Nehru-era club set to serve last supper

The India Club, a London institution with its roots stretching back more than 70 years, closed forever on September 17, 2023. Jawaharlal Nehru’s friend VK Krishna Menon, founder of the India League, had established it in 1951 as a private members’ club. Nehru himself and Lady Edwina Mountbatten were among its founding members and were present at its inauguration at 41 Craven Street.The club at first attracted politicians from Menon’s circle and drew its membership via nominations from the England-based India League that had campaigned for ‘Purna Swaraj’. After Independence, the League focused on UK-India relations and supporting the Indian diaspora, and the India Club continued this legacy.On moving to its current location – 143-145 The Strand – sometime in the 1950s or 60s, the club became a meeting place for writers, intellectuals, politicians and figures associated with India’s Independence, and then a sanctuary for new Indian migrants to London.The club “was India in Britain physically and spiritually,” Kusoom Vadgama, who arrived in the UK in 1953 from Nairobi, told a National Trust project chronicling the club’s social history. She said, “The fact you are there, something connected with India – that makes you feel at home and that was the reason for going there.” Cozy Little Place Up winding stairs, the India Club is barely noticeable in a street packed with high-street restaurants. The letters of ‘Hotel Strand Continental’ are fading off the cracked slabs at the entrance. There is a sign outside that looks like it is from a backpacker hotel in Paharganj. The five-storey Edwardian building towers above a newsagent, Strand News, and Greggs bakery. Part of its charm is its simplicity and evocation of a bygone era. Medium108412506 Inside the bar on the first floor, Indian miniatures, photos of Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, Krishna Menon and Indira Gandhi adorn the walls as ‘Easy Lover’ plays on loudspeakers. An ancient cash till sits on top of a shelf of random books. Newspaper cuttings from ‘India Weekly’ showcase the events held at the club in the 1960s and 70s on the wall.Upstairs, outside the noisy, packed restaurant, a man in jeans writes names of those wishing to dine there one last time, saying there is a two-hour wait.Yadgar Marker and his daughter Phiroza, who run the club, have preserved its 1940s/50s look and feel. There are plain formica tables and padded stools. The bar has a grill on it. “Even if we put a tablecloth our customers would not want it,” Yadgar said. “I could have refurbished it, but I didn’t. I wanted to keep it as it is so people could see how it looked in the 1940s and 1950s. People love the ambience and the food.” Brings Back Memories The bar serves chai mojitos, Indian single malt whiskies, Cobra and Kingfisher beer, and the restaurant serves mango lassi, butter chicken, and dal. At the worn coffee table, customers said they love the club because it is “real and authentic”, “cheap and cheerful”, and it serves the same Indian food you get in India, in central London. “I love the simple 1940s style. There are few places where you can get such an atmosphere,” said one.“We feel a sense of history and of the India League meetings here,” said British-Indian Harjinder, who has roots in Punjab. He was there for a final meal in the club’s final week. “Great food, cheap booze, it has the cheap Indian Civil Service diplomatic vibe. This place reminds me of my father’s living room in Southall when I was growing up.” Medium108412507 Harjinder attended Villiers High School in Southall in the 80s, and remembers coming to the club for a bite: “My Dad and I would go to the Indian High Commission in the 70s and put in our visa applications. Back then it took three hours and we would come here for samosas.” Last time he came to the club, a group of Western hippies were discussing their trips around India in the 60s and 70s. Making Way For The New The club’s closing down because the property owners, Marston Properties, want to redevelop it into a modern hotel. They had submitted the redevelopment plans in 2017, but the Markers thwarted them with an online petition that got more than 32,000 signatures. The signatories included James Castle, the great-great-grandson of Annie Besant, and Rowan Brudenell, Lord Mountbatten’s great-great-grandson.The Markers also applied to heritage body Historic England to get the building listed for protection. However, the appeal was turned down in May 2018. Historic England said the club “falls far short” of the criteria for listing as the India League did not meet in the Strand location until 1964, and the building’s “architectural fabric and design is not of special interest... The primary significance of the India League is in its campaign for independence. The building at 143-145 Strand, which did not come into use as the India Club until 1964, has no direct link to this important aspect of British-Indian history,” it said. Significant Cultural Importance William Gould, professor of Indian History at the University of Leeds, disputes this view. In his own report to Historic England, he wrote: “Although Kelly’s London Directory suggests that the earliest date that 143 Strand was the host for the India Club was 1965, there is extensive oral testimony that it acted as one base for the India League/India Club from at least the mid-1950s.”Councillors at Westminster city council’s planning sub-committee also recognised the club’s heritage value when, on July 31, 2018, they unanimously rejected Marston’s redevelopment proposals. The council’s planning officers wrote in their report: “Notwithstanding Historic England’s conclusion that the application site is not the building originally occupied by the India Club, it is still linked to the India League and is considered to be of significant cultural importance.” Medium108412508 A council spokesman told TOI it has not received any new planning application for the site. All the same, the club closes for good on Sunday. Marston Properties sent TOI this joint statement: “Goldsand Hotels, trading as Strand Continental Hotel and the India Club, Restaurant & Bar, and Marston Properties have agreed terms for the hotel, restaurant and bar to give up occupation of 143-145 Strand. This will allow Marstons to run their own hotel from the property. Goldsand are looking for alternative premises to relocate the hotel, club, restaurant and bar.” Feeling Of Loss The club’s patrons are dismayed. “It strikes at the heart of the people who fought for Independence,” said a grandson of Britain-based freedom fighter V P Hansrani, who was a leading figure in the India League. “The club was founded to make people feel at home in Britain. They stayed on in the UK even though they fought for Independence. It was a club for the Indians and allies within the British establishment. I would say the centre-left still come here as it has a Nehruvian feel. It is one of the oldest British-Indian institutions left in the UK.”A group from the 1928 Institute – set up in the UK as an extension of the India League – were enjoying their last meal at the club. “This is the epitome of the British India story – Indians coming to the UK and fighting imperialism but enjoying the positive aspects of British culture and making Britain their home,” their spokesperson said.A bunch of cash-strapped students said they were there because it is the closest they can get to India.“The closure of the India Club in London is a sad reflection on how the really historically important places of post-colonial communities in the city are being lost to luxury urban developments,” said Gould, adding, “The club was one of the most important sites for perhaps Europe’s largest diaspora from South Asia. It was a home away from home for new arrivals from the region to the city for around 70 years.”