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Philip Spratt
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/20/20

Image
Philip Spratt

Philip Spratt (26 September 1902 – 8 March 1971) was a British writer and intellectual. Initially a communist sent by the British arm of the Communist International (Comintern), based in Moscow, to spread Communism in India, he subsequently became a friend and colleague of M.N. Roy, founder of the Communist parties in Mexico and India, and along with him became an communist activist.[1]

He was among the first architects, and a founding-member of the Communist Party of India, and was among the chief accused in the Meerut Conspiracy Case; he was arrested on 20 March 1929 and imprisoned.[2][3]

Image
Portrait of 25 of the Meerut Prisoners taken outside the jail. Back row (left to right): K. N. Sehgal, S. S. Josh, H. L. Hutchinson, Shaukat Usmani, B. F. Bradley, A. Prasad, P. Spratt, G. Adhikari. Middle Row: Radharaman Mitra, Gopen Chakravarti, Kishori Lal Ghosh, L. R. Kadam, D. R. Thengdi, Goura Shanker, S. Bannerjee, K. N. Joglekar, P. C. Joshi, Muzaffar Ahmed. Front Row: M. G. Desai, D. Goswami, R.S. Nimbkar, S.S. Mirajkar, S.A. Dange, S. V. Ghate, Gopal Basak.

The Meerut Conspiracy Case was a controversial court case initiated in British India in March 1929 and decided in 1933. Several trade unionists, including three Englishmen were arrested for organizing an Indian railway strike. The British Government convicted 27 leftist trade union leaders under a false lawsuit. The trial immediately caught attention in England, where it inspired the 1932 play Meerut by Manchester street theatre group the 'Red Megaphones', highlighting the detrimental effects of colonisation and industrialisation....

The main charges were that in 1921 S.A. Dange, Shaukat Usmani and Muzaffar Ahmed entered into a conspiracy to establish a branch of the Comintern in India and they were helped by various persons, including the accused Philip Spratt and Benjamin Francis Bradley, sent to India by the Communist International. The aim of the accused persons, according to the charges raised against them was under section 121-A of the Indian Penal Code (Act 45 of 1860)...

Though all the accused were not communists, the charges framed against them portrayed the British government's fear for growth of communist ideas in India. In the trial the accused were all labeled as Bolsheviks. During the trial of four and a half years, the defendants turned the courtroom into a public platform to espouse their cause. As a result, the trial saw strengthening of the communist movement in the country.

-- Meerut Conspiracy Case, by Wikipedia

As a result of his reading during his time in jail, and also his observation of political developments in Russia and Western Europe at the time, Philip Spratt renounced Communism in the early 1930s. After India gained independence from the British, he was among the lone voices –- such as Sita Ram Goel -– against the well-intentioned and fashionable leftist policies of Nehru and the Indian government.[4][5]

He was the Editor of MysIndia, a pro-American weekly, and later of Swarajya, a newspaper run by C. Rajagopalachari. He was also a prolific writer of books, articles and pamphlets on a variety of subjects, and translated books in French, German, Tamil, Sanskrit and Hindi, into English.
Swarajya is an Indian monthly print magazine and online news-portal. The publication subscribes to right-wing liberalism and critics note it to be a pro-Bharatiya Janata Party publication. According to fact-checking websites such as Alt News, Swarajya has propagated fake news multiple times.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (pronounced [bʱaːrətiːjə dʒənətaː paːrʈiː] is one of the two major political parties in India, along with the Indian National Congress. As of 2019, it is the country's largest political party in terms of representation in the national parliament and state assemblies and is the world's largest party in terms of primary membership. BJP is a right-wing party, and its policy has historically reflected Hindu nationalist positions. It has close ideological and organisational links to the much older Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, abbreviated as RSS (IAST: Rāṣṭrīya Svayamsevaka Saṅgha, IPA: [rɑːʂˈʈriːj(ə) sʋəjəmˈseːʋək ˈsəŋɡʱ], lit. "National Volunteer Organisation") is an Indian right-wing, Hindu nationalist, paramilitary volunteer organisation. The RSS is the progenitor and leader of a large body of organisations called the Sangh Parivar (the "family of the RSS"), which have presence in all facets of the Indian society. RSS was founded on 27 September 1925.

-- Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, by Wikipedia

The BJP's origin lies in the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, formed in 1951 by Syama Prasad Mukherjee. After the State of Emergency in 1977, the Jana Sangh merged with several other parties to form the Janata Party; it defeated the incumbent Congress party in the 1977 general election. After three years in power, the Janata party dissolved in 1980 with the members of the erstwhile Jana Sangh reconvening to form the BJP. Although initially unsuccessful, winning only two seats in the 1984 general election, it grew in strength on the back of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement. Following victories in several state elections and better performances in national elections, the BJP became the largest party in the parliament in 1996; however, it lacked a majority in the lower house of Parliament, and its government lasted only 13 days.

-- Bharatiya Janata Party, by Wikipedia

R. Jagannathan is the current editorial director. Originally established in 1956 as a weekly under the patronage of C. Rajagopalachari, it shut down in 1980 but was relaunched in September 2014, as a daily news website; a monthly print magazine was launched in January 2015.

-- Swarajya (magazine), by Wikipedia

Early life

Philip Spratt was born in Camberwell on 26 September 1902 to Herbert Spratt, a schoolmaster, and Norah Spratt. He was one of five boys. His elder brother David Spratt, left boarding school to join the British army during World War I, and was killed at Passchendaele in 1917. Although raised a Baptist, Herbert Spratt later joined the Church of England. Philip Spratt's own rejection of religion came early on:

"By the age of 17 I had a fair knowledge of nineteenth-century physical science, and I read a little on my own in biology. On Sunday evenings after church I used to take a fast walk round the neighbourhood, and for some months on these walks I argued with myself about science and religion. I decided quite definitely that the religious theory of things was unsound. But I remember no 'conflict' or emotion over my rejection of religion. I kept it entirely to myself, and I still attended church, and continued to do so till I went to the university."[6]


University and early Communist activity

Philip Spratt got a university scholarship in 1921 for Downing College, Cambridge, to study Mathematics. He writes in his memoirs: "But I was in no mood to devote myself to my proper studies, or to associate with the dull dogs who stuck to theirs. I dabbled in literature and philosophy and psychology and anthropology." [7] He was awarded a First-class degree on completing the Mathematics tripos. He joined the Union Society, the University Labour Club and a private discussion society called the Heretics, of which Charles Kay Ogden was President; Frank P. Ramsey, I.A. Richards and Patrick Blackett, Baron Blackett often attended.

The Cambridge Heretics Society was a group of Cambridge students and other intellectuals that challenged traditional and religious authorities. Founded by C.K. Ogden in 1909, the group continued to meet until 1932.

The Heretics Society

Ogden also co-founded the Heretics Society in Cambridge in 1909, which questioned traditional authorities in general and religious dogmas in particular, in the wake of the paper Prove All Things, read by William Chawner, Master of Emmanuel College, a past Vice-Chancellor. The Heretics began as a group of 12 undergraduates interested in Chawner's agnostic approach.

The Society was nonconformist and open to women, and Jane Harrison found an audience there, publishing her inaugural talk for the Society of 7 December 1909 as the essay Heresy and Humanity (1911), an argument that warned of the dangers of group-think and implored the audience to realize that we are constantly negotiating the line between egotism and herd instinct, but that how we navigate that line matters. Investigating the origins of the word 'heresy,' her lecture, later published in Alpha and Omega (1915), challenged many of the religious restrictions and rules of the Anglican Church and its unholy alliances with the university. The talk of the following day was from J. M. E. McTaggart, and was also published, as Dare to Be Wise (1910). Another early member with anthropological interests was John Layard; Herbert Felix Jolowicz (1890-1954), Frank Plumpton Ramsey and Philip Sargant Florence were among the members. Alix Sargant Florence, sister of Philip, was active both as a Heretic and on the editorial board of the Cambridge Magazine.

Ogden was President of the Heretics from 1911, for more than a decade;[28] he invited a variety of prominent speakers and linked the Society to his role as editor. In November 1911 G. K. Chesterton used a well-publicised talk to the Heretics to reply to George Bernard Shaw who had recently talked on The Future of Religion. On this occasion Chesterton produced one of his well known bons mots:

Questioner: ... I say it is perfectly true that I have an intuition that I exist.

Mr. Chesterton: Cherish it.

In 1912 T. E. Hulme and Bertrand Russell spoke. Hulme's talk on Anti-Romanticism and Original Sin was written up by Ogden for the Cambridge Magazine, where in 1916 both Hulme and Russell would write on the war, from their opposite points of view. Rupert Brooke addressed them on contemporary theatre, and an article based on his views of Strindberg appeared in the Cambridge Magazine in October 1913. Another talk from 1913 that was published was from Edward Clodd on Obscurantism in Modern Science. Ogden was very active at this period in seeing these works into print.

On 4 February 1923, the biologist J.B.S. Haldane lectured the Society on "Daedalus; or, Science and the Future", a speculative vision that enjoy some success in print and spurred in 1924 a less optimistic response from Bertrand Russell entitled "Icarus or the Future of Science".

The Heretics continued as a well-known forum, with Virginia Woolf on May 18, 1924 using it to formulate a reply to criticisms from Arnold Bennett arising from her Jacob's Room (1922), in a talk Character in Fiction that was then published in The Criterion. This paper contains the assertion, now proverbial, that "on or about December 1910 human character changed." The Heretics met in November 1929, when Ludwig Wittgenstein lectured to it on ethics, at Ogden's invitation, producing in A Lecture on Ethics a work accepted as part of the early Wittgenstein canon.

-- Charles Kay Ogden, by Wikipedia


Many prominent modernist intellectuals, from Bertrand Russell to John Maynard Keynes to George Bernard Shaw, were associated with the Heretics Society and gave lectures for it.

Connections for Cambridge Heretics Society

J.B.S. Haldane: Haldane presented “Daedalus, or Science and the Future” to the Heretics Society in 1923 (Franke 229).

Julian Huxley: Huxley presented a lecture to the Heretics on May 28, 1922 (Franke 229).

