Indian Nationalism by Alex Jubb

The current exhibition to be found in the cases in the Harry Fairhurst corridor at the University of York Library tells the story of the road to Indian independence. The exhibition uses books and archives from the university’s collections and themes include the relationship between coloniser and colonised, and Indian literature.  Highlights include a telegram from Gandhi, and books that belonged to former Prime Minister Clement Attlee. The exhibition will remain in the cases until the end of March 2018.

Alex Jubb worked on the India project as an intern in 2017 and has written several blogs (Aug 2017#1)(Aug 2017#2)(Jan 2018) about the collection and the history of the Independence movement. Here he examines the theme of Indian literature in more depth.

Indian Nationalism

Image: Commemorative Postage Stamp (1967), India Security Press.
http://www.istampgallery.com/quit-india-movement/ 

The movement to free India from British rule manifested itself through a variety of different mediums. Indian poets, writers and artists provided the inspiration to many ordinary Indians to develop sympathies towards the nationalist cause, particularly as the twentieth century progressed. It became obvious to political commentators of the early twentieth century that there was very little in the way of a unifying identity amongst the peoples of India. In addition to the many political and economic works published to aid the nationalist cause, both inside and outside India, scholars that have studied the causes of Indian independence in 1947 believed that by the 1920s and 1930s, literature had come to occupy a central role in the Indian nationalist movement.

Image sourced from India Online
http://bit.ly/2C41OUg

Raja Rao, an Indian novelist who participated in the Quit India Movement of 1942, was the prime mover in the formation of a cultural organisation, Sri Vidya Samiti, devoted to reviving the values of ancient Indian civilisation. Although deemed a failure by many, his nationalist beliefs were clearly reflected in his first two books; ‘Kanthapura’, an account of the impact of Gandhi’s teaching on peaceful resistance against the British, was followed by ‘The Serpent and the Rope’; the serpent being illusion and the rope being the reality of independence. Rao borrowed the style and structure form Indian vernacular tales and epic fold stories. Rao’s winning of both the third and second highest civilian awards in India following independence signified the impact Rao had on Indian nationalist thinking. According to Ulna Anjaria, a modern day historian of pre-independence India and Pakistan, ‘Indian writers of literature began to imagine cultural unity through their fictional and poetic works’. It is clear that she was correct in her assumption.

Whilst words on a page inspired many Indians to strive for independence, the role played by artists skilled enough to conjure up great nationalist imagery in their works can surely not be understated. Indian artists sought to maintain an ‘Indianness’ representative of their newly independent nation. It became clear that, as Rebecca Brown describes, an ‘emergence of a self-conscience Indian modernism’. Post-independence art showed the influence of Western styles, but was often inspired by Indian themes and images. One particular group, the Progressive Artists’ Group, was established shortly after independence and was intended to establish new ways of expressing India in the post-colonial era. Most of the major artists of India in the 1950s were associate with the group, and the Indian ethos was further cemented by these influential artists and painters.

© Susleriel, 2009. Image: CC-BY-SA

Moreover, a further aspect of Indian culture that the newly independent nation states sought to use to break from their colonial past was architecture. Shortly after independence in 1947, India employed Le Corbusier (a Swiss-French pioneer of modern architecture) to design Chandigarh, the capital of Punjab. The American architect Louis Kahn was invited to design the capitol complex at Dhaka (the modern-day capital of Bangladesh). Indian architects developed a revivalist style of bold architectural gestures, anchored in India’s past, particularly as they planned the Ashok Hotel and the Vigyan Bhavan Conference Centre in New Delhi. Seeking alternative visions after independence through foreign expertise, meaning anything not made by British hands, became a main priority for the new leaders of both India and Pakistan.

Independence was not simply brought about by the work of politicians, economics and those in power in Britain, India and Pakistan; the works of cultural leaders meant just as much to Indian nationalists across the continent. The works of many of these individuals can be found within the Library at the University of York. These works contributed to the cementing of a strong, unified Indian identity both before independence and in the following decades. Nationalist works, for many ordinary Indians, mean just as much in the modern era as they did at the turn of 1947.

The Anniversary of Gandhi's Assassination

By Alex Jubb

There is scarcely a name more recognisable in the history of India than that of Mahatma Gandhi.

Image used courtesy of biography.com, under a Creative Commons Attribution only licence.

Gandhi, the leader of the Indian independence movement against British rule and ‘father of India’, famously led Indians in challenging British rule wherever possible and he was a crucial component of the Indian movement for independence. However, independence came at a price; January 30 of this year marks the seventieth anniversary of Gandhi’s assassination by the right-wing Hindu nationalist Nathuram Vinayak Godse.

