Oxford

Oxford Majlis

About: 

The Oxford Majlis was a debating society founded in 1896 at the University by Indian Students. Following the format of the Oxford Union, and the Cambridge Majlis (founded 5 years earlier), Indian students would meet on Sunday evenings to hold formal debates. They would also hold other social events such as music, dancing and lectures from invited speakers. Each year they would hold a debate against the Cambridge Majlis.

Before Indian Independence, the Oxford Majlis would often take up debates of a political nature relating to empire and Indian’s relationship with Britain. The majority of Indian students at the University felt compelled to be part of the organization and take part in these political debates, even if they were intending to take up positions sympathetic to the British in India such as in the Indian Civil Service. The Majlis was not only restricted to Indian students; Sri Lankan and Burmese students were an integral part of the ‘Indian student’ community before 1947. The India Office and New Scotland Yard kept an eye on the Majlis in the early part of the twentieth century and were particularly concerned about their Communist sympathies in the late 1920s and 1930s.

Published works: 

Bharat [journal]

Secondary works: 

The Majlis Magazine (Hilary 1986)

Chagla, Mahomedali Currim, Roses in December: An Autobiography, 1st edition 1973 (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1990).

Chettur, G. K., The Last Enchantment: Recollections of Oxford (Mangalore: B. M. Bookshop, 1934).

Kirpalani, Santdas Khushiram, Fifty Years with the British (London: Sangam Books, 1993)

Lahiri, Shompa, Indians in Britain: Anglo-Indian Encounters, Race and Identity, 1880-1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2000).

Menon, K. P. S., Many Worlds: An Autobiography (London: Oxford University Press, 1965)

Mukherjee, Sumita, Nationalism, Education and Migrant Identities: The England-Returned (London: Routledge, 2009)

Symonds, Richard, Oxford and Empire: The Last Lost Cause? (London: Macmillan, 1986)

Date began: 
01 Jan 1896
Archive source: 

K. P. S. Menon papers, Nehru Memorial Library, Delhi

L/PJ/12/4 & L/PJ/12/252, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Tags for Making Britain: 

Indian Institute

About: 

In 1875, the Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford, Monier Monier-Williams, put to Congregation the proposal to found an Indian Institute in Oxford. This Institute would provide a centre for study for Indian Civil Service (ICS) probationers and Indian students with a comprehensive collection of books and newspapers, and house a museum of Indian objects. In 1875 and 1876, Monier-Williams travelled to India to secure support, items and money for the Indian Institute. Benjamin Jowett was particularly supportive of the Indian Institute. Though there had been plans to house the Institute as part of Balliol College, it was deemed prudent to make it a University institution. With debates over where to house the Institute, it was initially housed in rooms on Broad Street, opposite to Balliol College, until the foundation stone was laid by the Prince of Wales on 2 May 1883. The site for the Institute was on the corner of Broad Street and Holywell Street, next to Hertford College on Catte Street. An opening ceremony took place on 14 October 1884. Subscriptions for the Institute had come from Queen Victoria, the Prince of Wales and a number of Indian Princes.

The building work took a further thirteen years to complete and the Institute was opened in 1896 by Lord George Hamilton, Secretary of State for India. The museum component of the Institute was perhaps the most difficult to incorporate into the vision of the building, with a number of stuffed animals that decayed and were destroyed. The Ashmolean Museum took the various fine art objects in the collection, and then the library came under the control of the Bodleian in 1927. The Institute was beset by financial difficulties and a lack of continuity in its librarians in its early years. The academic programme became stagnated, with a strong focus on the ICS and a decline in interest in Sanskrit. Indian students began to see it as an ICS enclave. In 1909, Lord Curzon, Chancellor of the University, observed how the Institute was in decline and disuse; by the 1930s, the decline was more apparent despite the efforts of Lord Lothian, Secratary of the Rhodes Trust, to revive the Institute. Lord Lothian suggested that Edward Thompson use the Indian Institute as a base to revitalize Indian studies at Oxford and initiate prizes and fellowships for Indians, but Thompson believed the Indian Institute was beyond redemption. Although the library was popular and extremely well-stocked, there were not enough students enrolled in Indian studies to give the Institute a sense of purpose.

