children (a boy, Narada, and a girl, Rohini) by Coomaraswamy before their divorce and his subsequent marriage to the American dancer and artist, Stella Bloch.

Published works: 

Thirty Songs From the Panjab and Kashmir, Recorded by Ratan Devi with Introduction and Translations by Ananda K. Coomarswamy and a Foreword by Rabindranath Tagore (Old Bourne Press, 1913)

Example: 

Tagore, Rabindranath, 'Foreword', in Thirty Songs From the Panjab and Kashmir: Recorded by Ratan Devi with Introduction and Translations by Ananda K. Coomarswamy (Old Bourne Press, 1913), pp. vi-ii

Content: 

Rabindranath Tagore describes his experience of hearing Ratan Devi sing.

Connections: 
Contributions to periodicals: 

Modern Review (October 1911)

Reviews: 

Asiatic Review

New York Times

Extract: 

Sometimes the meaning of a poem is better understood in a translation, not necessarily because it is more beautiful than the original, but as in the new setting the poem has to undergo a trial, it shines more brilliantly if it comes out triumphant. So it seemed to me that Ratan Devi’s singing our songs gained something in feeling and truth. Listening to her I felt more clearly than ever that our music is the music of cosmic emotion...Ratan Devi sang an alap in Kandra, and I forgot for a moment that I was in a London drawing-room. My mind got itself transported in the magnificence of an eastern night, with its darkness, transparent, yet unfathomable, like the eyes of an Indian maiden, and I seemed to be standing alone in the depth of its stillness and stars.

Secondary works: 

Clayton, Martin, and Zon, Bennett, Music and Orientalism in the British Empire, 1780s-1940s: Portrayal of the East (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007)

Crowley, Aleister, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, ed. by John Symonds and Kenneth Grant (London: Jonathan Cape, 1969)

Lipsey, Roger, Coomaraswamy, 3 vols, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977)

Archive source: 

Stella Bloch Papers, Princeton University Library, Princeton

Other names: 

Ratan Devi

Alice Coomaraswamy

Dilip Roy

About: 

Dilip Kumar Roy was a prominent Indian musician. He was the son of playwright and musician, Dwijendra Lal Roy. He is known for synthesizing western and Indian classical music.

Roy studied at Fitzwilliam Hall, Cambridge, at the same time as his friend Subhas Chandra Bose. He took the mathematics tripos but also took music options. He then studied German and Italian music on the continent. He met Romain Rolland in Switzerland who was a great admirer of him. He was also admired by many Indians including M. K. Gandhi.

In 1928, Roy joined Sri Aurobindo's ashram in Pondicherry and stayed there until 1950. In 1959, he founded the Hari Krishna mandir in Pune where he died in 1980.

Published works: 

Among the Great (Bombay: Nalanda, 1945)

The Subhas I Knew (Bombay: Nalanda, 1946)

Eyes of Light (Bombay: Nalanda, 1948)

Pilgrims of the Stars (New York: Macmillan, 1953)

Date of birth: 
22 Jan 1897
Connections: 

Subhas Chandra Bose, G. Lowes Dickinson, Aurobindo Ghose, Herman Hesse, S. Radhakrishnan, Romain Rolland, Bertrand RussellRabindranath Tagore.

Reviews: 

Fredoon Kabraji, Life and Letters 59 (1948-9), pp. 249-50 (Among the Great)

Secondary works: 

Fay, Peter Ward, The Forgotten Army: India's Armed Struggle for Independence (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995)

Indira Devi, Fragrant Memories (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1983)

Patel, Amrita Paresh, Dilip Kumar Roy: A Lover of Light among Luminaries (Ahmedabad, L. D. Institute of Indology, 2002)

City of birth: 
Calcutta
Country of birth: 
India
Current name city of birth: 
Kolkata
Current name country of birth: 
India
Other names: 

Dilip Kumar Roy

Location

Fitzwilliam Hall Cambridge, CB2 1RB
United Kingdom
52° 10' 21.3528" N, 0° 6' 40.3992" E
Date of death: 
06 Jan 1980
Location of death: 
Pune, India
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Jan 1919
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1919-22

Location: 

Fitzwilliam Hall, Cambridge

Tags for Making Britain: 

Samuel Fyzee Rahamin

About: 

Samuel Fyzee Rahamin was born in Poona, now Pune, India. After training at the School of Art in India, he moved to London to enrol at the Royal Academy Schools where he was taught by John Singer Sargent and Solomon J. Solomon. He returned to India in 1908 abandoning the loose brushwork technique inherited from Sargent and became increasingly committed to reviving the traditional style of Moghul painting. On his marriage to Atiya Begum (of the Fyzee family) in 1912, Samuel Rahamin, a Jew by faith, converted to Islam and took the name Fyzee Rahamin. His wife was a respected authority on Indian music and her book The Music of India (1925) was widely appreciated. Atiya Fyzee wrote travel accounts of her time in Europe, had a friendship with Mohammad Iqbal, and her brother was a successful tennis player who appeared at Wimbledon. Music seems to have had an important influence on Samuel Fyzee Rahamin’s work who illustrated his wife’s book.

