Sirdar Jagjit “J.J.” Singh (1897-1976)

Courtesy of the New York Times

  • owner of “India Arts and Crafts,” import shop at 14 East 56th Street, New York
  • U.S. resident since 1926
  • president of Indian League of America, 1941(membership totaled 26 (Venkataramani, 9))-1959;

Biographies

Shaplen, Robert. “Profiles: One-Man Lobby,” New Yorker Magazine, March 24, 1950, 35-55.

Primary Sources

Papers located in the Jawaharlal Nehru University Library, New Delhi

Mazumdar, Haridas. America’s Contributions to India’s Freedom. New York: Dell, 1960.

30 articles or letters to the editors of major national American newspapers

  • Ex. J.J. Singh, “India Remains Wary,” New York Times, May 7, 1944.

Reflections of Malti Singh (part 1, part 2)

Singh, Malti.  “J.J. Singh: India’s Man in the United States; An Indian American’s campaign to `influence the influencers’.” India Abroad,  August 1, 1997; “J.J. Singh: India’s Man in the United States; Campaign focuses on famine relief as freedom dawns.” India Abroad,  August 8, 1997.

  • Malti Saksena, daughter of High Commissioner for India to Canada and former ConsulGeneral in New York, married Singh in October 1951. (“Troth announced of Malti Saksena, NYT, September 20, 1951)

Madame Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (1900-1990)

  • Younger sister of Jawaharlal Nehru
  • “unofficial delegate” at 1945 San Francisco UN Charter Conference
  • “brilliant, silver-tongued orator” (A. M. Wendell Malliet, “Little Nations Deal Blow to Ambition of Gen. Smuts,” New York Amsterdam News, December 14, 1946, pg. 1
  • Ambassador to the United States, 1949 (previously, Ambassador to USSR)
  • President of the UN General Assembly, 1953

Online reference source:

Dictionary of National Biography, Pandit

Biographies:

Andrews, Robert Hardy. A Lamp for India: The Story of Madame Pandit (1967).

Grover, Verinder and Ranjana Arora, ed. Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit. Vol. 4, Great Women of Modern India. New Delhi: Deep & Deep Publications, 1993.

Guthrie, Anne. Madame Ambassador; The Life of Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962.

Jensen, Irene Khin Khin. “The Men Behind the Women: A Case Study of the Political Career of Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit,” in Contributions to Asian Studies, Vol. 10, 1997, 76-93.

Primary Sources:

Papers: Nehru Memorial Library, New Delhi; British Film Institute, National Archive

The Scope of Happiness: A Personal Memoir. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1979.

Nehru, Jawaharlal, Before Freedom (2000) [letters to Vijayalakshmi]

American History in Video:

1955, India used to look to America as a beacon of freedom

1953, Interview on Longines Chronoscope

1951, Truman signs grain bill for India