Film Society: Many of the Film Society members, including Julian Huxley, J.B.S. Haldane, John Maynard Keynes, George Bernard Shaw, and Roger Fry, were involved with the Heretics.

Marie Stopes: Stopes gave a guest lecture on birth control at the Heretics Society sometime after World War I, a lecture that led some members of the Society to resign (Franke 77).

Bloomsbury: Many Bloomsburyites, including Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey, Roger Fry, John Maynard Keynes, Bertrand Russell, Adrian Stephen, and Clive Bell, were honorary members of or lecturers at the Heretics Society (Franke 219-229, 25-26).

Virginia Woolf: Woolf presented the lecture “Character in Fiction,” a version of “Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown,” at the Heretics Society on May 18, 1924 (Franke 229). She was invited to become an Honorary Member of the Heretics in 1925, but declined (ibid. 91-92).

Aldous Huxley: Aldous Huxley was invited to speak at the Heretics Society in 1930 but refused (Franke 99).

Bertrand Russell: Russell presented the lectures “The Philosophy of Bergson” in 1912, “Mysticism and Logic” in 1914, and “Industrialism and Religion” with Dora Russell, to the Heretics (Franke 221, 223, 229).

-- Cambridge Heretics Society, by Literature and Science in Modern Britain


Philip Spratt, Maurice Dobb, John Desmond Bernal, Ivor Montagu, the historian Allen Hutt, A.L Bacharach, Barnet Woolf and Michael Roberts (writer) comprised the tiny handful of Communist Party members at the university at that time. Spratt, Woolf and Roberts would sell the Worker's Weekly to railwaymen at the town railway station or canvass the working-class areas of Cambridge. Spratt worked, for a while, at the Labour Research Department in the Metropolitan Borough of Deptford, and was a member of the London University Labour Party.

In 1926, at the age of 24, he was asked by Clemens Dutt (the elder brother of Rajani Palme Dutt) to journey to India as a Comintern agent to organise the working of the then nascent Communist Party of India, and in particular to launch a Workers and Peasants' Party as a legal cover for their activities. He was expected to arrange for the infiltration of CPI members into the Congress party, trade unions and youth leagues to obtain leadership of them. Spratt was also asked to write a pamphlet on China, urging India to follow the example of the Kuomintang. He was accompanied to India by Ben Bradley and Lester Hutchinson.


Move to India

Spratt was arrested in 1927, on account of some cryptic letters written to and by him that were seized by the Police. He was, however, charged with sedition, on account of the pamphlet entitled India and China that he had written on Clemens Dutt's instructions. He was tried by jury and – the judge, Mr. Justice Fawcett, having summed up very leniently – they found in his favour.

Hansard records show that on 28 November 1927, Shapurji Saklatvala, the MP for Battersea North, questions Earl Winterton (then Under-Secretary of State for India in Baldwin's government) about the wrongful detention of Philip Spratt for six weeks prior to his trial.

HC Deb 28 November 1927 vol 211 cc15-6

§ 32. Mr. SAKLATVALA asked the Under-Secretary of State for India if, in view of the fact that a Mr. Philip Spratt has recently been found not guilty by a jury in India of a charge of sedition in relation to the publication of a pamphlet entitled India and China, he will cause inquiries to be made as to the reason why he was in the first instance refused bail and thus kept in prison for six weeks prior to trial; and whether he will make representations for compensation to be paid to the said British national?

§ Earl WINTERTON It appears from the newspapers that bail was refused by Mr. Justice Davar in the High Court of Bombay, and it would not be proper to make inquiries as to the reasons for a decision which was within the competence of the Court. The answer to the second part of the question is in the negative.

§ Mr. SAKLATVALA Does the Noble Lord agree that this prosecution was launched by the Government and that the Judge of the High Court refused bail on certain representations which were made by the Government's prosecutor, which representations proved in the end to be untrue?

§ Earl WINTERTON The hon. Member is bringing a most serious charge against a Judge of the High Court, which I can-not accept for a moment. Judges of the High Court in India, as in this country, judge a question on its merits. Representations were doubtless made by prosecuting counsel, but the Judge is the sole interpreter as to whether they are correct, and I must respectfully decline to discuss on the Floor of the House the conduct of a Judge of the High Court.

§ Mr. SAKLATVALA Will the Noble Lord allow me to dispel his dramatic performance? Does the Noble Lord understand my question, which does not put any blame or comment or criticism on the Judge at all? My question is that the Judge, who gave a right decision upon the case presented to him by the Government prosecutor, afterwards, by his judgment, said it was a wrong presentation.

§ Earl WINTERTON I do not quite understand the hon. Member's question now. He has asked me whether I will cause inquiry to be made as to the reason why bail was refused. I have informed the hon. Member that I cannot do so because it would be committing a totally improper act, as criticising the action of the Judge. It rests solely with the Judge as to whether bail is granted or not.

§ Mr. SPEAKER Clearly, it is a matter for the Court of Justice.[8]


Meerut Conspiracy Trial

In March 1929, almost all the members of the Communist Party of India and about an equal number of trade unionists, congressmen and others who were working alongside them – 30 people in all – were arrested simultaneously in half a dozen different towns and taken to Meerut jail.

They were charged under Section 121A: conspiring to deprive the King Emperor of his sovereignty of British India. The body of conspirators was the Comintern and its associated organisations, and in particular the Indian party.

Spratt was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment, which on appeal, was reduced to 2; he was released from jail in October 1934. He discusses the psychology of imprisonment in an article which appeared in the Modern Review (Calcutta) in 1937.

It is his time in Meerut – Spratt records in his memoirs – that marked the beginning of his emotional turn away from communism: “When we had been in jail a year or two, the significance of the new Comintern line which we had accepted so uncomprehendingly at Calcutta began to show itself. It compelled the renovated party to split the central trade union body twice within two years, and to direct fierce criticism at the Congress, whose great Civil Disobedience campaigns made our activities look rather silly. We found fault with what was being done, but we did not direct our attack at the persons really responsible, viz. the Comintern authorities in Moscow… My own feelings were not of doubt or criticism but of boredom. I was closely involved in the preparation of the defence case, an immense and tedious job, and in the politics of the jail and the party outside. I gradually lost interest in all three, and became absorbed in reading and writing on other subjects… I have no doubt that here was the beginning of an emotional turn away from communism.” [9]

In December 1934 he was arrested again and interned under the emergency legislation passed to suppress Civil Disobedience. He spent 18 months in the Fort at Belgaum, and was released finally in June 1936.

During his time in Meerut, Spratt learnt to read Hindi and one of the first books he read was Atmakatha by Mahatma Gandhi. On doing so, he resolved to write a study of Gandhi and while in Belgaum wrote his book on the Mahatma entitled Gandhism: An Analysis. While in confinement, Spratt also wrote the foreword for Peshawar to Moscow: Leaves from an Indian Muhajireen's Diary by Shaukat Usmani.

Personal life

Soon after his release in 1934, he became engaged to Seetha, the grand-niece of Malayapuram Singaravelu Chettiar, who was a barrister and a founding member of the Communist Party in the south of India. Philip and Seetha married in 1939, and had four children: Herbert Mohan Spratt, Arjun Spratt, Radha Norah Spratt and Robert Spratt.

Post-Meerut life in India

Spratt began to write strongly in criticism of Soviet policy after the Russian invasion of Finland in 1939. In 1943, he joined M. N. Roy’s Radical Democratic Party, and remained a fairly active member until the party ceased to exist in 1948. In 1951, Spratt became secretary of the newly formed Indian Congress for Cultural Freedom, and a frequent contributor to its bulletin, Freedom First. He settled in Bangalore, and was the Chief Editor of a pro-American and pro-Capitalist weekly named MysIndia, until 1964.[10] In its columns, he criticised the policies of the government which he believed, 'treated the entrepreneur as a criminal who has dared to use his brains independently of the state to create wealth and give employment'. He further believed that the result would be 'the smothering of free enterprise, a famine of consumer goods, and the tying down of millions of workers to soul deadening techniques'.[10]

Spratt believed that the Kashmir valley should be granted independence. In 1952, he stated that India must abandon its claim to the valley and allow the National Conference leader Sheikh Abdullah to 'dream of independence'. It should withdraw its armies and write off its loans to the state government.[11] He stated:[11]

"Let Kashmir go ahead, alone and adventurously, in her explorations of a secular state. We shall watch the act of faith with due sympathy but at a safe distance, our honour, our resources and our future free from the enervating entanglements which write a lie in our soul."


He argued that Indian policy was based on a 'mistaken belief in the one-nation theory and greed to own the beautiful and strategic valley of Srinagar'.[11] He further stated that the costs of this policy, present and future, were incalculable, and that rather than give Kashmir special privileges and create resentment elsewhere in India, it was best to let the state secede.[11]

Spratt later moved to Madras, and edited the Swarajya, which was a newspaper run by C. Rajagopalachari, and a mouthpiece of the Swatantra Party. During these years he also wrote several books on diverse subjects, numerous pamphlets and also translated books from French, German, Tamil, Sanskrit and Hindi, into English. He died of cancer on 8 March 1971, in Madras.

Citations

1. M N Roy Mainstream, Vol XLV, No 35.
2. "Working Class Movement Library" Meerut Conspiracy TrialArchived 2 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine
3. ROLE OF THE COMMUNISTS 60 Years of Our Independence and the Left: Some Thoughts – Jyoti Basu, Communist Party of India official website."We should remember the contribution of communists Rajani Palme Dutt (RPD), Clemens Dutt, Philip Spratt and Ben Bradley."
4. Renounced communism.. Jawaharlal Nehru:A Biography, by Sankar Ghose, Allied Publishers, 1993, ISBN 81-7023-369-0. page 280.
5. Foreword by Philip Spratt of the Sita Ram Goel's Genesis and Growth of Nehruism.
6. Philip Spratt. Blowing Up India: Reminiscences and Reflections of a Comintern Emissary. Calcutta: Prachi Prakashan, 1955. p. 8
7. Philip Spratt. Blowing Up India: Reminiscences and Reflections of a Comintern Emissary. Calcutta: Prachi Prakashan, 1955. p. 10
8. MR. PHILIP SPRATT (PROSECUTION)
9. Philip Spratt. Blowing Up India: Reminiscences and Reflections of a Comintern Emissary. Calcutta: Prachi Prakashan, 1955. p. 53-54
10. Guha 2008, pp. 692–693
11. Guha 2008, pp. 259–260

References

• Guha, Ramachandra (2008). India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy. Pan Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-330-39611-0.