His career is further evidence of the global networks of art and culture at the beginning of the twentieth century. He lived in Bombay (now Mumbai), but held his first exhibition at the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris in 1914. He also exhibited in the UK and America, including the 1924 British Empire Exhibition at Wembley. A 1926 issue of Burlington Magazine carried a notice of his exhibition of watercolours at Arthur Tooth & Sons Gallery, entitled ‘Water-Colours, India, Vedic, Mythological and Contemporary’. In May 1939, he held a ‘Special Exhibition’ displaying ‘Modern Indian Art, on traditional lines’ at the American Association, New York. He was recruited to become an art advisor to the state of Baroda and also painted frescoes for the Imperial Secretariat, New Delhi, in 1926-7 and 1928-9.

In 1928, Samuel Fyzee Rahamin approached William Rothenstein to recommend him to paint the proposed murals in India House in Aldwych. Fyzee Rahamin was not appointed because of his seniority. Fyzee Rahamin assisted the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Metropolitan Museum, New York, in the reorganization of collections of Asian art. He was also a writer and published plays and poetry. He lived in Karachi from 1947 and his art collection, which he presented to the Aiwan-e-Riffat Museum in Karachi, is now housed in the Fyzee Rahamin Art Gallery. There are also examples of his work in Tate Britain and Manchester City Art Gallery.

Published works: 

Atiya Begum and Fyzee Fyzee-Rahamin, Music of India (London: Luzac, 1925)

Souvenir of the Exhibition of Indian Painting, 1928, preface by S. Fyzee Rahamin (Bombay: Society for the Encouragement of Indian Art, 1928)

Daughter of India (London: J. B. Pinker, 1937)

Invented Gods (London: Herbert Joseph, 1938)


 

Date of birth: 
19 Dec 1880
Connections: 

Atiya Fyzee Begum (wife), J. A. Lalkaka, William Rothenstein, John Singer Sargent, Solomon J. Solomon, W. E. Gladstone Solomon

Reviews: 

Furst, H., ‘Mr Fyzee Fyzee-Rahamin’s Paintings’, Apollo II (July-December 1925), pp. 91-4

Secondary works: 

Mitter, Partha, Art and Nationalism in Colonial India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994)

Mitter, Partha, The Triumph of Modernism (London: Reaktion, 2007)

Archive source: 

Duplicate passport, IOR/L/PJ/11/1/1401/1932, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Letter from William Rothenstein to Samuel Fyzee Rahamin, Ms Eng 1148/1679, William Rothenstein Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University

Involved in events: 
City of birth: 
Poona
Country of birth: 
India
Current name city of birth: 
Pune
Current name country of birth: 
India
Other names: 

Fyzee Fyzee-Rahamin

Location

Royal Academy of ArtsLondon, W1J 0BD
United Kingdom
51° 30' 23.5584" N, 0° 8' 33.2808" W
Date of death: 
01 Jan 1964
Precise date of death unknown: 
Y
Location of death: 
Karachi, Pakistan
Tags for Making Britain: 

Kaikhosru Sorabji

About: 

Born to a Parsee Indian father (a mining engineer) and a Spanish-Sicilian mother (an opera singer), Kaikhosru Sorabji was a composer of prolific output (completing over 100 pieces for piano and keyboard) and is best known for his epic composition Opus Clavicembalisticum for piano (1930), which has an approximate duration of four and a half hours. Despite having no formal training, he was also a pianist of some renown, performing in various European cities as well as Bombay but retreating from public performance as early as 1936, preferring to play to private gatherings of friends. Sorabji gave the first performance of Opus Clavicembalisticum himself, in Glasgow in 1930. Following a particularly poor subsequent performance, he stipulated that his music could only be played with his permission.

In addition, Sorabji was an established music critic, writing reviews, essays and letters on music for a range of publications. Indeed, his writing extended beyond music, covering topics such as economics, unemployment, racism and homosexuality. As a gay ‘Spanish-Sicilian’ Parsee living in early twentieth century Britain, his experience of discrimination no doubt propelled him to write about these issues. Interestingly, Rozina Visram describes his views on colonialism as ‘ambivalent’: ‘critical of British rule, he was equally scathing of Indian activities’ (p. 291).

