Home
People
Organizations
Events
Themes
Oral Histories
Learning Resources
Oriental Press Service
‐
News service set up by Pulin Behari Seal
Location(s)
London
EC4Y 1
United Kingdom
About
The Oriental Press Service was established in 1926 by Pulin Behari Seal, a journalist and radical political activist. He was assisted in this venture by M. G. Desai and Gurdit Singh Dara, both of whom had Communist connections, like Seal. In 1928 there were plans to amalgamate the Service with a similar news service run by Vishnu R. Karandikar, but this does not appear to have come to fruition. The Service’s stated purpose was to supply Indian news to the British, and British news to Indians. However, surveillance reports claim that Seal set up the business mainly for political ends, securing interviews with Indians on official business in London then proceeding to critique them in radical newspapers in both Britain and India. According to reports, the office on the premises of the Oriental Press Service was used mainly for the meetings of Indian ‘extremists’. It was not a lucrative business and was eventually liquidated in 1938.
Gurdit Singh Dara (assistant), M. G. Desai (assistant).
Reginald Bridgeman (supplied Seal with news about China), Vishnu R. Karandikar (head of a rival news service), B. Khalid Sheldrake.
East-West Travel Company (also owned by Seal), Indian Journalists’ Association Abroad (also conducted by Seal from the same office), Orientourist (also owned by Seal).
Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto Press, 2002)
L/PJ/12/186, India Office Records, African and Asian Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
For image and copyright details, please click "More Information" in the Viewer.
Image credit
© Remaking Britain: South Asian Connections and Networks, 1930s – present