ICS probationers ceased to go to Oxford from 1939. ICS courses ended just before India's independence of 1947. In 1965, the University Council proposed to house their administrative offices in the building and move the Indian Institute's holdings to the Bodleian. These proposals caused a great deal of controversy and vocal opposition from those within the University and from India. However, eventually, the Indian Institute Library was rehoused in the roof of the New Bodleian Library in 1968. The University took over the building of the Indian Institute to house their administrative offices, but then decided to house them elsewhere. The building was then used to house the Modern History Faculty and its library. It has since become the Centre for Twenty-First Century Studies.

Published works: 

A Record of the Establishment of the Indian Institute in the University of Oxford: Being an Account of the Circumstances which led to its Foundation (Oxford: Compiled for the Subscribers to the Indian Institute Fund, 1897)

Secondary works: 

Symonds, Richard, Oxford and Empire: The Last Lost Cause? (New York: St Martins Press, 1986)

Date began: 
02 May 1883
Connections: 

Benjamin Jowett, Shyamaji Krishnavarma (Monier-Williams' assistant at the time of the foundation of the Institute), Max Müller (Monier-Williams' rival and opposer to the Institute), Sir Bhagvat Sinhjee, Thakur of Gondal (helped finance the renewal of the lease in 1892), Edward Thompson (Bengali lecturer at Oxford in the 1930s who believed the Institute was too rundown to save).

Archive source: 

The Oxford Chronicle and Berks and Bucks Gazette, 5 May 1883

The Times

Indian Institute Archives, Bodleian Library, Oxford

Monier Monier Williams, 'Notes of a long life's journey', unpublished memoir, Indian Institute Library, Oxford

Pictures, Oxfordshire County Council

Evison, Gillian, 'The Orientalist, his Institute and the Empire: the rise and subsequent decline of Oxford University's Indian Institute', unpublished paper, December 2004.

Oxfordshire History Page: http://www.headington.org.uk/oxon/broad/buildings/east/old_indian_institute/index.htm

Location

OX1 3BD
United Kingdom
Tags for Making Britain: 

Benjamin Jowett

About: 

Benjamin Jowett was Master of Balliol College, Oxford, from 1870 to 1893. He had been Regius Professor of Greek from 1855 and was made Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 1882. While Jowett was Master of Balliol, forty-nine Indians were at the university, and twenty-two of those at Balliol. Jowett had the reputation of attracting students from all over the world. He was particularly concerned with university reform and was consulted on reforms to the Indian Civil Service. Jowett saw three successive viceroys of India come through Balliol (Lansdowne, Elgin, Curzon), and many young men undertook their probationary training for the ICS at Balliol. As Vice-Chancellor, Jowett opened the Indian Institute in Oxford on 14 October 1884.

Jowett notably befriended Cornelia Sorabji, sister of Richard Sorabji who was at Balliol 1890-3. Cornelia Sorabji studed law at Somerville College, 1889-93, and was the first woman to study law at Oxford. Jowett introduced Sorabji to leading contemporary figures in politics, law, social service, and literature while she was at Oxford. 

Date of birth: 
15 Apr 1817
Secondary works: 

Abbott, Evelyn and Campbell, Lewis, Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett (London: John Murray, 1897)

Brown, Judith M., Windows into the Past: Life Histories and the Historian of South Asia (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009)

Faber, G. C., Jowett: A Portrait with a Background (London: Faber, 1958)

Hinchliff, Peter, Benjamin Jowett and the Christian Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987)

Hinchliff, Peter and Prest, John, ‘Jowett, Benjamin (1817–1893)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2006) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/15143]

Jones, John, Balliol College: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, 2nd edition 1997)

Quinn, Vincent and Prest, John, Dear Miss Nightingale: A Selection of Benjamin Jowett's Letters to Florence Nightingale 1860-1893 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987)

Sorabji, Cornelia, India Calling (London: Nisbet & Co., 1934)

