Sudhindra Nath Ghose

Sudhin N. Ghose

London

1940–65

Sudhindra Nath Ghose was a Bengali novelist. After studying at the University of Calcutta, he travelled to Europe in the 1920s to continue his studies in western art at the University of Strasbourg, where he graduated with a DLitt. He subsequently worked as a research scholar at the universities of London, Paris, Berlin and Geneva. While at university he worked as a journalist, becoming foreign correspondent for The Hindu of Madras from 1924 to 1932. He was also associate editor of World's Youth, the official organ of the YMCA, from 1929 to 1931. In 1931 he joined the staff of the Information Section of the League of Nations Secretariat in Geneva.

Ghose moved to England in 1940. He lectured to British and American forces about India from 1940 to 1946. He was part of the panel of speakers that regularly toured for the India-Burma Association. Much of the research for his papers was conducted in the British Museum Reading Room, for which he had a reader’s pass. In the late 1940s Ghose worked as the librarian for Student Movement House, 103 Gower Street, London, trying to persuade the British Council to offer translations of books about British life into Indian languages. He also organized its literary events. Ghose did not belong to the Indian organizations fighting for independence but worked as part of the political system, and through his lectures he tried to counter what he called ‘the systematic misrepresentation and vilification of Great Britain’ (Mss Eur F 153). He wrote detailed reports on India League meetings and also on the Committee of Indian Congressmen in Great Britain meetings he attended in the 1940s for the India-Burma Association. Furthermore, Ghose sent the Association an account of his lectures for Bevin trainees ('Bevin Boys') from India at Letchworth in 1944, describing his concerns that they might be led astray by Indian organizations campaigning for Indian independence in Britain.

Ghose was the proofreader for the Bengali version of the government-produced brochure ‘War in Pictures’. During the war, he also worked as an ARP Warden in North Ealing. He tried on several occasions to get work with the BBC Eastern Service. He was invited to participate in a round table discussion on India for the Home Service Department in May 1942. He was severely criticized by his friends at the Bibliophile Bookshop for taking part in this debate. Subsequently he became an occasional broadcaster for the BBC. He was commissioned by George Orwell in June 1942 to write a programme on the future of Hinduism. However the talk was not accepted for broadcast, as Orwell thought it was not altogether suitable. Bokhari had blocked the broadcast of the programme for fear of antagonizing the Hindu community in India and Ghose was subsequently released from his contract because he was deemed to be too expensive, after another venture for a Bengali-language news bulletin fell through. While the organization recognized Ghose’s proficiency in Bengali and his excellent delivery as a microphone speaker, it did not rate him as a scriptwriter and did not employ him again.

Ghose was intensely critical of the Eastern Service, especially Bokhari and Anand, whose left-leaning politics he denounced in his private papers. Ghose alleged that Anand, Shelvankar and Bokhari were conspiring against him. From 1943 onwards Ghose was a lecturer for the Imperial Institute’s Empire Lecture Scheme to Schools. After the end of the war, he stayed in England and continued to lecture on eastern and western art, architecture, philosophy and literature. He also published a successful tetralogy of novels, based on his childhood in Bengal. He returned to India as Visiting Professor of English at Visvabharati University, Santiniketan from 1957 to 1958. He died in London in 1965 from a heart attack.