Published works: 

Selected music:

In the Hothouse (1918)

Le jardin parfumé (1923)

Opus Clavicembalisticum (1930)

For a full list of works, see www.sorabji-archive.co.uk

 

Selected writing:

Around Music (London: Unicorn Press, 1932)

Mi Contra Fa: The Immoralisings of a Machiavellian Musician (London: Porcupine Press, 1947)

‘The Validity of the Aristocratic Principle’, in Art and Thought: A 70th Birthday Tribute to Dr Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy, ed. by K. Bharatha Iyer (London: Luzac & Co., 1947), pp. 214–18

Example: 

Date of birth: 
14 Aug 1892
Connections: 

Hugh MacDiarmid

Contributions to periodicals: 

New Age

New English Weekly

Secondary works: 

Rapoport, P., Sorabji: A Critical Celebration (Aldershot: Scolar, 1992)

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

Warrack, John, ‘Sorabji, Kaikhosru Shapurji (1892–1988)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/55450]

Archive source: 

Correspondence and music mss, Sorabji Archive, Easton Dene, Bailbrook Lane, Bath

Online Sorabji archive: http://www.sorabji-archive.co.uk

Letters to Bernard Stevens, Add. MS 69025, British Library, St Pancras

Involved in events: 

First performance of Opus Clavicembalisticum (Glasgow, 1930)

City of birth: 
Chingford, Essex
Country of birth: 
England
Other names: 

Leon Dudley Sorabji

Date of death: 
15 Oct 1988
Tags for Making Britain: 

Ayana Deva Angadi

About: 

Ayana Angadi came to Britain in 1924. His original intention was to prepare for the ICS examination but instead he became involved in political activism, writing, and lecturing about imperialism and India. As well as contributing to a range of journals in Britain, he wrote several political pamphlets under the pseudonym Raj Hansa. A committed Trotskyist, he joined the Labour Party and worked as a lecturer for the Central Advisory Council for Adult Education in HM Forces and then for the Imperial Institute, travelling to schools and colleges around the country to speak about Indian matters. He also travelled to Scandinavia to lecture and was there suspected of being a Cominform agent (L/PJ/12/518, p. 48).

Arguably, Angadi's most significant achievement while in Britain was the establishment with his wife Patricia Fell-Clarke of the Asian Music Circle in 1946. This organization introduced Indian music, dance and yoga to the British public, paving the way for musicians such as Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan.

Published works: 

(as Jaya Deva) Japan’s Kampf (London: Gollancz, 1942)

Numerous pamphlets written under the name Raj Hansa

Example: 

'Secret’ IPI memo, 1 February 1949, L/PJ/12/518, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras, pp. 42–3

Date of birth: 
12 Mar 1903
Content: 

This file contains British government surveillance reports on Ayana Angadi’s activities in Britain and Europe during the period 1937–47.

Connections: 

E. F. Bramley (CPGB), R. F. O. Bridgeman, Benjamin Brittan, J. R. Campbell (CPGB), Patricia Fell-Clarke, George Harrison, B. K. S. Iyengar, Krishna Menon, Yehudi Menuhin, Shapurji Saklatvala, Ravi Shankar.

Contributions to periodicals: 

New Leader

Spectator

Time and Tide

Extract: 

AYANA VEERAYASWAMI ANGADI has lived mainly in the United Kingdom since 1930. He is an individual of ordinary status who has made a livelihood as a lecturer and journalist. His book 'Japan’s Kampf' attracted the favourable attention of the Ministry of Information during the war and for a time he was engaged as a lecturer to troops. However he was relieved of this occupation because he introduced his political views into the lectures.

ANGADI is described as being a revolutionary Communist. His record includes a sentence in 1937 of a month’s imprisonment for stealing a typewriter.

Since 1946 ANGADI has toured and lectured in the Scandinavian countries more than once and many of his lectures have been marked by a strong anti-British bias. He has made himself unpopular both in Norway and Denmark and the former has decided to refuse him a visa should he apply for one again.

It has been stated that his visit to Norway in February 1947 was under the auspices of the Imperial Institute, and has been suggested that the Institute should be told about his undesirability. You may be able to find out if it is correct that the Institute sponsored ANGADI in any way, and may be able to tell someone in the Institute about the kind of individual he is.

Secondary works: 

Massey, Reginald, Azaadi! Stories and Histories of the Indian Subcontinent After Independence (Abhinav Publications, 2005)

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

Relevance: 

The detailed documentation kept on Angadi and his activities while in Britain is evidence of the high level of surveillance of South Asians who were politically active during this period. This in turn suggests the anti-imperialist campaigning of Angadi and his contemporaries was considered dangerously effective. The extensive travel Angadi undertook, both within Britain and beyond, is evidence of a keen commitment to educating the British and Europeans about imperialism and to mobilizing for the struggle for Indian independence and international socialism.

Archive source: 

L/PJ/12/518, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Asian Music Circle 1954–1960: Correspondence with Ayana Deva Angadi, founder and director, regarding the Circle’s programmes, with copies of leaflets and programmes, MSS 157/3/MU/A/1/1–26, Papers of Victor Gollancz, Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick Library

Involved in events: 

Numerous concerts and lectures

India League meetings

City of birth: 
Jakanur, Mysore State
Country of birth: 
India
Other names: 

Ayana Veerayyaswami Angadi

Raj Hansa

Jaya Deva

 

Date of death: 
01 Oct 1993
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Jan 1924
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1924-?

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