Symonds, Richard, Oxford and Empire: The Last Lost Cause? (New York: St Martins Press, 1986)

Archive source: 

Letters regarding Indians, the ICS and Sorabji, Balliol College Archives, Oxford

Mss Eur F165, letters to Cornelia Sorabji, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Mss Eur F111-112, letters to Curzon, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Other letters, Bodleian Library, Oxford

Other letters, British Library Manuscript Collection, St Pancras

City of birth: 
Camberwell, London
Country of birth: 
England
Date of death: 
01 Oct 1893
Location of death: 
Hampshire, England
Tags for Making Britain: 

Monier Monier-Williams

About: 

In 1860, Monier Monier-Williams was elected to the position of Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford, following an acrimonious campaign against his rival, Friedrich Max Müller. Monier-Williams had previously been Professor of Sanskrit, Persian and Hindustani at Haileybury College (the East India Company College) until 1858 when the College was closed. Monier-Williams remained Boden Professor until he retired in 1887. Shyamaji Krishnavarma worked as his assistant from 1879 to 1883.

Monier-Williams' major contribution to the landscape and pedagogy of Oxford was the foundation of the Indian Institute. In 1875, he first put the idea to Congregation to found an institute to provide a place of study for Indian Civil Service (ICS) probationers and Indian students at Oxford, combining a library, reading room and museum. He travelled to India in 1875, 1876 and 1883 to secure moral and financial support from Indians, particularly the Indian Princes who also donated items for the museum and library. The foundation stone was laid by the Prince of Wales in 1883, and opened by the Vice-Chancellor, Benjamin Jowett, on 14 October 1884 at which Monier-Williams gave the address.

Published works: 

A Dictionary of English and Sanskrit (London: Allen & Co, 1851)

Kalidasa, Sankuntala, translated by Monier Williams (Hertford, 1853)

A Practical Grammar of the Sanskrit Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1857)

Indian Wisdom (London: Allen & Co., 1875)

Hinduism (London: Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, 1877)

Modern India and the Indians (London: Trubner and Co., 1878)

Religious Thought and Life in India (London: John Murray, 1883)

Buddhism in its Connexion with Brahmanism and Hinduism, and in its contrast with Christianity (London: John Murray, 1889)

Example: 

The Indian Institute in the University of Oxford: An Account of the Circumstances which have led to its establishment, a description of its aims and objects, a report of the addresses at the opening ceremony etc (Oxford: Horace Hart, 1884)

Date of birth: 
12 Nov 1819
Content: 

Monier-Williams' address at the opening of the Indian Institute, 14 October 1884.

Extract: 

My desire has always been that the Indian Institute should have so to speak, two wings, one spreading itself to foster Eastern studies among Europeans, the other extending itself to foster Western studies among Indians.

Secondary works: 

Macdonell, A. A., ‘Williams, Sir Monier Monier- (1819–1899)’, rev. J. B. Katz, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2007) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/18955]

Morris, Henry, Sir Monier Monier-Williams, KCIE, the English Pandit (London: Christian Literature Society, 1905)

Symonds, Richard, Oxford and Empire: The Last Lost Cause? (New York: St Martins Press, 1986)

Archive source: 

Papers, Indian Institute, Oxford

City of birth: 
Bombay
Country of birth: 
India
Current name city of birth: 
Mumbai
Other names: 

Sir Monier Monier-Williams

Date of death: 
11 Apr 1899
Location of death: 
Cannes, France
Tags for Making Britain: 

Max Muller

About: 

Friedrich Max Müller was a Sanskritist at the University of Oxford in the late nineteenth century. Having spent some time in Paris, Müller travelled to London in 1846 for a short research trip. In 1848, he decided to settle in Oxford having had his edition of Rig Veda printed by the University Press. He became a naturalized British citizen in 1855.

From 1851, Müller held various positions in the University of Oxford. In 1860, he competed against Monier Monier-Williams for the position of Boden Professor of Sanskrit. Although Müller's body of scholarship exceeded Monier-Williams', the issue of Müller's Liberal Lutheranism and German ethnicity came to the fore in the campaign and he was defeated by Monier-Williams. Despite the huge disappointment, Müller continued to pursue his studies in Sanskrit and the Vedas, and was widely known and respected in India.

