|
India House was a student residence in Highgate, North London that existed between 1905 and 1910. With the patronage of lawyer Shyamji Krishna Varma, it was opened to promote nationalist views among Indian students in Britain. The building rapidly became a hub for political activism, one of the most prominent for overseas revolutionary Indian nationalism. "India House" came to informally refer to the nationalist organisations that used the building at various times. Patrons of India House published an anti-colonialist newspaper, ''The Indian Sociologist'', which the British Raj banned as "seditious".〔 A number of prominent Indian revolutionaries and nationalists were associated with India House, including Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Bhikaji Cama, V.N. Chatterjee, Lala Har Dayal, V.V.S. Aiyar, M.P.T. Acharya and P.M. Bapat. In 1909, a member of India House, Madan Lal Dhingra, assassinated Sir W.H. Curzon Wyllie, political aide-de-camp to the Secretary of State for India. The investigations by Scotland Yard and the Indian Political Intelligence Office that followed the assassination sent the organisation into decline. A crackdown on India House activities by the Metropolitan Police prompted a number of its members to leave Britain for France, Germany and the United States. Many members of the house were involved in revolutionary conspiracies in India. The network created by India House played a key part in the Hindu–German Conspiracy for nationalist revolution in India during World War I. In the coming decades, India House alumni went on to playing a leading role in the founding of Indian communism and Hindu nationalism. ==Background== The consolidation of the British East India Company's rule in the Indian subcontinent during the 18th century brought about socio-economic changes which led to the rise of an Indian middle class and steadily eroded pre-colonial socio-religious institutions and barriers. The emerging economic and financial power of Indian business-owners and merchants and the professional class brought them increasingly into conflict with the British Raj. A rising political consciousness among the native Indian social elite (including lawyers, doctors, university graduates, government officials and similar groups) spawned an Indian identity and fed a growing nationalist sentiment in India in the last decades of the nineteenth century. The creation in 1885 of the Indian National Congress in India by the political reformer A.O. Hume intensified the process by providing an important platform from which demands could be made for political liberalisation, increased autonomy, and social reform. The leaders of the Congress advocated dialogue and debate with the Raj administration to achieve their political goals. Distinct from these moderate voices (or loyalists) who did not preach or support violence was the nationalist movement, which grew particularly strong, radical and violent in Bengal and in Punjab. Notable, if smaller, movements also appeared in Maharashtra, Madras and other areas across the south.〔 The controversial 1905 partition of Bengal escalated the growing unrest, stimulating radical nationalist sentiments and becoming a driving force for Indian revolutionaries. From its inception, the Congress had also sought to shape public opinion in Britain in in favour of Indian political autonomy.〔 The Congress's British Committee, established in 1889, published a periodical called ''India'' which featured moderate, loyalist opinion and provided information about India tailored to a British readership. The committee was successful in calling the British public's attention to issues of civil liberties in India, but it largely failed to bring about political change, prompting socialists such as Henry Hyndman to advocate a more radical approach.〔 In 1893 an "Indian committee" was established in the British Parliament as a pressure group to influence policy directly, but it grew increasingly distant from an emerging movement which advocated absolute Indian self-governance. Nationalist leaders in India (such as Bipin Chandra Pal, who led the agitation against the Bengal partition) and Indian students in Britain criticised the committee for what they perceived as its overly cautious approach.〔〔 Against this background, coincident with the political upheaval caused by the 1905 partition of Bengal, a nationalist lawyer named Shyamji Krishna Varma founded India House in London. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「India House」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|