The Borthwick Archives holds two original pieces of correspondence from the man himself. The first, a 1931 telegram and letter between Irwin and Gandhi about the selection of Dr Ansari for the Round Table Conference. The second was another letter between Irwin and Gandhi, this time from 1934. The Round Table Conferences were a series of conferences organised by the British Government to discuss constitutional reforms in India. They emerged as a result of the continued demand for Indian self-rule and the fervent belief by many British politicians that India needed to move towards dominion status.

The opening of the first plenary session of the Round Table Conference. Image used courtesy of The Hindu Archives, courtesy of a Creative Commons Attribution only licence.

Telegram from Gandhi to Irwin about the selection of Dr Ansari for the Round Table Conference. July 1931. Borthwick Archives: HALIFAX/A4/410/2/51.

Dr Ansari was a fellow Indian nationalist and former president of the Indian National Congress; Ansari was a close follower of Gandhi’s teachings and, unsurprisingly, the letter comprises of Gandhi's attempts to persuade Irwin of the positive impact Ansari could have on the Conference proceedings. Gandhi’s correspondent was the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, from 1926 to 1931. In his final year as Viceroy, Irwin invited Gandhi to Britain to have a series of meetings together. By the time of the Second Round Table Conference, a settlement between Gandhi and Irwin (imaginatively titled the Gandhi-Irwin Pact) was reached that meant Gandhi was appointed as the sole representative of the Congress to the Conference. Gandhi himself claimed that this Congress alone represented political India. However, Gandhi could not reach agreements in areas such as Muslim representation and safeguards, and the fact that Untouchables were Hindus and should be treated as such. Whilst he returned to India empty handed following the Conference, his work in Britain led him to resolve many of the issues with the 1932 Poona Pact; a Pact stating that the treatment of untouchables as a minority separate from the rest of the Hindu community was entirely 

unjust.

It was to be the pre-premiership Clement Attlee that was one of the main British proponents of Indian independence after the Round Table Conferences had concluded. Attlee was an individual with close ties to the University of York, as shown in recent research undertaken in conjunction with the Borthwick archives. Whilst the three round-table conferences between 1930 and 1932 achieved little in reality, Attlee continued their initial work as a member of a new joint committee on India. Attlee's interest in Indian independence began in earnest following the Simon Commission of 1927; a group of British MPs under the chairmanship of Sir John Simon and assisted by Attlee himself. Attlee toured India with the Commission in 1927 and 1928 in order to study and report back on India's constitutional progress for introducing the constitutional reforms that had been promised by the British government. 

Clement Attlee. Image used courtesy of The Robinson Library, courtesy of a Creative Commons Attribution only licence.

Attlee’s donation of works to the University contained many important primary and secondary sources detailing the history of Indian independence. Attlee donated works such as a biography of Gandhi from 1958, numerous histories of the Indian nationalist movements, and publications from Socialists and Communist groups in both Britain and India. Attlee’s devotion to the Indian cause can clearly be seen through the scope of his donations to the new University of York in the early 1960s. Attlee became the Labour party expert on India in the 1930s, and during the Second World War he was given charge of Indian affairs. It really was to be no surprise that Prime Minister Attlee orchestrated the granting of independence to India and Pakistan in 1947.

Creating the Story

In the second of his two blog posts regarding the IPUP internship, Alex Jubb tells us more about Clement Attlee's Indian Books.

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There is certainly an air of mystery surrounding Clement Attlee's relationship with the University of York. The presence of books donated by Attlee reflects two major questions; why did he have these books in the first place? And secondly, how have they ended up in the University's collection? The internship, brought about by the seventieth anniversary of the independence of India and Pakistan, has contributed to bringing both Attlee's involvement in the early history of the University to the surface, in addition to the wider knowledge of the accessions book; a source rarely known about outside of the Rare Books Department within the University.

Attlee's interest in Indian and Pakistani affairs was recognised by a great number of Indian authors. He had been a member of a number of influential commissions, including the Indian Statutory Commission between 1928 and 1934, and later became the expert on India within the Labour Party. During the Second World War Attlee was placed in charge of Indian Affairs, setting up the Cripps Mission in 1942 in an attempt to bring all the various factions within India together. As a result of this wealth of experience, Attlee played a crucial role in ultimately bringing about the independence of both states. It soon became obvious through many of the inscriptions in works personally donated by Attlee to the University that the ex-Prime Minister was a greatly admired, clearly knowledgeable individual who was seen as a man who could provide patronage to works on the subject of India and Pakistan. Authors such as Bhagavan Das,  MM Aslan Khan, and S Rawachaudra Rau, in addition to organisations such as the Anglo-Indian Association based in London, made hand-written notes to Attlee himself within many of the works. Das, in his 1934 work Ancient versus Modern “Scientific Socialism”, wrote to Attlee to ask for a review of the aforementioned work. This can be seen in the image below;

The inscription in Ancient Versus Modern "Scientific Socialism'"by Bhagavan Das.