Müller delivered a number of lectures, and wrote many essays and books on Indian religion and spirituality. He cultivated a number of friendships with Indians through correspondence and their visits to Oxford. In particular, he became very close to Keshub Chunder Sen and interested in the Brahmo Samaj - which Müller saw as the natural sect of Christianity. He was also extremely concerned about the practice of child marriage in India, a concern he shared with Behramji Malabari and Pandita Ramabai, who both visited him in Oxford. Müller felt compelled to comment upon the case of the the child-bride, Rukhmabai, by sending a letter to The Times in 1887.

Published works: 

The Languages of the Seat of War in the East: With a Survey of the Three Families of Language, Semitic, Arian and Turanian (London: Williams and Norgate, 1855)

A History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature: So Far as it Illustrates the Primitive Religion of the Brahmans (London: Williams and Norgate, 1859)

Chips from a German Workshop (London: Longmans, 1867)

The Science of Thought (London: Longmans, 1887)

Biographies of Words and the Home of the Aryas (London: Longmans, 1888)

Buddhist Mahâyâna Texts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1894)

Collected Works, 18 volumes (London: Longmans, 1898)

(trans. and ed.) The Sacred Books of the East, 51 volumes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879-1910)

My Autobiography: A Fragment (London: Longmans, 1901)

Date of birth: 
06 Dec 1823
Contributions to periodicals: 

Cosmopolis

Nineteenth Century

Various letters to the editor in The Times, including 24 November 1880, 22 August 1887, 6 September 1887

Secondary works: 

Bosch, Lourens van den, Friedrich Max Müller: A Life Devoted to Humanities (Leiden: Brill, 2002)

Chaudhuri, Nirad C., Scholar Extraordinary: The Life of Professor the Rt Hon. Friedrich Max Muller (London: Chatto & Windus, 1974)

Fynes, R. C. C., 'Müller, Friedrich Max (1823–1900)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2007) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/18394]

Müller, Georgina (ed.), The Life and Letters of the Right Honourable Friedrich Max Müller (London: Longmans, 1902)

Stone, Jon R. (ed.), The Essential Max Müller (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002)

Archive source: 

Letters, notebooks and family papers, Bodleian Archives, Oxford

City of birth: 
Dessau
Country of birth: 
Germany
Other names: 

Max Müller, Max Mueller

Friedrich Max Muller

Date of death: 
28 Sep 1900
Location of death: 
Oxford, England
Location: 

7 Norham Gardens, Oxford

Humayun Kabir

About: 

Humayun Kabir was a poet, novelist, educationist and politician. He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford and graduated in 1931. Kabir had been heavily involved with the Oxford Union during his student days, having been elected secretary in 1930 and librarian in 1931. He made his farewell speech on the motion: 'This House condemns the Indian policy of His Majesty's Government'. Kabir had also been involved with the student newspapers, the Isis and the Cherwell, and the Oxford Majlis journal, Bharat.

Upon his return to India, Kabir taught at a number of universities. He also became involved in trade union politics and was elected to the Bengal Legislative Assembly in 1937. He took up a number of government posts after 1947, including Minister for Education.

Kabir published a book of poems in Oxford in 1932, and continued to write poetry, short stories and novels after his return to India. He also wrote essays and was a well-respected orator. He died in Kolkata in 1969.

Published works: 

Poems (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1932)

Muslim Politics (Calcutta: Gupta, Rahman & Gupta, 1943)

Our Heritage (Bombay: National Publications, 1946)

Men and Rivers (London: New India Publishing Co., 1947)

Of Cabbages and Kings (Bombay: Hind Kitabs, 1947)

Green and Gold: Stories and Poems from Bengal (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1957)

Britain and India (New Delhi: Orient Longmans, 1960)

Example: 

D. F. Karaka, I Go West (London: Michael Joseph, 1938), p. 159

Date of birth: 
22 Feb 1906
Content: 

Karaka is remembering the Oxford Majlis and Oxford Union, and the influence of Kabir, his senior.