Further reading

• Foreword by Philip Spratt New Orientation: Lectures Delivered at the Political Study Camp Held at Dehra Dun from 8 to 18 May 1946.Calcutta, Renaissance Publishers. 1946.

External links

• IN SEARCH OF A CULPRIT
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

Postby admin » Fri Mar 20, 2020 9:52 am

Benjamin Francis Bradley
by The Open University: Making Britain
Accessed: 3/20/20

Date of birth: 01 Jan 1898, London, England
Date of death: 01 Jan 1957

Benjamin Bradley was a leading figure in the Communist Party of Great Britain ["CPGB"] and an anti-colonialist. A metalworker by trade, he was posted to India in 1927 by the CPGB to promote militant trade unionism, becoming Vice-President of the All-India Trades Union Congress. Bradley was arrested for anti-government activities in March 1929, and sentenced in the Meerut Conspiracy Trials of 1932.

On his return to Britain, Bradley remained active in anti-colonial as well as Communist activities. From 1934 to 1940, he was Secretary of the League Against Imperialism which became the Communist Party’s Colonial Information Bureau. In this role, he produced the fortnightly Colonial Information Bulletin which consisted largely of reports on developments in British colonies. The paper was swiftly shut down when it expressed support for the war effort in spite of the CPGB’s Central Committee’s decision to back the Comintern -– although Bradley later appeared to change his mind about the war, concurring with his fellow Communists. Indian Political Surveillance files give evidence that Bradley was a regular participant and occasional speaker at India League meetings in the late 1930s and early 1940s. There, he came into contact with several Indian activists and writers, including Mulk Raj Anand, Iqbal Singh, Krishnarao Shelvankar and Sasadhar Sinha. The relationship between Bradley and Krishna Menon was, according to India Office reports, rivalrous but mutually beneficial. The India League provided Bradley and his fellow Communists with a useful platform for propaganda, while the CPGB’s association with the League served as a means of attracting the interest of the British working class in the plight of India. Reports also claim that Bradley, along with Michael Carritt and Harry Pollitt, was leading a group of Indian Communist students, and that he planned a Conference of Indian Peddlers and Seamen in July 1939 (L/PJ/12/452). These activities suggest his ongoing interest not just in the struggle against imperialism but also in mobilizing for the rights of working-class Indians in Britain.

Connections:

Aftab Ali, Surat Alley, Mulk Raj Anand, Ayana Angadi, Jyoti Basu, Reginald Bridgeman, Fenner Brockway, Michael Carritt, B. B. Ray Chaudhuri, Dwjendra Nath Dutt, Rajani Palme Dutt, Michael Foot, Sunder Kabadia, S. M. Kumaramangalam, George Lansbury, Harold Laski, Krishna Menon, Syedi Mohamedi, Harry Pollitt, Shapurji Saklatvala, Promode Ranjan Sen-Gupta, K. S. Shelvankar, Iqbal Singh, Sasadhar Sinha, Reginald Sorensen, Philip Spratt, C. B. Vakil, S. A. Wickremasinghe.

Network:

Rajani Palme Dutt
Mulk Raj Anand
Krishna Menon
Surat Alley


Organizations:

India League
Indian National Congress
League Against Imperialism

Involved in events:

Meerut Conspiracy Trial, 1932

Secondary works:

Howe, Stephen, Anticolonialism in British Politics: The Left and the End of Empire, 1918-1964 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993)

Archive source:

L/PJ/12/448-54, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

CP/IND/BRAD, Archive of the Communist Party of Great Britain, Manchester People’s History Museum
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

Postby admin » Fri Mar 20, 2020 9:57 am

Anti-Imperialist People’s Front in India
by R. Palme Dutt & Ben Bradley
The Labour Monthly, Vol. 18, March 1936, No. 3, pp. 149-160

The Indian national struggle is to-day at a critical point. British Imperialism has succeeded in imposing its constitution of open subjection in the face of the opposition of the entire Indian nation. The first stage of the struggle against it has met with defeat. For the moment there is confusion in the national camp as to the path forward. At the same time the continuously worsening situation and sharpening struggle of the masses of workers and peasants calls ever more loudly for organisation and leadership.

If we look at the world situation we see that all over the world the anti-imperialist struggle is gathering strength and advancing. In Egypt the united mass struggle is exercising powerful pressure on British Imperialism. In China the popular forces of resistance to partition and for national unity and liberation are gathering around the central core of Soviet China, consisting of at least sixty millions who have already thrown off the imperialist yoke. In Abyssinia the entire people is fighting for their freedom with arms in hand and driving back the foreign invader, and the popular forces in all countries are supporting their struggle. In South America the People’s Anti-Imperialist Front is making great advances.

What of the situation in India? (Since the abandonment of mass civil disobedience we see a confusion of forces, and no powerful united movement of resistance to British Imperialism) which rules with more triumphant reaction than ever. Some voices are raised to advocate co-operation in working the new constitution. Others advocate retreat from the political field to concentrate on village industries or on the removal of caste disabilities. Gandhi has proclaimed his retirement from politics. The National Congress, apart from the electoral field, has given up for the time the attempt to direct the struggle, and even in the electoral field is sharply divided on the future policy, to accept office or not to accept office.

The peasants and workers, suffering under ever heavier economic distress, find themselves without united and centralised leadership in their sporadic struggles. Over the past ten years we have witnessed tremendous strike waves and economic unrest, hundreds of thousands of textile workers, railwaymen, jute workers and dockers carrying on insistent strike struggles with heroic determination against wage cuts and worsened conditions. Among the peasantry, the hardest hit section of the population, their inability to meet the demands of the landlord, money lender and collector, results in evictions, strikes and clashes with the armed forces of the government. Alongside this there is terrible mass unemployment seriously affecting not only the workers and peasants, but also the middle class.

How can we transform this situation? How can we unite and mobilise a powerful movement of resistance to British Imperialism and for the needs of the masses? This is the key problem of the Indian situation.

The Indian National Congress will shortly be meeting in Lucknow. The representatives of the main body of the Indian national struggle will have to consider the problems of the path forward. What shall be the programme at the coming elections? What shall be the policy of the national representatives who are elected? What shall be the future line of direction of the national struggle to defeat imperialism? The left wing elements are pressing for a line of irreconcilable struggle against imperialism, for an advance of the programme to reflect the growing influence of socialist ideas, and for the organisation of the workers and peasants as the decisive practical task. The right wing elements are making gestures for unity with the Liberals and other elements outside the Congress, who have abstained from participation in the common struggle and stand for co-operation with imperialism. The discussion will be sharp. The decisions will be of far-reaching significance.

It is at this stage that the present proposals are put forward for the consideration of all who, whether inside or outside the Congress, are concerned for the advance of Indian national liberation.

The First Need—Unity

Every Indian patriot will recognise that the first need for the successful advance of the Indian national struggle, the key need of the present situation, is unity of all the anti-imperialist forces in the common struggle. This is the indispensable condition for the successful fight against the existing and ever-sharpening reaction and oppression.

But what is Unity? Talk of Unity, of the United Front, is to-day on the lips of all. But many different proposals are put forward in its name.

Thus some, as in the recent speeches of Babu Rajendra Prasad, late President of Congress, urge unity with moderate or right wing elements at present outside the Congress, such as the Liberals, the friends and allies of the British rulers, whose programme is one of co-operation with imperialism and entry into office in order to assist the slave constitution to function successfully. Naturally, the Liberals from their point of view, as shown in the recent speech of V.S. Srinivasa Sastri at Madras, heartily welcome such proposals of unity, provided they may maintain their programme of service to imperialism since they have no mass following themselves and only so may hope to win a basis to enter office and carry out their programme.

But will this strengthen the anti-imperialist forces? While it is evident that all elements, including from among the Liberals, who are prepared to break with co-operation with imperialism and accept the programme of the national struggle, are welcome to the common front, this can only be on condition of acceptance of irreconcilable struggle against imperialism for complete independence (as already laid down in the Congress programme by the Lahore decisions). It is obvious that a so-called “unity” with the friends of the British, achieved by surrendering the struggle against imperialism, could only weaken the united front against imperialism and not strengthen it.

The Anti-Imperialist People’s Front

From this it follows that Unity cannot be regarded as something abstract, but can only be unity on the basis of the anti-imperialist struggle.

Much as we may desire to see unity of the whole Indian people in the struggle against foreign rule, we have to recognise that there cannot be an abstract “unity” of the entire Indian population, 200 per cent. all sections and classes, against British Imperialism. Some sections have their interest bound up with imperialism, e.g., the princes, landlords, moneylenders, reactionary religious and political elements which live on exploiting communal differences, elements among the merchants and wealthy classes who favour co-operation with imperialism, etc. The cunning British rulers have known how to follow the old maxim “Divide and rule” and build up their dominion on elements of support within the population; and in consequence, in estimating the forces of the national struggle, we have to take into account the realities of the class structure of the population under the conditions of imperialism.

But there can be unity of the overwhelming majority of the population against imperialism, i.e., of all the popular masses who suffer under imperialist rule, and of all the elements from other classes who are prepared to join in the common struggle for national liberation.

What is the necessary basis for such unity of all the anti-imperialist forces, such as can unite all the forces of the National Congress, the trade unions, the peasants’ organisations, the youth organisations, etc on a common platform in a mighty common front?

It is clear that the essential minimum basis for such a grouping is (1) a line of consistent struggle against imperialism, and against the existing slave constitution, for the complete independence of India; (2) active struggle for the vital needs of the toiling masses.

This is the unity of the Indian people we want, the United Anti-Imperialist People’s Front for the struggle against imperialism.

The rôle of the National Congress in Realising Unity

At this point the question will be asked: what is the relation of the National Congress to the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front? Is not the National Congress, as many of its leaders claim, already the united front of the Indian people in the national struggle?

