debut: 2/16/17
35,108 runs
Eric Williams and the Indian Connection
When Eric Williams went to London in 1955 to discuss PNM’s programme with CLR James, George Padmore and Arthur Lewis, he also visited with Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, the sister of Jawaharlal Nehru, prime minister of India. He raised the possibility of republishing Nehru’s autobiography with the latter writing a new introduction to it. A leading Indian diplomat, Pandit was the first woman to head the United Nations General Assembly. Trinidad and Tobago’s Dennis Francis, who assumed the presidency of the UN General Assembly last September for a one-year term, acknowledged Pandit’s place in international affairs when he addressed the Indian Council of World Affairs in New Delhi on January 25, 2024. He said: “I am therefore privileged to lean on her [Pandit’s] pioneering shoulders, as one among the woefully low number of female presidents of the Assembly in 78 years.”
Pandit visited Wellesley College frequently from 1944 to 1966 as Barnett Miller Visiting Professor of International Relations. Nehru also visited the college in 1949. Pandit was a very close friend of Paul Robeson, a noted African-American civil rights activist, and Rosamond Soong Ching-ling, the third wife of Sun Yat-sen, a former president of China. Rosamond’s sister, Soong Mei-ling, attended Wellesley College. It is quite possible that Ching-ling persuaded Pandit to send her two daughters (Chandralekha and Nayantara) to Wellesley to study.Nayantara possessed an independent spirit. Both she and her mother fell out with their cousin, Indira Gandhi, during the latter’s time in office in the 1960s and 1970s. “Gandhi cancelled Sahgal’s scheduled appointment as India’s Ambassador to Italy within days of her return to power.” Sahgal wrote scathingly about that incident in her book, Indira Gandhi: Her Road to Power.
In 1947, Nayantara was photographed with Frida Kahlo, a famous Mexican magical realist painter who was part of the US and Mexican labour and anti-colonial movements. Kahlo married Diego Rivera, the famous Mexican muralist. The New York Times called them the “eccentric duo”. Kahlo was also part of the revolutionary circle around Leon Trotsky, one of the chief architects of the Russian Revolution of 1917. He was forced into exile in 1928 and was assassinated in 1940 by a Soviet agent in Mexico on August 20, 1940, because of his criticism of Joseph Stalin who replaced VI Lenin as the leader of the Soviet Union. CLR James (under the pseudonym JR Johnson) also met with Trotsky in Mexico in 1939 to discuss what the Soviets called “The Negro Question”. James alerted Trotsky about the self-determination of Caribbean people and reminded him: “In Africa the great masses of people look upon self-determination as a restoration to their independence. In the West Indies, where we have a population similar in origin to the Negroes in America, there has been developing a national sentiment. The Negroes are a majority.”
—Prof Cudjoe’s e-mail address is scudjoe@wellesley.edu. He can be reached @ProfessorCudjoe.
When Eric Williams went to London in 1955 to discuss PNM’s programme with CLR James, George Padmore and Arthur Lewis, he also visited with Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, the sister of Jawaharlal Nehru, prime minister of India. He raised the possibility of republishing Nehru’s autobiography with the latter writing a new introduction to it. A leading Indian diplomat, Pandit was the first woman to head the United Nations General Assembly. Trinidad and Tobago’s Dennis Francis, who assumed the presidency of the UN General Assembly last September for a one-year term, acknowledged Pandit’s place in international affairs when he addressed the Indian Council of World Affairs in New Delhi on January 25, 2024. He said: “I am therefore privileged to lean on her [Pandit’s] pioneering shoulders, as one among the woefully low number of female presidents of the Assembly in 78 years.”
Pandit visited Wellesley College frequently from 1944 to 1966 as Barnett Miller Visiting Professor of International Relations. Nehru also visited the college in 1949. Pandit was a very close friend of Paul Robeson, a noted African-American civil rights activist, and Rosamond Soong Ching-ling, the third wife of Sun Yat-sen, a former president of China. Rosamond’s sister, Soong Mei-ling, attended Wellesley College. It is quite possible that Ching-ling persuaded Pandit to send her two daughters (Chandralekha and Nayantara) to Wellesley to study.Nayantara possessed an independent spirit. Both she and her mother fell out with their cousin, Indira Gandhi, during the latter’s time in office in the 1960s and 1970s. “Gandhi cancelled Sahgal’s scheduled appointment as India’s Ambassador to Italy within days of her return to power.” Sahgal wrote scathingly about that incident in her book, Indira Gandhi: Her Road to Power.
In 1947, Nayantara was photographed with Frida Kahlo, a famous Mexican magical realist painter who was part of the US and Mexican labour and anti-colonial movements. Kahlo married Diego Rivera, the famous Mexican muralist. The New York Times called them the “eccentric duo”. Kahlo was also part of the revolutionary circle around Leon Trotsky, one of the chief architects of the Russian Revolution of 1917. He was forced into exile in 1928 and was assassinated in 1940 by a Soviet agent in Mexico on August 20, 1940, because of his criticism of Joseph Stalin who replaced VI Lenin as the leader of the Soviet Union. CLR James (under the pseudonym JR Johnson) also met with Trotsky in Mexico in 1939 to discuss what the Soviets called “The Negro Question”. James alerted Trotsky about the self-determination of Caribbean people and reminded him: “In Africa the great masses of people look upon self-determination as a restoration to their independence. In the West Indies, where we have a population similar in origin to the Negroes in America, there has been developing a national sentiment. The Negroes are a majority.”
—Prof Cudjoe’s e-mail address is scudjoe@wellesley.edu. He can be reached @ProfessorCudjoe.
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