Connections: 

D. F. Karaka (colleagues at Oxford Union), Frank Moraes, E. J. Thompson.

Contributions to periodicals: 

Isis

Cherwell

Reviews: 

Isis, 1931

Oxford Magazine, 1931

Indian Review, 1933

Extract: 

But the power behind us all was Humayun Kabir - one of the greatest products of modern Oxford, marred though his success was by his misfortune to miss the Presidency of the Union by the narrow margin of four votes. I have always felt that he was more deserving of that office than a great many of us who succeeded, but his intonation, his essentially Indian accent went against him, and the ordinary members of the Union Society did not go any deeper than the surface.

Secondary works: 

Datta, Dipankar, Humayun Kabir: A Political Biography (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1969)

Hollis, Christopher, The Oxford Union (London: Evans Brothers Ltd, 1965)

Karaka, D. F., I Go West (London: Michael Joseph, 1938)

Moraes, F. R., Witness to an Era: India 1920 to the Present Day (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973)

Archive source: 

Oxford Union Archives, Oxfordshire Record Office

India Office files: Mss Eur F236/12; Mss Eur F236/280 and Mss Eur F191/50, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

City of birth: 
Near Faridpur, East Bengal
Country of birth: 
India
Current name city of birth: 
Near Faridpur
Current name country of birth: 
Bangladesh
Other names: 

Humayun Zahiruddin Amir-i Kabir

Location

Exeter College
Turl Street
Oxford, OX1
United Kingdom
51° 45' 13.0968" N, 1° 15' 22.896" W
Date of death: 
18 Aug 1969
Location of death: 
Calcutta, India
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Jan 1928
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1928-31

Tags for Making Britain: 

K. M. Panikkar

About: 

K. M. Panikkar was a Dixon Scholar at Christ Church College, Oxford. He went to England in 1914 with the help of his elder brother who was studying medicine in Edinburgh at the time. He became a member of the Oxford Majlis and friends with the Suhrawardy brothers. Panikkar began to write articles whilst at Oxford which he sent to periodicals in India. He also read a paper on 'The Problems of Greater India' to the East India Association.

Panikkar returned to India in 1918. His ship was hit by a German torpedo but the passengers escaped and were taken by another ship. He joined Aligarh Muslim University in 1919 to teach history and political science. He became the first editor of the Hindustan Times from 1924. Panikkar then decided to read for the Bar and returned to England in 1925 for a year. He enrolled in Middle Temple.

Panikkar then entered the Princely Service and served as Foreign Minister of Patiala and Bikaner. He participated in the Round Table Conferences as a representative of the Princes of India. He held various diplomatic posts for India after 1947.

Published works: 

The Problems of Greater India (1916)

Educational Reconstruction in India (Madras: Ganesh & Co., 1920)

Indian Nationalism: Its Origins, History, and Ideals (London: Faith Press, 1920)

Sri Harsha of Kanauj (Bombay: D. B. Taraporevala Sons & Co., 1922)

(with K. N. Haksar) Federal India (London: Martin Hopkinson, 1930)

Asia and Western Dominance (London: Allen and Unwin, 1954)

The Afro-Asian States and their Problems (London: Allen and Unwin, 1959)

A Survey of Indian History (Asia Publishing House, 1960)

An Autobiography (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1977)

Date of birth: 
01 Jan 1894
Contributions to periodicals: 
Precise DOB unknown: 
Y
Reviews: 

E. M. Forster, 'East and West', Observer, 21 February 1954 (Asia and Western Dominance)

Secondary works: 

Banerjee, Tarasankar, Sardar K. M. Panikkar: The Profile of a Historian (1977)

Copland, Ian, The Princes of India in the Endgame of Empire, 1917-1947 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)

Rahman, M. M., Encyclopaedia of Historiography (Delhi: Anmol, 2005)

Ramusack, Barbara N., The Indian Princes and their States (The New Cambridge History of India, vol 3) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)

Archive source: 