The National Congress has undoubtedly achieved a gigantic task in uniting wide forces of the Indian people for the national struggle, and remains to-day the principal existing mass organisation of many divers elements seeking national liberation. Nothing should be allowed to weaken the degree of unity that has been achieved through the National Congress, and the proposals that are here put forward are only intended to endeavour to find means to assist and extend that unity to a still wider front.

We on the left have many times criticised sharply the existing leadership and tactics of the National Congress. We have found many decisions and policies, such as the calling-off of mass civil disobedience in 1922, at the moment when it was ready to enter on its greatest strength, the uncertain voice on the aim of independence, the wavering in the relations to imperialism, the siding with the landlords against the peasants, the Delhi Pact, the co-operation in the Round Table Conference, the Poona calling-off of the struggle in 1934, disastrous to the true interests of the national struggle and equivalent to surrender to imperialism. We have traced these decisions and policies to the existing dominant bourgeois leadership, whose interests often conflict with the interests of the masses and with the interests of the national struggle. These issues, of the utmost importance for the future, need to be discussed and fought out. But this criticism against particular policies is in no sense intended as a criticism against the masses in the Congress. Our opposition to a particular leadership or to particular policies is only intended to assist the mass army of the national struggle represented by the Congress and to assist and strengthen the national struggle.

The National Congress can play a great part and a foremost part in the work of realising the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front. It is even possible that the National Congress by the further transformation of its organisation and programme, may become the form of realisation of the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front; for it is the reality that matters, not the name.

But it is necessary to recognise that the National Congress, as it exists at present, is not yet the united front of the Indian people in the national struggle. Its constitution still leaves out the broadest sections of the masses. Its programme does not yet express with full clearness the programme of the national struggle. Its leadership cannot yet be recognised as the leadership of the national struggle. It does not at present draw out and guide mass activity, but rather acts as a brake upon it.

What is needed, without impairing the degree of unity that has been achieved through the National Congress, is to strengthen and extend this unity to a broader front and to develop to a new stage the organisation and leadership of the mass struggle against imperialism.

Draw in the Masses

The National Congress is at present based, not on the union of all elements supporting the national struggle, but on a restrictive individual membership, with certain limitations of franchise and of a special ideology or “creed,” which prevents it from embracing the broadest front of all who support the national struggle.

The mass organisations of the workers and peasants, the trade unions and peasants’ unions and all similar collective mass organisations, constituting the most important forces of the national struggle are at present outside the National Congress. Only when all these forces are combined, the mass organisations of the workers and peasants together with the National Congress, whether in a united front agreement or by the collective affiliation of these organisations to the Congress, will we have achieved a broad united national front capable of developing as a real Anti-Imperialist People’s Front and drawing behind it the overwhelming majority of the population, the workers, the peasants and the middle classes in a single army of the national struggle. Within such a bloc the working class can increasingly realise its rôle of vanguard, to lead to victory the Indian revolution.

The first aim should therefore be to establish a united front of the National Congress with all the existing mass organisations of the trade unions, peasants’ unions, youth associations or other anti-imperialist mass organisations, in a broad Anti-Imperialist People’s Front on the basis of the struggle against imperialism and its constitution and for organising the struggle of the masses for their immediate demands.

At the same time we should seek to amend the constitution of the National Congress in such a way as to permit of the collective affiliation with delegate representation, of the trade unions, peasants’ unions, youth organisations, etc. This collective affiliation should be carried out not only on an All-India scale (All-India Trades Union Congress to the National Congress), but equally in the provinces and on a district and local scale the whole way through, thus bringing the National Congress into direct and continuous association with the masses. This collective affiliation is important, not only for the immediately existing mass organisations, but for the whole network of trade unions and peasants’ unions gradually embracing wider and wider sections of the masses, which Congress should devote its most active efforts to assist in building up as the strongest pillars of the national struggle.

The possibility of such collective affiliation is illustrated, not only, by the examples of the European Labour Parties, but still more closely by the example of the old national-revolutionary Kuomintang (before the betrayal by Chiang Kai Shek) at the height of its strength when it grouped, along with individual political members, trade unions, peasants’ organisations and the Communist Party, and on this basis swept forward from strength to strength, proving the most powerful and victorious weapon up to then devised for the colonial struggle against imperialism.

While it may take a necessary process of time to carry through the campaign and introduce collective affiliation into the constitution of the Congress, no time should be lost in already setting up on a local, district, provincial, and if possible All-India scale, joint bodies of the Congress Committees, Trade Unions, peasant unions, youth associations, Congress Socialist groups and other groups and anti-imperialist organisations, uniting for the purposes of combining the campaign against imperialism in the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front.

Actually united front bodies have been already set up in localities—not permanent but temporary bodies, which show the possibilities—in places like Bombay, Calcutta and elsewhere. United front demonstrations and meetings were held in Bombay in February last year against the new slave constitution; these and similar actions were supported by Trade Unionists, Congress Socialists, Congress-men, Communists, etc. These actions of course were only the very first signs, but they show the urge for, and possibilities of, the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front.

Democratise the Constitution of the Congress

In order that the Congress shall really become based on the masses, it is not sufficient merely in a formal fashion to draw the mass organisations into its structure; it is necessary to elicit the initiative and responsibility of the masses in the direction and policy of the Congress, so that the policy shall really become governed from below.

The existing working of the Congress machinery cannot be regarded as democratic. In practice a very small handful of leaders hold absolute control. In particular, the Working Committee, which has the greatest power and takes the most important executive decisions, is not an elected body, and cannot be regarded as representative of the sections of opinion in the rank and file of the Congress. Similarly, in the provinces am localities the degree of control from below is very weak.

An exhaustive overhauling of the constitution is necessary in order it bring it into accord with modern democratic conceptions of a popular party, and to ensure, not only the forms of democracy, but that these shall be realised in the practical working—i.e., widening of facilities for raising issues and putting forward resolutions from the membership prior circulation of agenda with opportunities for discussion, mandating of delegates, etc., active political life and discussion in all the local organisations, electing from below of all committees and officers, etc.

Centralised direction is essential for the purposes of the struggle, but this centralised direction must be on the principles, not of personal dictatorship, but of democratic centralism, i.e., elected from below and responsible to the representatives of the lower organs.

A Clear Programme of Anti-Imperialist Struggle

Then again much requires to be done to establish and ensure universal acceptance of a clear and unambiguous programme of anti-imperialist struggle both in the National Congress and for the whole Anti-Imperialist People’s Front.

At present, despite the decisions of the Lahore Congress on the aim of independence, there is still much confusion even on the central aim. Definitions of the meaning of “Purna Swaraj” are as thick as blackberries on a bush, and cover the most contradictory notions. The latest definition by the Wardha meeting of the Working Committee in September, 1934 (“includes unfettered control over the army and other defence forces, external affairs, fiscal and commercial matters, and financial and economic policy”) goes back on the goal of independence and returns to the pre-Lahore aim of Dominion Status.

It is essential to establish in unmistakable terms the aim of complete independence of India as the unchangeable aim of the Indian national struggle, and therewith the rejection of all compromise and negotiation with imperialism for half measures, co-operation in working the constitution, etc.

Further, it is essential to link up the programme of the fight for independence with the immediate political demands of the struggle against imperialism and with the immediate demands of the workers and peasants for their vital needs.

The details of such a programme could be worked out in common by representatives of all the organisations concerned. Thus for example, such a programme might include:

(1) The aim of complete independence for India.

(2) Freedom of speech, press, organisation, assembly, strikes and picketing.

(3) Repeal of all exceptional and repressive laws, ordinances and anti-labour laws (Criminal Amendment Act, Press Act, etc.).

(4) Release of all political prisoners, detenus and internees.

(5) Against reductions of wages and dismissals of workers; for an adequate minimum wage and 8-hour day; for 50 per cent. reduction in rents and against the seizure of peasant land for debt by imperialists, native princes, zemindars and moneylenders.

The particular immediate demands of the struggle could be worked out and varied according to the locality and the particular conditions and stage.

A central rallying slogan for the whole movement could be provided by the demand for a Constituent Assembly; the conditions under which this demand could be usefully taken up and made the centre of agitation and propaganda are considered later in the present article. A platform of this type requires to be established as the common platform of the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front.

Similarly, the constitution and platform of the Congress requires to be worked out anew in the light of this, laying down in simple and clear form the aim of complete independence, the line of irreconcilable struggle against imperialism and the fight for the needs of the workers and peasants. Such a platform can unite all sincere elements of the national struggle, while excluding only those elements which seek to co-operate with imperialism.

The Tactics of Mass Struggle

A similar clearing is necessary with regard to the basic tactics of the Congress and of the national struggle.

The existing ideology of “non-violence,” which is still made a compulsory part of the Congress creed, is to-day a survival which is more and more visibly at variance with the realities of the struggle and less and less corresponds to the outlook of large sections of the national movement. Many prominent members of the Congress, who have formally to subscribe to this dogma as the condition of their participation in its mass activities, to-day privately declare their disbelief in it. This is not a healthy situation. While many sections may still be under the influence of the theories of “non-violence,” to make this a dogma compulsory on all sections is to place an obstacle in the way of the unity of the national front. In fact the experience of the nearly two decades since the war has abundantly shown that the conception of “non-violence” has been used, not merely in opposition to the fruitless policies of individual terrorism or sporadic outbreaks of a minority, but to shackle and hold in all effective mass activity and the development along the lines of the class struggle of the most powerful weapons against imperialism or mass resistance to imperialist violence, and thus leaving free play for the violence of imperialism, has been a dangerous and paralysing influence on the advance of the national struggle and the principal cause of the relative stagnation and failure of advance in India, despite the enormous sacrifices made, compared with other colonial countries. China and Abyssinia have shown how a people fights for its freedom against the imperialist enemy. In Egypt to-day, the higher degree of aggressive mass activity is reflected in the far greater readiness of British Imperialism to offer concessions. It is essential that the Indian national movement should free itself from the paralysing conceptions of passive “non-violence” if it is to defeat its enemy. A sharp, ideological struggle needs to be conducted on this question, but a struggle in the ideological field by way of ceaseless explaining and winning over. This issue should not be allowed to split the national front.

