Introduction
The Welfare Centre
Publications
Cultural Performance and Political Consciousness
Directions for Learning
Introduction
Whilst a significant proportion of its work concerned campaigning and political ventures, the Indian Workers Association undertook a range of other activities which provided an important service to the Indian community in Britain. Important work included welfare work, producing publications and cultural performance all of which affirmed the organisation's commitment to social justice. Whatever its members were doing, campaigning for equality was never far from their minds.
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The Welfare Centre
When they began, much of the work of IWA consisted of 'social work' which involved assisting Indians with problems they experienced upon settling in Britain. Leading members helped individuals with form filling and making passport applications, as well as providing advice and support in dealing with bureaucracy.
The Shaheed Udham Singh Welfare Centre was established by the IWA in Birmingham in May 1978 at 346 Soho Road, Handsworth. The centre was named in honour of Udham Singh, believed to be one of the original founders of the first IWA although this is uncertain. Udham Singh, a revolutionary figure in India's pre-Independence, was executed for the murder of Sir Michael O' Dwyer - the general who ordered the infamous Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar - and is considered by many to be a martyr for Indian nationalism. Jagmohan Joshi, Avtar Jouhl and Teja Singh Sahota were founding trustees of the welfare centre.
The centre provided free welfare and legal advice to users from the local community on a range of issues from passports, immigration and nationality to police harassment and domestic problems. Casework was carried out at the centre and people were given assistance with completing social security benefit forms. It also supported social justice campaigns, trade union rights in the workplace and health and safety at work. Meetings were held at the centre at the time of the disturbances in Handsworth in 1985 to discuss events and appropriate responses and a campaign was started to compensate people suffering loss as a result of the riots.
Publishing and distributing printed material on a range of issues was another aspect of the centre's work. The centre was also instrumental in the campaign for the release of papers on Udham Singh held by the Home Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Copies of these papers are held in the IWA collection deposited by Avtar Jouhl.
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Publications
Communicating information on anti-racism, campaigns and social and political issues was another vital aspect of the IWA's work. A number of publications were instrumental to this. Mazdoor ('The Worker') the IWA's first newsletter/ journal was published by the Birmingham branch in 1961 mainly in Punjabi but also with some articles in Urdu. Lalkar ('Challenge') replaced Mazdoor as the newsletter of the IWA (GB) and was first published in 1967 and then relaunched in 1979. Lalkar was a bi-lingual publication in Punjabi and English. Both Mazdoor and Lalkar were primarily political journals, analysing political events from a Marxist-Leninist perspective, but they also focused on news about demonstrations and other IWA activities.
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Cultural performance and political consciousness
Also important was the cultural aspect of the Indian Workers Association's work. Cultural performance was embedded in the organisation's work. All meetings contained a cultural element: singing, dancing, plays, poetry recitals added vibrancy to meetings. Performances were often spontaneous as people would be invited to sing a song or recite a poem on the spur of the moment. Charles Parker, whose Radio Ballads describe the lives and experiences of working people, contributed to many cultural meetings and also provided a link with Peggy Seeger and Ewan McColl at IWA concerts. Cultural events consolidated a sense of community identity for newly arrived migrants and were an important way of bringing people together and celebrating aspects of their identity and culture. Demonstrations were also rich in cultural performance - on the coach, the driver would be asked to turn the music off as people arranged their own impromptu concerts. Performances were a good way of raising much needed funds for the organisation: IWA Southall, which ran the local Dominion Theatre, funded its costs by showing Indian films.
From 1972 until his death in 1979, Joshi ran a bookshop called 'Progressive Books and Asian Arts' on Bristol Road. The bookshop sold Marxist and progressive literature from all over the world as well as Chinese arts and crafts. Members of the IWA contributed funds for the lease of the shop. The shop was important not only in terms of the role it performed in providing an outlet for distributing progressive literature but also because it enabled important links to be made between members of the IWA, anti-apartheid groups and progressive groups at the University of Birmingham.
Joshi was himself a keen Urdu poet from an early age. From the age of 15 he contributed to 'Naya Zamana' the revolutionary Urdu newspaper of the Communist party of India. He later edited the cultural section of the paper. Joshi attended symposiums in a number of places particularly India and he was friends with the renowned Pakistani revolutionary poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz - one of the founders of the Punjab branch of the All-India Progressive Writers Association - whom he visited with his wife Shirley in London.
For Joshi poetry served not only as an important expression of political struggle but also could be used to rouse political consciousness and increase understanding between people. In his letter to the residents of Marshall Street, where the Conservatives planned a controversial discriminatory housing policy, Joshi appeals to the better nature of residents to resist the tendency to discriminate by quoting the Indian poet Tagore:
"It is no gain, they (sic) bondage of
finery, if it keeps one shut off
from the healthful dust of the earth,
If it rob one of the right of entrance
to the great fair of common human life."
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Directions for Learning
Cultural performances have been an important part of fundraising and raising awareness about particular issues. A number of the City Archive collections- the Banner Theatre and the Charles Parker archives in particular - contain material that has either been broadcast or performed on issues of equality and cultural diversity. Exploring these collections will give you an idea of how people were inspiring others to change both their minds and the society around them.
Publications such as Lalkar and pamphlets concerning immigration legislation such as 'the Victims Speak' or 'Smash the Immigration Bill 1971' were an important part communicating the IWA's message. Their use of a number of South Asian languages was important to ensure their message reached as large an audience as possible. You may wish to consider how publications and other materials have been used by campaigning organisations to generate support for their activities.
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Author: Sarah Dar
Image: Indian Workers Association newsletter 'Lalkar', March 1982
[Birmingham City Archives: MS 2141]
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