Ms Eng c.5308, correspondence, Edward Thompson Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford

Involved in events: 
City of birth: 
Kerala
Country of birth: 
India
Other names: 

Kavalam Madhava Panikkar

Location

Christ Church OX1 1DP
United Kingdom
51° 43' 26.2992" N, 1° 16' 30.414" W
Date of death: 
11 Dec 1963
Location of death: 
Mysore, India
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 May 1914
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1914-18; 1925-6; 1930

Tags for Making Britain: 

Iftikhar Ali Khan

About: 

Iftikhar Ali Khan, the Nawab of Pataudi, is the only Test cricketer to have played for both England and India. Born into the princely family of Pataudi, in the Punjab (approximately 53 miles away from Delhi), he arrived in Britain in 1926 to further his education. He joined Balliol College, Oxford, in 1927 and won hockey and cricketing blues for the University. In a notorious incident playing in the 1931 match against Cambridge, A. Ratcliffe of Cambridge set a new record for the University Match with 201 runs. Pataudi declared that he would beat that record and did exactly that in the next innings, scoring 238 not out. This record stood until 2005.

Pataudi made the England squad for the infamous Bodyline series tour of Australia in 1932-3. On his Ashes and Test debut, he scored a century, but was dropped after the second test. He only played three tests for England, with a recall in one of the Ashes tests in 1934. Pataudi returned to India and had a chance to captain India in 1936, but withdrew from the series against England. In 1946, he did captain India against England, but he was 36 years old by then.

In 1931, Iftikhar was formally installed as ruler, Nawab, of Pataudi. After Indian independence in 1947, he gave up the principality and worked for the Indian Foreign Office. He died in 1952, while playing polo, in Delhi, leaving his wife, Sajida Sultan, the daughter of the Nawab of Bhopal, three daughters, and an eleven-year old son, Mansur, who would become one of India's greatest cricketing captains.

Date of birth: 
16 Mar 1910
Connections: 

Nawab of Bhopal (father-in-law), Hamidullah Khan, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi (son, captain of India's cricket team 1962-70).

Reviews: 

Wisden

Secondary works: 

Bose, Mihir, A History of Indian Cricket (London: Deutsch, 1990)

Bose, Mihir, ‘Khan, Muhammad Iftikhar Ali, nawab of Pataudi (1910–1952)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/58835]

Elliot, Ivo (ed.), Balliol College Register (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1953)

Archive source: 

News and sports footage, British Film Institute, London

V/24/832, Indian Students' Department Report, 1928-9 & 1929-30, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

College photos, Balliol College Archives, Oxford

City of birth: 
Pataudi, Punjab
Country of birth: 
India
Other names: 

Nawab of Pataudi

Muhammad Iftikhar Ali Khan

Pataudi senior

Location

Balliol College Oxford, OX1 3BJ
United Kingdom
51° 43' 26.2992" N, 1° 16' 30.414" W
Date of death: 
05 Jan 1952
Location of death: 
Delhi, India
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Jan 1926
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y
Tags for Making Britain: 

Kuruvila Zachariah

About: 

Kuruvila Zachariah was an Indian Christian who having studied at Christian College, Madras, was sent to England in 1912 on a Government of India scholarship. Having arrived in London in September 1912, he visited Thomas Arnold, the education advisor for Indian students. He was advised that he had a place to read history at Keble College, Oxford, but upon consideration took up a place at Merton College instead.

Zachariah attended Oxford Union debates and became involved with the University Christian Union. He did not join the Oxford Majlis because they met on Sunday evenings. In 1915, Zachariah received a first-class degree in history. Zachariah applied for teaching posts in India from England, taking advice from the India Office about entry into the Indian Educational Service. He was offered a position at Presidency College, Calcutta, and so returned to India in November 1915.

Zachariah was Professor of History at Presidency College until 1930 and then Principal of Hooghly College and Principal of Islamia College following that. He then took up several advisory positions within the Government after Indian independence. In 1954, Zachariah was appointed Historical Advisor and Minister at the High Commission in London. He died in 1955. Presidency College, Calcutta, continues to hold an annual Kuruvilla Zachariah Memorial Lecture in his honour.

