V. S. Sastrya

Vellala Srikantaya Sastrya

V. S. Sastry

Spring 1936 – unknown

V. S. Sastrya arrived in Britain in spring 1936 to train as a journalist. In December 1936 he approached the India League to offer his support for as long as he remained in the UK. According to India Office Records, Sastrya had found it difficult to find a job as a journalist in the English press. He was employed for a while by the Orient Press Service and supplemented his income by working in the Indian Stores department. He later moved to the Midlands to take up a post with Albert Herberts Ltd in Coventry. He studied economics in evening classes and completed his course in July 1940. In 1941 he was working as a shop steward for Daimler and later as an inspector in the Gauge Control Department of the BSA Works in Birmingham.

Sastrya was a committed socialist and was a driving force in organizing Indian workers in the Midlands. He was actively involved with the Indian Workers' Association and became its Secretary in October 1941. He drafted a constitution for the IWA and was instrumental in helping it expand by setting up a central committee functioning from Birmingham with branches in Coventry, Bradford, Newcastle, Sheffield, Manchester and other towns and cities with large Indian communities in the UK. He also helped to set up a newsletter, which was published in both English and Urdu. In order to pursue his work for the IWA more effectively, he resigned from his BSA job on grounds of ill health.

Sastrya was committed to protecting the interests of Indian workers in the UK, working with great enthusiasm and making full use of his organizational skills. He campaigned for Indian independence and was of the opinion that Indians had to publicize the cause of Indian independence not only to an Indian audience in Britain but among all people living in the UK. Sastrya’s work was instrumental in politicizing the Indian community living and working in the Midlands at the time.

He was employed by the Socialist Appeal, a Trotskyist journal, and was also a member of the Independent Labour Party. In 1944 he went on a tour to speak at a series of Quit India demonstrations held in Birmingham, Coventry, Bradford, Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle. Sastrya also worked closely with Surat Alley as part of the Federation of Indian Associations in Great Britain. He lost his position as Secretary of the organization when Akbar Ali Khan became its President in 1945 and pursued a policy of disengaging the IWA from the Federation of Indian Associations in Great Britain.