The Congress creed in consequence needs revision in accordance with the real conditions of the struggle. The dogma of “non-violence” should be omitted. The entire emphasis should be placed on the development of the mass struggle, on the work of organisation of the workers and peasants as the primary task in the field of organisation, on the active taking up of the immediate demands of the workers and peasants for their vital needs, and the linking of this struggle with the political anti-imperialist struggle.

Consolidation of the Left Wing

In order to realise the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front and to carry through these urgently necessary changes in the constitution, organisation, policy and work of the National Congress, it is essential that all left wing elements in the Congress should fight in unison on a common platform for these vital needs.

In the past there has been much dispersion of effort, division and mutual sniping between the left wing forces, thus playing into the hands of the domination of the right wing leadership. While it is necessary and desirable that the differences of political outlook and conception which exist between the different groupings should be thoroughly discussed and cleared in comradely discussion, this should not stand in the way of the fullest co-operation and common working on all the issues on which agreement can be reached, both within the Congress and in the immediate daily struggle.

Congress Socialists, Trade Unionists, Communists and Left Congressmen should all be able to unite on the essentials of a minimum programme of anti-imperialist struggle for complete independence of organisation of the masses and development of mass struggle, and of the fight for changes in the Congress constitution, policy, organisation and leadership to forward these aims. The Congress Socialist Party can play an especially important part in this as the grouping of all the radical elements in the existing Congress. It is of the greatest importance that every effort should be made to clarify questions of programme and tactics in the Congress Socialist Party.

It is in this way that the first stage of the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front could be built up already in the common fight, stressing particularly the local, district and provincial basis.

At the same time it is essential to recognise that the task of consolidation of the left wing forces renders more necessary and responsible than ever the rôle and the activity of the Communists in this process, since they have the most responsible rôle to play in ensuring the political clearness of the fight, in pressing forward the drive to unity in action, and guiding the aims of the movement towards the goal of political and social liberation.

Through the consolidation of the left wing forces the first stage of the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front can be built up already in the common fight, particular stress being laid in the early stages upon its development on a local and district basis.

The Anti-Imperialist Front in the Elections

The question of the elections is of cardinal importance for the anti-imperialist front.

On the one hand, it is essential that the clear line of the anti-imperialist front, the line of consistent struggle for complete independence, against all co-operation with imperialism and its constitution, and for the demands of the masses, should be challengingly voiced at the elections, and that the outlook of these vast sections of the national movement must not be stifled.

On the other hand, it is essential that unity of the national front should be maintained against the imperialists and their allies, and there should be no splitting of the vote for the benefit of the reactionary right wing elements outside the Congress who stand for co-operation with imperialism.

The best means to realise this requires the most earnest consideration of all supporters of the national struggle.

We would suggest that the anti-imperialist bloc, constituted on its programme of complete independence, no co-operation with imperialism, and active struggle for the demands of the masses, should seek, agreement with the existing leadership of the Congress (within which the Congress Socialists, grouping the radical elements, represent already a substantial minority of roughly one-third of the forces and a potential majority), to run its candidates directly on this programme in a certain number of seats (or to be able to include them as a group with their specific programme within the Congress panel), as recognised candidates of the united national front, co-operating with the Congress candidates in other constituencies who run on the official programme. The details of this arrangement will need careful working out; but with goodwill on both sides, such an arrangement should be possible.

Every effort requires to be made to prevent a splitting of the national front in the elections; but such unity should not be utilised to stifle the left wing forces of the anti-imperialist bloc.

The Constituent Assembly as the Central Slogan of the Struggle

In order to concentrate the struggle against the slave constitution imposed by the British Government, we cannot rest satisfied with the negative programme of rejection of the constitution and refusal of co-operation, but must counterpose our positive slogan.

Corresponding to the existing stages of the movement, the time is now undoubtedly favourable to launch as our central slogan the demand for the convening of a Constituent Assembly based upon a universal and equal franchise and direct and secret ballot. In the past there has been much discussion on the slogan of a Constituent Assembly. On the one hand, it has been presented in such a form as if the existing National Congress were to be regarded as already the Constituent Assembly of the Indian people. On the other hand, it has been presented as if it were to be regarded as an alternative to the aim of Soviets, as the political aim of the Indian Revolution. Both these outlooks are incorrect and require to be combated. But this necessary criticism of misleading conceptions has given rise to the alternative danger of the conception that the slogan of a Constituent Assembly is as such and at all times inadmissible and in inevitable opposition to the aim of Soviets. This would be a serious misunderstanding; the example of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution has shown how, in a given situation, the slogan of a Constituent Assembly can be a most powerful mobilising force which can be combined with the propaganda of Soviet Power as the ultimate aim.

Is the situation now in India such that this slogan of a Constituent Assembly would be a correct slogan of action for the coming stage? Yes. At a time when the British Government is imposing its new constitution of slavery upon the Indian nation, and preparing its mockery of elections from which the voice of nine-tenths of the people is excluded, and the remainder barred from effective representation with any power to their representatives it is essential to spread broadcast, in opposition to the line of imperialism, the demand for a Constituent Assembly freely elected upon a basis of universal suffrage. In putting this forward the Communists will in no wise weaken their propaganda for the aim of Soviet Power. The Constituent Assembly is a slogan for mobilising the masses at the present stage of the struggle.

But at the same time it is necessary to explain on every occasion on which the issue of a Constituent Assembly is raised, both within the National Congress, and in mass propaganda, that a real Constituent Assembly can only be realised as a result of a broad movement of the masses of the people in active struggle. The significance of the slogan of a Constituent Assembly is as a mobilising slogan of the mass struggle at the present stage. As such it should become the central slogan of action of the present stage of the national struggle and of the Anti-Imperialist People’s Front, uniting all the partial and immediate struggles it this central political fight.

**********

The need for the speedy realisation of the broadest Anti-Imperialist People’s Front in India is the more urgent, not only for the reasons of the situation now existing within India, but in view of the whole international situation as it is developing and affecting India. The war question is now of burning urgency. The Italian war on Abyssinia, alongside the ever-extending Japanese aggression in China, is the signal of the advance of imperialism to a new world war. The sympathies of the Indian people are warmly united with the Abyssinian people in their resistance to the Italian war of aggression, and with the Chinese national struggle against Japanese, and all other imperialists. But at the same time it is necessary to sharpen the struggle against the war preparations of British Imperialism, which fall with merciless heaviness on the Indian masses. The imminence of a new world war makes more than ever necessary the unity and readiness of the national front in India.

In conclusion, it should be stated that these proposals are put forward for the consideration of all supporters of the struggle for national liberation in India as an attempt to trace the main outline of the path of advance in the present immediate situation and with the given relations of forces The realisation of this next stage of advance, the realisation of a broad based, all-embracing and powerful Anti-Imperialist People’s Front should rapidly open the way to new perspectives for the Indian national movement.
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

Postby admin » Fri Mar 20, 2020 10:17 am

Lester Hutchinson
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/20/20

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Hugh Lester Hutchinson in 1947

Hugh Lester Hutchinson[1] (13 December 1904 – February 1983)[2] was a Labour politician who was elected to represent Manchester Rusholme in the 1945 General Election, winning the seat by ten votes.

He was a prominent Trade Unionist and participated in Trade Union movements in India in 1928-29. He was a journalist on the Indian Daily Mail. He was imprisoned in the Meerut Conspiracy Case along with 32 other Communist and Trade Union leaders in 1929.[3] He was jailed for 4 years.[4]


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Portrait of 25 of the Meerut Prisoners taken outside the jail. Back row (left to right): K. N. Sehgal, S. S. Josh, H. L. Hutchinson, Shaukat Usmani, B. F. Bradley, A. Prasad, P. Spratt, G. Adhikari. Middle Row: Radharaman Mitra, Gopen Chakravarti, Kishori Lal Ghosh, L. R. Kadam, D. R. Thengdi, Goura Shanker, S. Bannerjee, K. N. Joglekar, P. C. Joshi, Muzaffar Ahmed. Front Row: M. G. Desai, D. Goswami, R.S. Nimbkar, S.S. Mirajkar, S.A. Dange, S. V. Ghate, Gopal Basak.

The Meerut Conspiracy Case was a controversial court case initiated in British India in March 1929 and decided in 1933. Several trade unionists, including three Englishmen were arrested for organizing an Indian railway strike. The British Government convicted 27 leftist trade union leaders under a false lawsuit. The trial immediately caught attention in England, where it inspired the 1932 play Meerut by Manchester street theatre group the 'Red Megaphones', highlighting the detrimental effects of colonisation and industrialisation....

The main charges were that in 1921 S.A. Dange, Shaukat Usmani and Muzaffar Ahmed entered into a conspiracy to establish a branch of the Comintern in India and they were helped by various persons, including the accused Philip Spratt and Benjamin Francis Bradley, sent to India by the Communist International. The aim of the accused persons, according to the charges raised against them was under section 121-A of the Indian Penal Code (Act 45 of 1860)...

Though all the accused were not communists, the charges framed against them portrayed the British government's fear for growth of communist ideas in India. In the trial the accused were all labeled as Bolsheviks. During the trial of four and a half years, the defendants turned the courtroom into a public platform to espouse their cause. As a result, the trial saw strengthening of the communist movement in the country.

-- Meerut Conspiracy Case, by Wikipedia


Together with two other Labour MPs, Leslie Solley and Konni Zilliacus, he voted against the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty. The trio were expelled from the Labour Party on 16 May 1949, and subsequently sat as the Labour Independent Group.[5] His constituency was abolished at the 1950 election. He unsuccessfully stood for the Walthamstow West seat, but never returned to Parliament. He was a historian, writer and teacher.

