It would be easy to miss the inconspicuous sign for the Hotel Strand Continental on the Strand in London, leading up a narrow set of stairs to the India Club, a spacious bar and restaurant serving old time favourites from dosas to bhel puri. In the 1940s and 1950s, it was one of the main venues of the India League, the Britain-based organisation championed by India’s first High Commissioner to Britain, V.K. Krishna Menon.
Jawaharlal Nehru and Lady Mountbatten were among the Club’s founding members, while others thought to have visited the club, where many of the League’s meetings were held, include Harold Lasky, a prominent British economist and political theorist, the philosopher Bertrand Russell, and members of the Labour Party who were supportive of India, including Julius Silverman, who campaigned for press freedom. It is considered one of the “most important centres for U.K.-based anti colonial politics and early post-colonial Indian leadership” in the 1940s and 1950s. In a city full of posh Indian restaurants, the Club is something of an anomaly, appearing in many ways frozen in time, with much of its original features, from formica tables and chairs to stained glass windows, to old portraits of figures from Dadabhai Naoroji to a rare framed photo of Jawarharlal Nehru.
Yet the Club’s future is currently uncertain, under threat from a pressure that is all too familiar to locations in city centres, where underdeveloped prime properties, with the potential for revenue enhancement, are eyed like uncut diamonds. Marston Properties, which owns the building and attached hotel, submitted a planning application to Westminster Council, seeking permission to pursue a thorough modernisation of its interior. But Yagdar Marker, who has run the restaurant since 1997 and whose leasehold expires in 2019, has launched a campaign against it, enlisting support from historians, politicians and other prominent figures from Shashi Tharoor to Cobra beer founder Lord Bilimoria. “Its ironic that this is happening on the 70th anniversary of Indian independence... this was such a significant outpost for Indians in Britain, a go-to place with so many historic figures associated to it,” he said.
Public petition
Alongside a public petition, which has gained over 10,000 signatures, in partnership with William Gould, a professor of Indian history at the University of Leeds, they’ve applied to Historic England, the public body tasked with looking after Britain’s historic environment, to get the Club a “listed building” status. This would require existing features and historic significance to be recognised in any redevelopment. “It would be a terrible thing if it were demolished or changed... it may not have been very well known but its significance was partly because it was hidden away,” said Prof. Gould, noting that it had at its height been under surveillance, the subject of raids and scrutiny, requiring meetings to be kept under cover and often moved between buildings.
“When we took it over in 1997 we felt strongly it should be preserved and kept for posterity,” said Mr. Marker, adding that decision to keep the original décor and features had been entirely deliberate. His decision to preserve it so may well work in his favour. “The overall design of the restaurant preserves the atmosphere and feeling of the early years of the India Club and India League,” writes Mr. Gould in his report. “This is part of London’s history and reflects the multicultural face of the city,” wrote one woman on the petition site. “We should not destroy this piece of history... London is a culturally rich city but this is under threat by development.”
Vidya Ram works for The Hindu and is based in London
