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N. G. Ranga
‐
Politician and founder of the liberal Swatantra Party in India
Place of birth
Date of arrival to Britain
Location(s)
OX2 9JY
United Kingdom
About
N. G. Ranga came from an agricultural background in Tamilnad, south India. His mother died when he was 8 and although his family were not well off, his father sent him to study in England in 1920. Ranga travelled on the SS Loyalty with more than 300 other Indian students and the chemist P. C. Ray. Ranga arrived in England without a place at university and went to live in Botley, an Oxford village, as he studied for the Responsions (entrance exams).
Ranga gained a place at Oxford University and soon became involved in the Lotus and Majlis societies. Ranga was influenced by the growth of socialism and was a member of the Oxford Labour Club. Although Ranga had considered joining the Indian Civil Service, he decided against this as Indian politics were at the forefront of his mind. He embarked on a research degree in economics. His wife later joined him and studied at the Ruskin School of Art.
Ranga was heavily influenced by M. K. Gandhi and village politics. Upon his return to India he became involved in the kisan movement. In 1957 Ranga became a Congress MP but then founded the Swatantra Party in 1959. The Party was designed as a free-market liberal party that broke away from Nehru's socialist vision. Ranga retired from Parliament in 1991.
Economic Organization of Indian Villages (Bombay: Vani Press, 1926–9)
The Modern Indian Peasant (Madras: Kisan Publications, 1936)
Indian Adult Education Movement (Rajahmundry: The Andhradesa Adult Education Committee, 1938)
Credo of World Peasantry (Andhra: Indian Peasants' Institute, 1957)
Fight for Freedom: Autobiography (Delhi: S. Chand & Co., 1968)
Bapu Blesses (Nidubrolu: Indian Peasant Institute, 1969)
Makonnen, Ras, Pan-Africanism from Within (London: Oxford University Press, 1973)
Shah, Parth J. (ed.) Profiles in Courage: Dissent on Indian Socialism (New Delhi: Centre for Civil Society, 2001)
The dominant passion prevalent among almost all the Indian students especially of that post-war era was to realise our unique responsibility towards India and made us look at ourselves and the contemporary issues as between India and England from a highly serious and responsible attitude of international consciousness. We used to think that because we were breathing and living in the almost heavenly atmosphere of complete freedom and social equality of English and European life, we owed a special duty to our masses to help them to rise to such a status. We knew how R. C. Dutt, the two great Bannerjees, Ali brothers, Mahatma Gandhi, Arabind Ghosh [sic], Surendranath Banerjee, Moti Lal Nehru, C. R. Das, Prakasam and a host of others who were leading the National Congress were educated in England.
Fight for Freedom: Autobiography (Delhi: S. Chand & Co., 1968), pp. 79–80
Image credit
© Remaking Britain: South Asian Connections and Networks, 1930s – present