References

1. http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/37238/pages/4293
2. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 16 September 2012. Retrieved 17 August 2010.
3. "S.H. Jhabwala And Ors. vs Emperor on 3 August, 1933". indiankanoon.org. Retrieved 1 February 2018.
4. "The Meerut Conspiracy Trial: Background, charges and sentences". 13 November 2007. Archived from the original on 13 November 2007. Retrieved 1 February 2018.
5. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 9 July 2009. Retrieved 21 July 2009.
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

Postby admin » Fri Mar 20, 2020 10:52 am

Clemens Palme Dutt
by The Open University: Making Britain
Accessed: 3/20/20

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Date of birth: 15 Apr 1893, Cambridge, England
Date of death: 01 Apr 1975, Goring on Thames
Location: Cambridge, London.

Clemens Palme Dutt was the elder brother of Rajani Palme Dutt. Both were active in the Communist Party of Great Britain. Clemens worked as a journalist, translator and editor, in particular of the works of Marx and Engels. The brothers’ Communist ideals were influenced from an early age by their father Dr Upendra Krishna Dutt’s activities as a doctor in a working-class part of Cambridge.

Date of birth: 01 Jan 1857, Calcutta, India
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 01 Jan 1876

Upendra Krishna Dutt travelled to Britain in 1875 or 1876 on a Gilchrist Scholarship to study medicine at London University. After qualifying, he remained in Britain practising at Leicester and then buying a medical practice in Cambridge. He faced a deal of racial prejudice in securing employment as a doctor after qualifying. Dutt married the Swedish writer Anna Palme in England. She was a distant relative of Olaf Palme, later Swedish Prime Minister.

The Dutt family were close-knit despite financial insecurity. From 1891, Dutt hosted the Cambridge Majlis society meetings in his home. Two of Dutt's sons, Rajani and Clemens, became active members of the Communist Party of Great Britain....

Organizations:

Cambridge Majlis
East India Association

-- Upendra Krishna Dutt, by The Open University, Making Britain


While at university, Clemens and Rajani were involved with the Socialist Club where both came to the attention of the British authorities and remained under constant surveillance. Both brothers were founding members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB).

In the 1920s, both brothers were writing for Labour Monthly and for a time Clemens took over from his brother as editor. In the 1920s, he became actively involved with the Indian independence movement. Working as a journalist in London, he wrote in particular on India and the Indian independence struggle. In July 1923, he visited Berlin from Moscow, where he became closely associated with M. N. Roy, who was heading the Indian section of Comintern. He returned to London later that year under instructions from Comintern to assist Shapurji Saklatvala. In 1925, the CPGB established its own colonial bureau, which Clemens Palme Dutt headed. The bureau attempted to form connections in India, Palestine, China, Egypt and Ireland. He became the link between the CPGB colonial bureau the Comintern’s Indian section and Indian Communists in Europe and India. In 1927, together with N. J. Upadhyaya and Ajoy Banerji, he founded the Indian Seamen's Union in London. By then he was also on the London Council of the Workers' Welfare League of India, working in close cooperation with Saklatvala. During this period Palme Dutt visited Liverpool several times to help with the organization of Indian seamen by local Communists active in the port.

In March 1928, Clemens Palme Dutt was asked by Reginald Bridgeman to join the Executive Committee of the British Section of the League Against Imperialism. In 1928, Palme Dutt returned to Moscow as a member of a sub-committee of the Executive Committee of the Comintern to advise on the Indian situation. In the 1930s, he worked on the editorial staff of the Daily Worker, the organ of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and acted as the Chairman of the Indian Section of the Communist Party of Great Britain. He also represented the Indian Seamen’s Union on the Executive of the League Against Imperialism. Palme Dutt worked as part of the Meerut Prisoners’ Defence Committee. In August 1930, he replaced Percy Glading as head of the Colonial Department of the CPGB. In 1930, together with Saklatvala, he helped to found the Workers' Section of the London Branch of the Indian National Congress. In June 1931, he was part of a sub-committee of the Colonial Bureau of the CPGB to organize Indian students in Britain.

In late 1931 he moved to Berlin and later to Moscow where he met Violet Lansbury (daughter of George Lansbury, leader of the Labour Party in the early 1930s) whom he married in 1936 and with whom he had a daughter. During the Spanish Civil War, Palme Dutt worked together with Krishna Menon and the India League to collect donations for an ambulance for Spanish Republicans. By early 1939 Palme Dutt, his wife and daughter had returned to Britain permanently. He continued to work for the CPGB, addressing meetings and writing articles.

Connections:

Robert Page Arnot, Olive Budden, Ajoy Banerji, Reginald Bridgeman, Rose Cohen, Claud Cockburn, Shripat Amrit Dange, Upendra Krishna Dutt (father), Rajani Palme Dutt (brother), Pazl Elahi, Percy Glading, Don Phillip Rupasangha Gunawardena, W. M. Holmes, Douglas Hyde, George Lansbury, Harold Laski, V. K. Krishna Menon, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sylvia Pankhurst, Picasso, M. P. Rathbones, M. N. Roy, Bill Rust, Shapurji Saklatvala, Pulin Behari Seal, Mohamed Ali Sepassi (Khushi Mohammed), Philip Spratt, Robert Stuart, John Strachey, N. J. Upadhyaya.

Communist Club, Battersea; Communist Party of Great Britain; Indian Bureau; Indian Seamen’s Union; Meerut Prisoners Defence Committee; National Union of Journalists; Workers' Welfare League for India.

Network:

Shapurji Saklatvala
Rajani Palme Dutt
Krishna Menon

Organizations:

Indian Writing
Lawrence & Wishart
League Against Imperialism

Involved in events:

Meerut Conspiracy Trials

Published works:

Biology: An Introductory Course for Casses and Study Circles (London: Labour Research Department, 1925)

Labour and the Empire (London: Communist Party of Great Britain, 1929)

As editor and translator:

Engels, Friedrich, Herr Eugen Duehring’s Revolution in Science-Anti-Duehring, trans. by Emile Burns and ed. by C. P. Dutt (London: Martin Lawrence, 1934)

Engels, Friedrich, Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy...With an appendix of other material of Marx and Engels relating to dialectical materialism, ed. by C. P. Dutt (London: Martin Lawrence, 1934)Engels, Friedrich, The Housing Question, ed. by C. P. Dutt (London: Martin Lawrence, 1935)

Marx, Karl, The Poverty of Philosophy, with an introduction by Frederick Engels, ed. by C. P. Dutt and V. Chattopadhyaya (London: Martin Lawrence, 1936)

Frolov, Yury Petrovitch, Pavlov and his School. The Theory of Conditioned Reflexes, trans. by C. P. Dutt (London: Kegan Paul & Co., 1937)

Critique of the Gotha Programme...With Appendices by Marx, Engels and Lenin, ed. by C. P. Dutt (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1938)

Engels, Friedrich, Dialectics of Nature, trans. by C. P. Dutt (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1940)

Marx, Karl, Selected Works of Karl Marx, ed. by C. P. Dutt (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1942)

The Soviet Worker Looks at the War: Selections from the Moscow Fortnightly War and the Working Class, ed. by C. P. Dutt (London: Labour Monthly, 1944)

Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, Weissbuch der Kommunistischen Partei Deutschlands ueber die muendliche Verhandlung im Verbotsprozess...in Karlsruhe ('The Karlsruhe Trial for banning the Communist Party of Germany'), trans. by C. P. Dutt (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1956)

Contributions to periodicals:

Daily Worker

Labour Monthly

Secondary works:

'Announcement of Death', The Times (14 April 1975), p. 24

Owen, Nicholas, The British Left and India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)

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

Archive source:

L/PJ/12/28, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

L/PJ/12/29, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

KV2/2504, National Archives, Kew

KV2/2505, National Archives, Kew
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

Postby admin » Fri Mar 20, 2020 11:05 am

Upendra Krishna Dutt
by The Open University: Making Britain
Accessed: 3/20/20

Date of birth: 01 Jan 1857, Calcutta, India
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 01 Jan 1876

Upendra Krishna Dutt travelled to Britain in 1875 or 1876 on a Gilchrist Scholarship to study medicine at London University. After qualifying, he remained in Britain practising at Leicester and then buying a medical practice in Cambridge. He faced a deal of racial prejudice in securing employment as a doctor after qualifying. Dutt married the Swedish writer Anna Palme in England. She was a distant relative of Olaf Palme, later Swedish Prime Minister.

Anna Augusta Palme Dutt; born January 5, 1868, in Kalmar, H. Sverige, Sweden; daughter of Christian Adolph Palme [Christian Adolph Palme (Kristian Adolf), born 30 April, 1811 in Applerum, Arby, Kalmar, Sverige; died 31 March, 1889 in Kalmar, Kalmar, Sverige; son of Johan Palm and Carolina von Sydow; Secretary of State in Kalmar, lawyer in Kalmar] and Augusta Johanna Amalia Hasselqvist; Sister of Sven Theodor Palme [grandfather of Prime Minister Olof Palme]; married Upendra Krishna Dutt 1890 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, UK; great aunt of Olof Palme

Image

 Johan Palme (1778-1845), bailiff, Södra Möre, Kalmar County [ 1 ]
o Johan Theodor Palme (1808-1870), wholesaler and shipowner in Kalmar [ 1 ]
 August Palme (1856–1924), actor [ 1 ]
o Christian Adolph Palme (1811–1889), Secretary of State in Kalmar, Lawyer [ 1 ]
 Henrik Palme (1841–1932), banking director [ 1 ]
 Carl Palme (1879-1960) artist [ 1 ]
 Lennart Palme (1881-1971), business manager [ 1 ]
 Henrik Palme dy (1888–1935), director [ 2 ]
 René Palme (1910–1983), Businessman, Mexico [ 2 ]
 Oscar Palme, (1891–1946), major [ 1 ]
 Ulf Palme (1920–1993), actor [ 1 ]
 Beatrice Palme , actor in Italy
 + Laila Andersson-Palme (born 1941), married to Ulf Palme from 1984 [ 3 ]
 Fredrik Adolph Palme, (1846-1912), a notary court notary [ 1 ]
 Einar Palme (1901–1993), artist [ 1 ]
 Sven Palme (1854-1934), Insurance Director [ 1 ]
 Olof Palme (1884–1918), historian [ 1 ]
 Rutger Palme (1910–1995), lawyer, chair of the municipal council [ 1 ]
 Agneta Uddenberg , born Palme (1941–2011), journalist and writer [ 4 ]
 Sven Ulric Palme (1912–1977), historian, professor [ 1 ]
 Jacob Palme (born 1941), professor [ 1 ]
 Thomas Palme (born 1944), Ambassador [ 1 ]
 Christian Palme (born 1952), journalist [ 1 ]
 Per Olof Palme (1914–1983), art historian, professor in Oslo [ 1 ]
 Hans Palme (1918-2000), chief engineer [ 1 ]
 Erik Palme (born 1938), architect [ 1 ]
 + Birgitta Palme (1940-2000), head of theater, married to Erik Palme [ 1 ]
 Susanne Palme (born 1955), journalist [ 5 ]
 Gunnar Palme (1886–1934) insurance director [ 1 ]
 Claës Palme (1917–2006), lawyer [ 1 ]
 Olof Palme (1927–1986), Prime Minister [ 1 ]
 + Lisbeth Beck-Friis (1931–2018), psychologist, married to Olof Palme [ 1 ] [ 6 ]
 Joakim Palme (born 1958), political scientist and sociologist, professor [ 6 ]
 Mårten Palme (born 1961), economist, professor [ 6 ]
 Mattias Palme (born 1968)
 Nils Palme (1895–1963), military, landlord [ 7 ]