In Rawachaudra Rau's case he forwarded on to Attlee his late father's 1912 work, K Srinivasu-Rau's The Crisis in India, stating that; 'For favour of noble acceptance by Major C. R. Attlee MP this work is presented in fulsome loyalty and devotion' (see the image below). This could be evidence for the respect for Attlee from authors of Indian affairs. Moreover, whilst the Anglo-Indian Association donated a work to Attlee from their offices in London, Attlee received many works from the Indian sub-continent itself. For example, Aslan Khan's analytical work 'Safeguards in the New Indian Bill' arrived on Attlee's desk all the way from Lahore.

The inscription in The Crisis in India by K Srinivasa Rau

The second question is clearly; how have these works ended up in the University's collections? The University had sent out a call to institutions and individuals across the country and as a result there were a series of generous donations of books between 1961 and 1963. During these years, the University had been announced but was not officially open until 1963. The founding of the University of York and other universities of the same period,  was a definite factor in receiving these donations. Socialist and Labour politicians such as Attlee appreciated and valued new universities as they provided education for a greatly increased number of potential students; 'education for all' being a key feature in the vocabulary of the majority of left-leaning politicians.

However, it is unclear what were the other driving forces behind the donation of these works. John Bew, the author of the most recent biography of Attlee, assumes that one possibility is that Violet Attlee, Clement’s wife, donated these books as the family was moving to a smaller home with less space for a vast library. The dates in which these works were logged in the accessions book all fell in August of 1962; Violet Attlee passed away in 1964, and Clement Attlee died in 1967. He was increasingly frail as the 1960s wore on, but in 1962 he did give two speeches in the House of Lords; he was very much still capable of enacting his political beliefs both in and out of Westminster, but was certainly in less good health than he had ever previously been. The latest possible date for these documents to have been donated would clearly be in 1962 with the logged date evidenced in the accessions book. The Attlee of the early 1960s would possibly have still been capable of donating these works, as well as also deciding which works to donate and which ones to keep within his collection. Documents that would support this theory have yet to be uncovered, and it is the accessions book that is the main piece of evidence for Attlee's contributions.

After correspondence with the British Library, the Bodleian Library in Oxford and Attlee's biographers, the mystery has only grown exponentially. In the correspondence with the Bodleian, the Superintendent for the Library’s Special Collections stated that; 'in keeping, perhaps, with his [Attlee's] seemingly quiet and methodical nature, he did not routinely keep personal correspondence … the collection we [the Bodleian] have is very much a collection of governmental and official documents'. The Bodleian holds the mainstay of manuscripts relating to Attlee, so the mystery would continue.

Clement Attlee's bookplate, found in
many of the works.

What is also interesting is that the collection of mid-twentieth century Indian works have been greatly
supplemented by major gifts from the Riddy family in 2008. Felicity Riddy was an academic at the University of York between 1988 and 2007, becoming the Vice-Chancellor in 2000. She is a specialist in late-medieval English and Scottish Literature, whereas her husband John had 'made his mark as a book collector, and built up a much-admired private library on the history of British India… once the largest of its kind in private hands'. He was known to give lectures and wrote articles illuminating various aspects of Indian history. The Riddys can also be found in the very same accessions book within the Borthwick Library, having gifted even more works than Attlee did himself. This project highlighting twentieth century Indian works within the University has accompanied the continued employment and recruitment of specialists in all departments within the University; specialists in fields such as Indian and Pakistani affairs, global and transnational history, in addition to scholars of worldwide independence movements following examples of de-colonisation in the twentieth century.

There is undoubtedly a great amount of scope for more research to be done in the particular field. The accessions book holds many hidden secrets; Attlee personally donated hundreds of works, to the University of York and this placement has only served to highlight those works relating to the independence movements of both India and Pakistan. A full programme of research into the accessions book will certainly be useful to create a greater level of understanding of the history of the Morrell Library.

There are plenty of sources still to find, and plenty of manuscripts still to uncover within the University’s archives to unearth the mysteries that have arisen as a result of this internship.

