Shyamaji Krishnavarma

Shyamji Krishnavarma

Geneva, Switzerland

1879–85, 1897–1907

Shyamaji Krishnavarma first came to Britain in 1879 as a Sanskrit scholar and assistant to Professor Monier-Williams at Oxford. He graduated from Balliol College in 1883 and was called to the Bar in 1884. In 1881 he attended the Berlin Congress of Orientalists.

Krishnavarma returned to India to work in service to the Indian princely states and then returned to England in 1897, settling with his wife at Highgate. They first lived at a house he bought at 9 Queenswood Avenue. He endowed an annual lecture in honour of Herbert Spencer in 1904, after attending Spencer's funeral service in Golders Green in December 1903. He also created scholarships for Indian students to study in Britain from 1905, on the condition that they would not work for the British Government.

Krishnavarma founded the Indian Home Rule Society in February 1905. In July the same year he established India House at 65 Cromwell Avenue, Highgate as a hostel for Indian students, which became a meeting-place for Indian revolutionaries in London. Krishnavarma fled to Paris in 1907 to avoid arrest and censure by the British Government in relation to his inflammatory published material, such as the journal The Indian Sociologist, and the political activities of India House. He was also disbarred from the Inner Temple. After a lapse between 1914 and 1920, Krishnavarma recommenced publishing The Indian Sociologist from Geneva until 1922. He died in Geneva in 1930.