The Dutt family were close-knit despite financial insecurity. From 1891, Dutt hosted the Cambridge Majlis society meetings in his home. Two of Dutt's sons, Rajani and Clemens, became active members of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Their involvement in politics was influenced by their father's work as a doctor in working-class areas of Cambridge.

Connections:

Clemens Palme Dutt, Rajani Palme Dutt.

Network:

Rajani Palme Dutt

Organizations:

Cambridge Majlis
East India Association

Secondary works:

Callaghan, John, Rajani Palme Dutt (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1993)

Lahiri, Shompa, Indians in Britain: Anglo-Indian Encounters, Race and Identity, 1800-1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2000)

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

Archive source:

R. P. Dutt Papers, Communist Party Archives, University of Central Lancashire
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

Postby admin » Fri Mar 20, 2020 11:16 am

East India Association
by The Open University: Making Britain
Accessed: 3/20/20

Date began: 01 Jan 1866

The East India Association was founded by Dadabhai Naoroji in 1866, in collaboration with Indians and retired British officials in London. It superseded the London Indian Society and was a platform for discussing matters and ideas about India, and to provide representation for Indians to the Government.

In 1865, the London Indian Society was founded under the guidance of Dadabhai Naoroji. It was formed by Indian students as a forum to air political grievances. Europeans were allowed to be honorary members but could not vote or hold office. Of the founding group of students, they included W. C. Bonnerjee, Manomohun Ghose, Pherozeshah Mehta and Badruddin Tyabji.

In 1866, the London Indian Society was superseded by the East India Association, although it did continue to exist in some separate form for a few more years.

-- London Indian Society, by The Open University: Making Britain


Naoroji delivered the first lecture to the Association on 2 May 1867. The Association's first President was Lord Lyveden.

In 1868, the East India Association had nearly 600 members. This had increased to 1,000 in 1878. Female members were admitted from 1912. The Association produced a journal (Journal of the East India Association) from its inception which included the papers that were delivered before their meetings. Papers and proceedings of these meetings were then produced in the Asiatic Quarterly Review, which eventually superseded the Journal of the East India Association.

The Asiatic Quarterly Review was founded by Sir Lepel Griffin in 1885. Griffin founded the journal as an organ of the East India Association and employed Demetrius Boulger as editor. In 1891, the scope of the journal was expanded beyond just Indian matters to South East Asia and the Middle East and therefore the name was changed to the Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review and Oriental and Colonial Record. The third series began in 1896 and was taken over by G. W. Leitner at the Oriental Institute at Woking. In 1913, the name was constricted back to the Asiatic Quarterly Review and the journal was edited by W. MacCarthy Mann and Gilbery Lyne. In 1914, it was published from London and renamed the Asiatic Review as it was now published more frequently during the year.

The journal combined articles from the proceedings of East India Association meetings with other articles on matters relating to Asia. It also included book reviews and comments on international affairs. The journal did not shy away from political matters, and actively encouraged debates from various standpoints. The Asiatic Review is a valuable resource for information about the activities of South Asians in Britain and a number of reviews of books relating to South Asia. In 1915, the journal began a regular section 'Where East and West Meet', written by A. A. Smith, editor of the Indian Magazine and Review, which gave a record of events in Britain relating to 'Asiatic questions'. The journal ceased publication in 1952.

-- Asiatic Review, by The Open University: Making Britain


These lectures were usually delivered in the Association's regular meeting place - Caxton Hall, Westminster (i.e., Westminster Town Hall). Over the course of its existence, the Association would listen to lectures from a wide range of Indian and British men and women on matters ranging from the economic development of India to literature to suffrage. In March 1940, after a lecture delivered by Michael O'Dwyer at Caxton Hall, the former Governor of Punjab at the time of the Amritsar Massacre was shot dead by Udham Singh.

The East India Association incorporated the National Indian Association in 1949 and became the Britain, India and Pakistan Association. In 1966 it amalgamated with the former India Society, now Royal India, Pakistan and Ceylon Society, to become the Royal Society for India, Pakistan and Ceylon.

Key individuals:

Dadabhai Naoroji

Connections:

Syed Ameer Ali, Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree, W. C. Bonnerjee, R. C. Dutt, G. W. Leitner, Udham Singh.

Related organization:

India Society
London Indian Society
National Indian Association

Published works:

Asiatic Review

Journal of the East India Association

Secondary works:

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

Example:

'The Jubilee of the East India Association (founded 1866)', Ch. I, Asiatic Review XI.29 (January 1917), pp. 1-14; p. 3

Content:

Ten installments (until July 1918) in the Asiatic Review on the history of the East India Association, with details of all the key lectures that were given in the first fifty years of the Association.

Extract:

One of the chief objects Mr Naoroji had in view in founding the Association was the awakening of the British people to a due sense of their responsibilities as rulers of India, and his first endeavours were therefore directed to the dissipation of that 'colossal ignorance' of India which had so impressed him on his first arrival in England in 1855. Later on he saw how desirable it was that the Chiefs and Princes of India should be represented in this country, and that all possible assistance should be afforded them in laying their claims and views before Government for the protection of their interests and the redress of their grievances. So 'all persons interested in India' (whether Indians or Britons) were welcomed as Members of the East India Association.

Archive source:

Minute books, financial papers and correspondence, Mss Eur F147, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

Postby admin » Fri Mar 20, 2020 11:26 am

Dadabhai Naoroji
by The Open University: Making Britain
Accessed: 3/20/20

Other names: The Grand Old Man of India
Date of birth: 04 Sep 1825, Bombay, India
Date of death: 30 Jun 1917, Bombay, India
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 01 Jan 1855
Dates of time spent in Britain: On and off between 1855 and 1907

Dadabhai Naoroji, of Bombay Parsee origin, was the first Indian to be elected to Parliament in Britain. Naoroji travelled to Britain in 1885 as a business partner of Cama and Company. A member of several businesses, he became Professor of Gujarati at University College, London (1856-65). He had also been founder-editor of the journal Rast Goftar in Bombay in 1851. He founded the London Zoroastrian Association in 1861.

The Zoroastrian Association was founded in 1861 in Kensington, London. According to Ralph Hinnells it was the first Asian religious association founded in Britain.

Dadabhai Naoroji was the first president, having founded the association with Muncherjee Hormusji Cama. The first meeting was attended by 15 Parsees. Under the presidency of M. M. Bhownaggree, it became the Incorporated Parsee Association of Europe. Various other Parsee organizations formed in Britain as well, such as the Parsee Social Union and the World Zoroastrian Association.

The Zoroastrian Association incorporated a religious, social and welfare role, with educational outreach. It also organized social outings. It oversaw Parsee burials at Brockwood. The Zoroastrian House in Kensington provided facilities as a guesthouse.

-- Zoroastrian Association, by The Open University: Making Britain


He was also founding member of the East India Association and London Indian Society, and became vocal in promoting Indian rights in regard to the ICS and trade. Naoroji was an economist and proponent of the 'drain theory', building up a detailed economic critique of British imperialism in India. He also established links with Irish MPs and was one of the founders of the Indian National Congress in 1885 in Bombay.

In 1886, Naoroji campaigned as Liberal Party candidate for the strongly Conservative seat of Holborn. In 1888, referring to Naoroji's defeat, the Conservative Party Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, remarked that an English constituency was not ready to elect a 'Blackman', drawing greater notoriety to Naoroji. In 1892, he contested the seat of Central Finsbury, campaigning on Gladstone's platform of Liberalism, and was successfully elected with a majority of five. He lost his seat in the General Election of 1895. In 1906, Naoroji stood as a candidate at Lambeth North but was again unsuccessful. In 1907, Naoroji left England to retire at Versova in Bombay, where he died in 1917.

Connections:

Syed Ameer Ali, John Archer (Naoroji encouraged him to go into politics), Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree, W. C. Bonnerjee, Charles Bradlaugh, Josephine Butler, Madame Bhikaiji Cama, William Digby, Lalmohan Ghose, H. M. Hyndman, Mohammed Ali Jinnah (helped out in campaign), Frank Hugh O'Donnell, Elizabeth Adelaide Manning (through NIA), Florence Nightingale, Badruddin Tyabji, Alfred Webb, William Wedderburn, Henry Sylvester Wiliams (Naoroji encouraged him to go into politics).