The information gathered during this internship will be used to enhance catalogue records making it easier for researchers to identify Attlee donations. For more information please contact the Rare Books Librarian sarah.griffin@york.ac.uk.

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All photos by Alex Jubb.

Clement Attlee's ‘Indian Books’

In the first of two posts to mark the 70th anniversary of Indian Independence, Alex Jubb explains how his internship led to him learning about the Library's collection of books once owned by Clement Attlee.

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This will be the first of two blogs written about an internship undertaken with the Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past (IPUP). The first post will discuss how this internship came about, the first stages of the internship, and the internship's successes. The second post will develop the narrative that I have unearthed whilst progressing through the internship.

The accessories book, available in the Borthwick
Archives, open on just one of the many
pages of Attlee's donations

Every summer, IPUP offer part-time internships 'intended to give graduate History students an
opportunity to develop their skills, experience and CVs in various employment contexts.' I was lucky enough to be offered an internship closely associated with the History Department and the University Library's Special Collections. The University Library holds a vast array of hidden wonders within its collections; many of which are catalogued without copy specific details, leaving these particular books difficult to locate even if an avid historian tries to find them on the University's databases. Clement Attlee, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom immediately following the end of the Second World War, donated many books to the Library in the early 1960s. Attlee was one of the most important figures in orchestrating the granting of independence to India and Pakistan in 1947. As a result of this, in his vast collection of books he had obtained many works on Indian and Pakistani affairs. Attlee donated over 100 of these works to the Library, and I was to play a role in finding these works on the Library's shelves, listing them, and ensuring that they are widely advertised and explored thoroughly by other researchers, not just myself through improved catalogue records, and promotion via social media and exhibitions. This was primarily because this year marks the 70th anniversary of the Indian Independence Act, and is fresh on the minds of many eminent scholars and historians.

It is only known that these works originally belonged to Attlee through the exploration of the University's 'Accessions Book'; a book detailing all of the books, articles and other items donated to the Library over a two year period between 1961 and 1963. I spent a day working with this book in the Borthwick Reading Room, transferring the data from the book onto an electronic spreadsheet. It soon became obvious that there was minimal detail on the accessions book, and from a quick search of several of the books using 'Yorsearch', the University of York's online catalogue,  it soon became evident that these details were also missing from the online catalogue. Publishers were missing, first names of many authors were missing, and the title of the book and date of publication were often incomplete. To the outside world, and to most within the University itself, there was no indication that these were donated by Attlee. Only the accessions book had this crucial information. This lack of information was initially quite worrying, but a day spent collating all of the relevant works from the accessions book allowed me to 'fill in the gaps'. This was a long and arduous process, but one that will be of use to future researchers of Attlee and the independence stories of India and Pakistan. Many of these works have authorial inscriptions to Attlee, Attlee's family crest and bookplate, and other notations made by Attlee himself. These works are not known to scholars and biographers of Attlee, and by sharing the database of these works that I have now created it is hoped that this information will soon be out in the public domain via the online catalogue.

The accessories book, held in the Borthwick Archives, showing Attlee's donations.

This new research into Attlee's donations will also lend itself to the creation of an exhibition within the University Library. This exhibition will showcase several of the books that have been researched, and will be the first step to bringing Attlee's relationship with the University to life.

Clement Attlee with his instantly
recognisable smoking pipe

Being given the chance to work alongside both Sarah Griffin, the Rare Books and York Minster Librarian, and Mark Jenner, one of the University's Research Champions and also a Reader in Early Modern History, has certainly been something that I have really appreciated. The works that I have looked at within this internship were initially unknown to me, but I now have a much clearer understanding of the immense wealth of material that the University has within its collection. A simple use of the Library catalogue might highlight the location of a particular book but, at present, it is not always possible to tell via this method just how important an individual the book belonged to. This opportunity has been something that I have relished; it has provided me with inspiration for future avenues of research, and invaluable experience of working within the Special Collections Department of an academic institution. Not only will this be of great use in future when I am searching for jobs and deciding which career path to follow, but has provided me with a newfound set of skills; I am now confident in working on a project where the narrative has not been created and is not necessarily easy to come across. The second part of this blog will discuss the 'narrative' and story of Attlee's donations to the University, particularly focusing on his relationship with India and Pakistan. This relationship can be told through the information within the accessions book and Attlee's donated works, and the story is an interesting one indeed.

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Photo of Clement Attlee used under a Creative Commons licence from Wikimedia Commons. All other photos taken by Alex Jubb.