Dhani Prem

India

1928–31, 1938–79

Dhani Prem was born in Aligarh, India in 1904. As a teenager, Prem joined the movement for Indian independence and, in 1918, was jailed for a year on charges of sedition. Prem graduated with a degree in medicine from the National Medical School in Bombay.

In 1928 he made the journey from Bombay to Edinburgh. Prem undertook studies in medicine and in 1931 was awarded the Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians (LRCP) and Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS). He returned to India in 1931 where he sought employment as a doctor, which proved unsuccessful. Instead, Prem worked for a Hindi literary magazine, Chand, where he was an editor.

In 1938 Prem moved to London with his wife – whom he married during his return to India – and daughter. He obtained a postgraduate diploma in tropical medicine and hygiene from King’s College London. 

In 1939 Prem and his family moved to Birmingham. He joined the Birmingham Indian Association, which was founded by middle-class Indians resident in Birmingham. By the end of the Second World War, Prem had begun his political career. He worked with the Birmingham Borough Labour Party and the Midlands India League, of which he was General Secretary as early as 1947. The Midlands India League was strongly connected to the Indian Workers’ Association, which was also based in the Midlands, with both groups at times holding joint meetings in support of Indian independence, which Prem attended.

In 1946 Prem was elected councillor for Great Barr. He served three years, balancing this with his responsibilities as a general practitioner. Despite declining to stand again, Prem maintained strong connections with the Labour Party and acted as a link between the party and Birmingham’s growing South Asian community. His activities included organizing a conference with local West Midlands authorities on the topic of immigrant welfare, which culminated in the formation of the Commonwealth Welfare Council for the West Midlands in 1956.

Prem was committed to racial equality and social reform, both locally and nationally. In 1965 Prem published his account of life in Birmingham and the city’s ongoing issues with racism and prejudice, titled The Parliamentary Leper: A History of Colour Prejudice in Britain. This was, in part, a response to the 1964 election campaign in Smethwick, where Conservative candidate Peter Griffiths adopted racist and anti-immigration rhetoric to win his seat as MP. Prem denounced the Conservative Party’s conduct in Smethwick and often appeared on the news to demand a debate with Enoch Powell on issues of race and immigration.

Prem was also a contributor to the 1965 BBC radio programme Colour in Britain, a six-part series which included contributions from academics and activists such as the sociologist Michael Banton and Sir Learie Constantine, a former cricketer for the West Indies. In September 1965 the Home Office appointed the National Committee for Commonwealth Immigrants (NCCI), in response to the 1965 white paper ‘Immigration from the Commonwealth’. Prem was one of sixteen national committee members, headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey. He was also Vice-Chair of the local Birmingham branch of NCCI and, later, the Deputy Chair of the Birmingham Community Relations Commission (CRC), which replaced the NCCI.

His activism, as well as his frustration with Labour’s immigration policy, influenced his decision to stand as an MP. In February 1974 Prem stood in the general election as the Liberal candidate for Coventry South-East, and he came third. He continued to be politically active throughout the 1970s, participating in groups such as the Uganda Asian Relief Fund, which was founded after the expulsion of Indians from Uganda in 1972, and the Federation of Indian Organizations in the United Kingdom. In 1977 the Indian Government awarded him with the Padma Shri – the country’s fourth highest civilian honour – for his services to Indians in Britain. He also received an honorary doctorate from the University of Aston in 1978.

Dhani Prem died on 11 November 1979 after a fatal car accident in India.