The India League: anticolonialism and the end of empire 1916-1948

Thesis

This thesis recovers the history of the India League by exploring its mobilisational methods, solidarities, arguments and the historical contributions of an Indian anticolonial transnational organisation headquartered in the imperial metropole. It explores the India League’s anticolonialism as a network which inverted the hierarchies of power within the British empire by connecting Indian anticolonialism with the British Labour movement, the House of Commons and certain sections of the left-wing elites that came to hold power in postwar Britain. The League’s anticolonialism also exceeded itself in terms of both membership and ideology as it included a great many Britons and global anticolonial, antiracist, antifascist and progressive allies, forming a politics with global – even universal – horizons. Through this network the India League transmitted a dissenting version of empire: anticolonialism as a form of knowledge-production. Its location in Britain also enabled the mobilisation of the British Indian diaspora in the negotiation of anticolonial Indian identities and the conquest of political space. This insisted upon the compatibility of the categories of ‘modern’ and ‘Indian’ which were held apart by the ideologies of imperialism. Most importantly, this thesis argues that the India League contributed to the achievement of Indian independence by successfully disseminating its anticolonial idea of a Constituent Assembly for India until it became the very policy by which Labour sought to achieve Indian independence. The summoning of an Assembly, however, also contributed to Partition. This was a rough road to midnight as the India League faced opposition from Viceroys, Conservatives, the police and the India League’s shadowy nemesis: Indian Political Intelligence, a secret arm of the Raj working to destroy Indian anticolonialism in Britain, and throughout the world.

Authors: Arni, A

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-9o8qdn079
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: anticolonialism; decolonisation; India; Labour Party; Constituent Assembly; diaspora; Krishna Menon; solidarity; antifascism
• Subjects: Socialism; Labour Party (Great Britain)--History--20th century; Anti-imperialist movements; Decolonization; Imperialism