Why London’s India Club, visited by leaders like Nehru, Mountbatten and VK Menon, is closing down

However, it has been facing the prospect of having to shut shop for a while now because of multiple factors. Here is its story.

How India Club began

The club is located in the Strand Continental Hotel in London on a busy street. It was started in 1951 by the India League, a British organisation that started out as an advocate for Indian independence and self-rule (swaraj) and included members of the elite in British society. Later on, it hoped to play a role in furthering Indo-British friendship in the post-independence era. According to a PTI report, the India Club then quickly became a base for groups like the league, which were serving the Asian community.

“The Indian Journalist Association, Indian Workers Association and Indian Socialist Group of Britain were just some of the groups which used 143 Strand (the address of India Club) for their events and activities. The building was also a base for the new wings of the India League which ran a free legal advice bureau and a research and study unit from this address,” says the club’s website.

Along with its historical associations, the fact that many of its interiors had not been changed gave a sense of nostalgia to it. (Via Instagram.com/indiaclublondon)

It adds: “At a time when the daily lives and experiences of Asians in Britain could be difficult, 143 Strand was a significant focal point for the subcontinent diaspora communities. For a generation of pioneering migrants, it was a home away from home.”

Currently, apart from serving popular Indian food items such as dosas and curries, it holds discussion panels and film screenings as well.

Who visited India Club?

According to PTI, Smita Tharoor, the London-based daughter of one of the other founder members of India Club (journalist Chandran Tharoor), has been a regular visitor with her brother Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and other family members.

I am sorry to hear that the India Club, London, is to close permanently in September. As the son of one of its founders, I lament the passing of an institution that served so many Indians (and not only Indians) for nearly three-quarters of a century. For many students,… pic.twitter.com/bwyOB1zqIu

— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) August 19, 2023

She said that Dr Rajendra Prasad, the first President of independent India, and Lord Mountbatten – the last Viceroy of India – were among its many distinguished visitors. An Architectural Digest article said the club’s walls are “lined with portraits of prominent Indian and British personalities who visited the club, including former Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the first British Indian MP Dadabhai Naoroji, philosopher Bertrand Russell, artist MF Hussain… and more.”

VK Krishna Menon, the diplomat and former Indian Defence Minister, also had a role to play in the founding of the Club as one of the secretaries of the India Club. “Menon intended the India Club to be a place where young Indian professionals living on a shoestring could afford to eat, discuss politics, and plan their futures,” noted Parvathi Raman, Founding Chair of the Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), when she worked on the exhibition ‘A Home Away from Away: The India Club’ in 2019, curated by the UK’s conservation charity National Trust.

Menon would also go on to become India’s first High Commissioner in the United Kingdom.

Why is India Club shutting down now?

According to Reuters, Parsi-origin Yadgar Marker has been running the establishment with his wife Freny and daughter Phiroza since 1997 as the director of Goldsand Hotels Limited.

They launched a “Save India Club” public appeal and won an initial battle to prevent the building from partial demolition in 2018, when they were served a notice by the landlords to make way for a more modernised hotel. That year, the Westminster City Council rejected a planning application for this extension, saying giving the permission would lead to the loss of an important cultural and nighttime entertainment use space.

However, after the coronavirus-induced lockdowns in the UK hit many restaurants’ businesses and the rents were hiked exponentially amid a cost-of-living crisis, running the India Club became unsustainable for its owners.

Manager Phiroza Marker told Reuters the India Club had experienced its busiest days this week and that she was looking for an alternative space nearby for the restaurant, “whose formica tables and mustard yellow walls give it the atmosphere of a colonial-era Indian coffee house.”