Bevin trainees were Indian men in technical training brought to the UK during the Second World War via a scheme created by Ernest Bevin, to work in factories. [1] [2] They were better recognised in India, and sometimes informally referred to as 'Bevin boys', causing confusion with the adolescent Bevin Boys sent to work in coal mines in the UK. [3] Broadcaster Princess Indira Devi of Kapurthala introduced some of them on BBC Radio, so they could send messages back to India. [1] Foreign office entrants after 1945 have also been referred to as Bevin boys. [3]
Bevin trainees featured in a popular BBC Radio series, in which Salamu and Chandu, two fictional mice, travelled from India to England in the suitcase of a trainee, and witnessed life in Britain. [4] [5] [6]
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, was a British statesman and politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. He was Deputy Prime Minister during the wartime coalition government under Winston Churchill, and served twice as Leader of the Opposition from 1935 to 1940 and from 1951 to 1955. Attlee remains the longest serving Labour leader.
The Indian National Army was a collaborationist armed unit of Indian collaborators that fought under the command of the Japanese Empire. It was founded on 1 September 1942 in Southeast Asia during World War II.
Subhas Chandra Bose was an Indian nationalist whose defiance of British authority in India made him a hero among many Indians, but his wartime alliances with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan left a legacy vexed by authoritarianism, anti-Semitism, and military failure. The honorific Netaji was first applied to Bose in Germany in early 1942—by the Indian soldiers of the Indische Legion and by the German and Indian officials in the Special Bureau for India in Berlin. It is now used throughout India.
Ernest Bevin was a British statesman, trade union leader and Labour Party politician. He cofounded and served as General Secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union from 1922 to 1940 and served as Minister of Labour and National Service in the wartime coalition government. He succeeded in maximising the British labour supply for both the armed services and domestic industrial production with a minimum of strikes and disruption.
Bevin Boys were young British men conscripted to work in coal mines between December 1943 and March 1948, to increase the rate of coal production, which had declined through the early years of World War II. The programme was named after Ernest Bevin, the Labour Party politician who was Minister of Labour and National Service in the wartime coalition government.
During the Second World War (1939–1945), India was a part of the British Empire. India officially declared war on Nazi Germany in September 1939. India, as a part of the Allied Nations, sent over two and a half million soldiers to fight under British command against the Axis powers. India also provided the base for American operations in support of China in the China Burma India Theater.
The Provisional Government of Free India or, more simply, Azad Hind, was a short-lived Japanese-supported provisional government in India. It was established in Japanese occupied Singapore during World War II in October 1943 and has been considered a puppet state of Empire of Japan.
The Bengal Renaissance, also known as the Bengali Renaissance, was a cultural, social, intellectual, and artistic movement that took place in the Bengal region of the British Raj, from the late 18th century to the early 20th century. Historians have traced the beginnings of the movement to the victory of the British East India Company at the 1757 Battle of Plassey, as well as the works of reformer Raja Rammohan Roy, considered the "Father of the Bengal Renaissance," born in 1772. Nitish Sengupta stated that the movement "can be said to have … ended with Rabindranath Tagore," Asia's first Nobel laureate.
The British Raj was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; it is also called Crown rule in India, or Direct rule in India, and lasted from 1858 to 1947. The region under British control was commonly called India in contemporaneous usage and included areas directly administered by the United Kingdom, which were collectively called British India, and areas ruled by indigenous rulers, but under British paramountcy, called the princely states. The region was sometimes called the Indian Empire, though not officially.
India House was a student residence that existed between 1905 and 1910 at Cromwell Avenue in Highgate, North London. With the patronage of lawyer Shyamji Krishna Varma, it was opened to promote nationalist views among Indian students in Britain. This institute used to grant scholarships to Indian youths for higher studies in England. 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.
When the United Kingdom declared war on Nazi Germany in September 1939 at the start of World War II, the UK controlled to varying degrees numerous crown colonies, protectorates and India. It also maintained unique political ties to four of the five independent Dominions—Australia, Canada, South Africa, and New Zealand—as co-members of the then "British Commonwealth". In 1939 the British Empire and the Commonwealth together comprised a global power, with direct or de facto political and economic control of 25% of the world's population, and of 30% of its land mass.
South Asians in the United Kingdom have been present in the country since the 17th century, with significant migration occurring in the mid-20th century. They originate primarily from eight sovereign states in South Asia which are, in alphabetical order, the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. There is also a history of migration of diasporic South Asians from Africa and Southeast Asia moving to, and settling in, the United Kingdom.
Colonel Claude Hugh Morley Toye MBE was a British Army intelligence officer, academic and expert on South Asia who worked in India and Burma during World War II.
When Britain emerged victorious from the Second World War, the Labour Party under Clement Attlee came to power and created a comprehensive welfare state, with the establishment of the National Health Service giving free healthcare to all British citizens, and other reforms to benefits. The Bank of England, railways, heavy industry, and coal mining were all nationalised. The most controversial issue was nationalisation of steel, which was profitable unlike the others. Economic recovery was slow, housing was in short supply, bread was rationed along with many necessities in short supply. It was an "age of austerity". American loans and Marshall Plan grants kept the economy afloat. India, Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon gained independence. Britain was a strong anti-Soviet factor in the Cold War and helped found NATO in 1949. Many historians describe this era as the "post-war consensus" emphasizing how both the Labour and Conservative parties until the 1970s tolerated or encouraged nationalisation, strong trade unions, heavy regulation, high taxes, and a generous welfare state.
Michael Herbert Fisher is emeritus Robert S. Danforth Professor of History at Oberlin College. He has published extensively about the interplay between Europeans and South Asians in South Asia and Europe. His three most widely held books are: The Travels of Dean Mahomet: An Eighteenth Century Journey through India, Migration: A World History, and A Short History of the Mughal Empire.
Indira Devi of Kapurthala, affectionately known as the Radio Princess, was an Indian socialite and princess, the eldest grandchild of Maharaja Jagatjit Singh of the princely state of Kapurthala in Punjab, British India. During the Second World War she was recruited as a political correspondent to George Orwell, for the India team of the BBC. There she became a regular broadcaster of the programme The Debate Continues from the House of Commons, and Hello Punjab, a programme in Hindustani for the British Indian Army. With Narayana Menon she hosted the Indian Service musical programmes.
Called Up Sent Down: The Bevin Boys' War is a nonfiction book authored by Tom Hickman about the more than 20,000 young British men sent to work in coal mines, collectively known as the Bevin Boys, during the Second World War. It was first published by The History Press in 2008, with a second edition released in 2010.
Venu Dattatreye Chitale, also known as Leela Ganesh Khare, was an Indian writer, BBC Radio broadcaster, and secretary to George Orwell during the early years of the Second World War.
Kalyani Sen, was Second Officer of the Women’s Royal Indian Naval Service (WRINS), a section of the Women's Auxiliary Corps (India) WAC(I). In 1945, she became the first Indian service woman to visit the UK.