Network:

Shyamaji Krishnavarma
Syed Ameer Ali
Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree
W. C. Bonnerjee
Madame Cama
William Digby
Lalmohan Ghose
Henry Mayers Hyndman
Mohammed Ali Jinnah
Elizabeth Adelaide Manning
Florence Nightingale
Frank Hugh O'Donnell
Shapurji Saklatvala
Badruddin Tyabji
Alfred Webb

Organizations:

East India Association
London Indian Society
National Indian Association
National Liberal Club
Zoroastrian Association

Involved in events:

General Elections, 1886, 1892, 1895, 1906

Published works:

Poverty of India (1876)

Mr D. Naoroji and Mr Schnadhorst (London: Chant & Co., 1892)

Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901)

Reviews:

The First Indian Member of the Imperial Parliament (Madras: Addison & Co., 1892)

Fair Play, India and Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji MP (Madras: Higginbotham & Co., 1893)

For press reaction to Naoroji's election as MP in 1892 see Biographical Magazine, Evening News and Post, Punch, Pall Mall Gazette, among others

Secondary works:

Burton, Antoinette, 'Tongues Untied: Lord Salisbury's "Black Man" and the Boundaries of Imperial Democracy', Society for Comparative Study of Society and History (2000), pp. 632-61

Hinnells, John R., Zoroastrians in Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996)

Masani, R. P., Dadabhai Naoroji. The Grand Old Man of India (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1939)

Monk, C. J. , ‘“Member for India?” The Parliamentary Lives of Dadabhai Naoroji (MP: 1892-1895) and Mancherjee Bhownaggree (MP: 1895-1906)’, unpublished MPhil thesis (University of Manchester, 1985)

Mukherjee, Sumita, ‘‘Narrow-majority’ and ‘Bow-and-agree’: Public Attitudes Towards the Elections of the First Asian MPs in Britain, Dadabhai Naoroji and Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree, 1885-1906’ Journal of the Oxford University History Society 2 (Michaelmas 2004)

Ralph, Omar, Naoroji. The First Asian MP. A Biography of Dadabhai Naoroji: India's Patriot and Britain's MP (St John's Antigua: Hansib, 1997)

Schneer, Jonathan, London 1900: The Imperial Metropolis (London: Yale University Press, 1999)

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

Parekh, C. L. (ed.), Essays, Speeches, Addresses and Writings of the Honourable Dadabhai Naoroji (Bombay: Caxton, 1887)

Patwardhan, R. P. (ed.), Dadabhai Naoroji Correspondence (Bombay: n.p., 1977)

Archive source:

Dadabhai Naoroji Parliamentary Centenary Celebrations, Mss Eur F279, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Letters in William Digby Collection, Mss Eur D767, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Minute books of East India Association, Mss Eur F147/27, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

Papers and correspondence, National Archives of India, New Delhi

Notes relating to possible candidature in 1903-1910, Labour History Archive, Central Lancashire
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

Postby admin » Fri Mar 20, 2020 11:33 am

Robert Vernon, 1st Baron Lyveden [Lord Lyvedon]
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/20/20

Image
The Lord Lyveden
GCB PC
Secretary at War
In office: 6 February 1852 – 21 February 1852
Monarch: Victoria
Prime Minister: Lord John Russell
Preceded by: Hon. Fox Maule
Succeeded by: William Beresford
President of the Board of Control
In office: 3 March 1855 – 21 February 1858
Monarch: Victoria
Prime Minister: The Viscount Palmerston
Preceded by: Sir Charles Wood, Bt
Succeeded by: The Earl of Ellenborough
Personal details
Born: 23 February 1800
Died: 10 November 1873 (aged 73)
Nationality: British
Political party: Whig; Liberal Party
Spouse(s): Lady Emma Mary Fitzpatrick
Alma mater: Christ Church, Oxford

Robert Vernon, 1st Baron Lyveden, GCB, PC (23 February 1800 – 10 November 1873), known as Robert Vernon Smith until 1859, was a British Liberal Party politician.

Background and education

Vernon was the son of Robert Percy Smith, of 20 Savile Row, London, and of Cheam, Surrey, and the nephew of The Rev. Sydney Smith, Canon of St Paul's. His mother was Carolina Maria Vernon, daughter of Richard Vernon. Vernon was educated at Christ Church, Oxford (2nd class classics 1822).

Political career

He was elected Member of Parliament for Tralee in 1829, a seat he held until 1831, and then sat for Northampton from 1831 to 1859. When the Whigs came to power in 1830 under Lord Grey, Vernon was appointed a Lord of the Treasury (government whip), which he remained also when Lord Melbourne became Prime Minister in July 1834. The Whigs fell from office in November of that year, but returned already in April 1835, when Vernon was appointed Secretary of the Board of Control by Melbourne, which he remained until 1839. He then served as Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1839 to 1841. The latter year he was also admitted to the Privy Council. He did not hold office again until February 1852, when he was made Secretary at War in the first administration of Lord John Russell. However, the government fell already the same month. When the Liberals (as the Whigs were now known) returned to office in 1855 under Lord Palmerston, Vernon was appointed President of the Board of Control, with a seat in the cabinet, a post he retained until the government fell in March 1858. The Indian Mutiny took place during his tenure. The following year he was raised to the peerage as Baron Lyveden, of Lyveden in the County of Northampton.,[1] and in 1879 he was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB).[2]

In 1845 he was appointed one of the Lay Commissioners in Lunacy.[3]

Family

Image
Greville Richard Vernon, son of Lord Lyveden.

Lord Lyveden married Lady Emma Mary Fitzpatrick, daughter and co-heir of the Earl of Upper Ossory, in 1823. In 1846 he assumed for his children by Royal licence the surname of Vernon in lieu of Smith and in 1859 he assumed for himself by Royal licence the same surname in lieu of Smith. Lord Lyveden died in November 1873, aged 73, and was succeeded in the barony by his son Fitzpatrick. Lord Lyveden was a member of the Reform Club, the Travellers Club, and Brooks's.

He tomb is located in the church of St Andrew in Brigstock, Northamptonshire.

Image
Tomb of Robert Vernon, 1st Baron Lyveden in St. Andrew's church, Brigstock, Northamptonshire

Notes

1. "No. 22280". The London Gazette. 28 June 1859. p. 2514.
2. "No. 23876". The London Gazette. 16 July 1872. p. 3190.
3. Kathleen Jones (2003). Lunacy, law, and conscience, 1744-1845: the social history of the care of the insane. Routledge. p. 191. ISBN 0-415-17802-9.

Image
Vernon's tomb in Brigstock

References

• Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990,[page needed]
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages

External links

• Works by or about Robert Vernon, 1st Baron Lyveden at Internet Archive
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Robert Vernon
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Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

Postby admin » Fri Mar 20, 2020 11:55 am

Lepel Griffin
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/20/20

Image
Sir Lepel Henry Griffin

Sir Lepel Henry Griffin, KCSI (20 July 1838 – 9 March 1908) was a British administrator and diplomat during the British Raj period in India. He was also a writer.

Early life

Lepel Henry Griffin was born in Watford, England on 20 July 1838. His father, Henry, was a clergyman in the Church of England and his mother was Frances Sophia. His mother had been married previously and thus Griffin had ten half-siblings as well as two full sisters.[1]

Griffin was educated briefly at Harrow School, having also attended Malden's Preparatory School, Brighton. He did not go to university but was privately tutored for the competitive examination for entry to the Indian Civil Service. He sat and passed those examinations during 1859 and 1860, being ranked tenth among the 32 successful candidates.[1]

Career

He reached India in November 1860 and was posted to Lahore.[1] The mannerisms of Griffin had attracted attention in India from the time of his arrival there, and in 1875 Sir Henry Cunningham satirised him in the novel, Chronicles of Dustypore,[1] in which he was depicted as the character Desvoeux.[2][3] Katherine Prior, the author of his entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, describes that, "He was a dandyish, Byronic figure, articulate, argumentative, and witty. Anglo-Indian society was at once both dazzled by and scornful of his languid foppishness and irreverent tongue".[1]

In 1880 he became Chief Secretary of the Punjab.[4] He was sent as a diplomatic representative to Kabul, at the end of the Second Afghan War.[5] He was then Governor-General's Agent in Central India and Resident in Indore; and Resident in Hyderabad.

He collaborated with the pioneer Indian photographer Lala Deen Dayal.[6]

After his return to the United Kingdom, he was Chairman of the East India Association.][7]

He was a proponent of an Anglo-American union, he addressed a meeting on 15 October 1898 in Luton, on the subject of the suggested Anglo-American union, Col. John Hay, the former United States Ambassador at London attended the meeting.[8]
[/b

[b]Death


Griffin died at his home – 4 Cadogan Gardens, Sloane Street, London – on 9 March 1908 after suffering from influenza. He was cremated and his ashes were interred at a private chapel owned by Colonel Dudley Sampson in Buxhalls, Haywards Heath, Sussex. His wife remarried, while the younger of his two sons, Sir Lancelot Cecil Lepel Griffin became the last political secretary of British India.[1]

Bibliography

• The Panjab Chiefs. Lahore: T. C. McCartney-Chronicle Press. 1865.
o The Panjab Chiefs. 1. Updated by Charles Francis Massy (New revised ed.). Lahore: Civil and Military Gazette Press. 1890.
o The Panjab Chiefs. 2. Updated by Charles Francis Massy (New revised ed.). Lahore: Civil and Military Gazette Press. 1890.
 Revised as Chiefs and Families of note in the Punjab (1909)
• The Law of Inheritance to Chiefships. Lahore: Punjab Printing Company. 1869.
• The Rajas of the Punjab (1873)
• Famous monuments of Central India (1886)
• The Great Republic (Second ed.). London: Chapman and Hall. 1884.
• Ranjit Singh. Rulers of India series. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1892.

Notes

1. "Griffin, Sir Lepel Henry (1838–1908)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/33576. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
2. Cunningham, Henry Stewart (1875). The Chronicles of Dustypore, a Tale of Modern Anglo-Indian Society. 1. London: Smith, Elder and Co.
3. Cunningham, Henry Stewart (1875). The Chronicles of Dustypore, a Tale of Modern Anglo-Indian Society. 2. London: Smith, Elder and Co.
4. Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series by George Robert Aberigh-Mackay – Full Text Free Book (Part 3/3)
5. Abdur Rahman Khan – 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
6. Life Sketch (Lala Deen Dayal 1844 – 1905)
7. "The Maharaja Scindia and the East India Association". The Times (36853). London. 22 August 1902. p. 8.
8. The Anglo-American Feeling – Sir Lepel Henry Griff... The New York Times: PDF

External links

• Works by Lepel Griffin at Open Library
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