Date of birth: 
21 Dec 1890
Contributions to periodicals: 

The Student Movement ('An Indian In England: An Impression', XXIII, October 1920)

Secondary works: 

'An Indian at Merton 1912-1915', Postmaster and the Merton Record (October 1991), pp. 85-90

Maswood, Shireen (ed.), A Greek Interlude: Kuruvila Zachariah: His Life & Writings (Calcutta: K.P. Bagchi & Co., 1992)

Merton College Register, 1900-1964 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1964)

Mukherjee, Sumita, Nationalism, Education and Migrant Identities: The England-Returned (London: Routledge, 2010)

Archive source: 

Letters, Merton College Archive, Oxford

City of birth: 
Calicut, Kerala
Country of birth: 
India
Other names: 

Kuruvilla Zachariah

Location

Merton College Oxford, OX1 4JD
United Kingdom
51° 45' 4.8456" N, 1° 15' 6.03" W
Date of death: 
30 Jun 1955
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
31 Aug 1912
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

31 August 1912 - 11 November 1915

Tags for Making Britain: 

N. G. Ranga

About: 

N. G. Ranga came from an agricultural background in Tamilnad, South India. His mother died when he was eight and although his family were not well off, his father sent him to study in England in 1920. Ranga travelled on the S. S. Loyalty with more than 300 other Indian students and the chemist, P. C. Ray. Ranga arrived in England without a place at university and went to live in Botley, an Oxford village, as he studied for the Responsions (entrance exams).

Ranga gained a place at Oxford University and soon became involved in the Lotus and Majlis societies. Ranga was influenced by the growth of socialism and was a member of the Oxford Labour Club. Although Ranga had considered joining the ICS, he decided against this as Indian politics were at the forefront of his mind. He embarked on a research degree in Economics. His wife later joined him and studied at the Ruskin School of Art.

Ranga was heavily influenced by M. K. Gandhi and village politics. Upon his return to India he became involved in the kisan movement. In 1957, Ranga became a Congress MP, but then founded the Swatantra Party in 1959. The Party was designed as a free-market liberal party that broke away from Nehru's socialist vision. Ranga retired from parliament in 1991.

Published works: 

Bapu Blesses (Nidubrolu: Indian Peasant Institute, 1969)

Credo of World Peasantry (Andhra: Indian Peasants' Institute, 1957)

Economic Organization of Indian Villages (Bombay: Vani Press, 1926-9)

Fight for Freedom: Autobiography (Delhi: S. Chand & Co., 1968)

Indian Adult Education Movement (Rajahmundry: The Andhradesa Adult Education Committee, 1938)

The Modern Indian Peasant (Madras: Kisan Publications, 1936)

Example: 

Fight for Freedom: Autobiography (Delhi: S. Chand & Co., 1968), pp. 79-80

Date of birth: 
07 Nov 1900
Content: 

On time at Oxford and Indian students

Connections: 
Extract: 

The dominant passion prevalent among almost all the Indian students especially of that post-war era was to realise our unique responsibility towards India and made us look at ourselves and the contemporary issues as between India and England from a highly serious and responsible attitude of international consciousness. We used to think that because we were breathing and living in the almost heavenly atmosphere of complete freedom and social equality of English and European life, we owed a special duty to our masses to help them to rise to such a status. We knew how R. C. Dutt, the two great Bannerjees, Ali brothers, Mahatma Gandhi, Arabind Ghosh [sic], Surendranath Banerjee, Moti Lal Nehru, C. R. Das, Prakasam and a host of others who were leading the National Congress were educated in England.

Secondary works: 

Makonnen, Ras, Pan-Africanism from Within (London: Oxford University Press, 1973)

City of birth: 
Tamilnad
Country of birth: 
India

Location

Botley OX2 9JY
United Kingdom
51° 47' 13.6464" N, 1° 17' 24.6012" W
Date of death: 
09 Jun 1995
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Jan 1920
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y
Location: 

Botley, Oxford

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