“It is with a very heavy heart that we announce the closure of the India Club, with our last day open to the public on September 17,” the father-daughter duo were quoted as saying by PTI. 

While speaking about the club, Phiroza noted, “Since its opening over 70 years ago, the India Club has been a home-away-from-home for first-generation immigrants from the Indian subcontinent, as well as a community space for Indo-British groups,” 

According to a BBC report, the India Club was founded in the 1950s as a space for Indian immigrants to meet and socialise, and has held historical and cultural significance for London’s South Asian community for decades. It noted that the club will close because the owners of the building want to demolish it and build a modernised hotel.

The club was started by the members of the India League, an organization which campaigned for India’s independence in Britain. Many nationalists were part of the founding members of the India club including Krishna Menon – the first Indian High Commissioner to the UK. 

 Parvathi Raman, Founding Chair of the Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), told PTI that, “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,”, 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.

(With inputs from PTI)

Updated: 29 Aug 2023, 09:49 AM IST