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Indian Travel Writers in the West: the Colonial Period (1794-1947)

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Quite a number of important travel narratives were written by early Indian travelers in the west, from Dean Mahomet in 1794, though to Mahatma Gandhi, who wrote about his formative experiences in England and South Africa in The Story of My Experiments With Truth (1929) [see Sana Asifriyaz's detailed summary and analysis of Gandhi's memoir here]. More broadly, the experience of Western culture/politics and access to Western education was a powerful influence on many South Asian Writers during this period, from Pandita Ramabai to Rabindranath Tagore.

Some of these accounts were written for international audiences, while others were structured as 'reports' for Indian readers. Examples of books intended for Indian readers might include Pandita Ramabai's book about her travels in the United States -- published in Marathi, and Lala Lajpat Rai's The United States of America: A Hindu's Impressions and a Study, published in English in Calcutta in 1916).

In the United States

Some writers traveled abroad and stayed. Along those lines, one of the most prominent Indian voices in the U.S. during the early 20th century is Dhan Gopal Mukerji (1890-1936). Mukerji was educated in Calcutta and Japan before coming to California, where he studied at UC-Berkeley in the years just before the Ghadar party emerged. In the second half of his memoir, Caste and Outcast (1923), Mukerji describes his intellectual journey, his involvement with anarchists and I.W.W. activists, as well as his growing disillusionment with the radical activist scene. Mukerji is also quite caustic on fake Gurus and spiritualists, both Indian and Western (there is a memorable chapter in the memoir where he describes a landlady who asked him to dress up in Indian robes and wear a turban during the seances at her house, in order to add Oriental ambience. See our summary of Caste and Outcast here; the full text can be found here.

Later, Dhan Gopal Mukerji found success as a children's author, with books like Gay-Neck: The Story of a Pigeon (1927), and several other books for children. He also wrote additional books for adults, including Visit India with Me (1929) and Disillusioned India (1930).

Ghadar Party. Alongside full-length books, there are many accounts by figures like Bhagat Singh Thind and others associated with the Ghadar movement in California. The Ghadar movement did not lead to the production of many published books; the main print legacy is a newspaper, printed in Punjabi and Urdu for a time in the 1910s, and then reformulated and printed in English as The United States of India, in the 1920s. See our essay introducing the Ghadar Party and the Young India movement here.

England.

In late 19th and early 20th centuries, a number of South Asian writers spent time in England, some of them peripherally involved with the modernist movement. Some of them are out of copyright and archived here; others remain in copyright, so we are linking to external resources:

Cornelia Sorabji went to England to study law, and wrote about the experience in various later works, including her autobiography, India Calling (1934) (see detailed summary here). Disillusioned with the nationalist movement, she eventually settled in England after retiring as a barrister.
Mulk Raj Anand also wrote about his time in England in a book published much later in his life, Conversations in Bloomsbury (external link).
Another key figure associated with the Progressive Writers' Movement, Ahmed Ali, also spent time in England; he published his first English-language novel Twilight in Delhi, on Hogarth Press. See Amardeep Singh's blog post on Twilight in Delhi here.
One might also want to look at books like Sajjad Zaheer's novel, A Night in London (Urdu, 1935; translated into English in 2011). See Amardeep Singh's review of Bilal Hashmi's translation of the novel here.
Finally, there is the eccentric writer G.V. Desani, whose All About H. Hatterr was published in London in 1948 (Wikipedia entry on G.V. Desani); Desani lived in England roughly between 1936-1952. Alongside his highly eccentric, experimental novel, he also worked for the BBC. See Amardeep Singh's article on Desani in Journal of Postcolonial Writing.

Here are some of the primary texts by Indian authors who traveled in the West during the colonial period:

Dean Mahomet, The Travels of Dean Mahomet (1794). Sake Dean Mahomet (or Mahomed, as it is sometimes spelled) was born and raised in Patna, Bihar, the son of a soldier in the British Indian Army. His father died in 1870, when he was eleven, and Dean Mahomet was then taken care of by an Irish soldier, Captain Godfrey Evan Baker. In 1882, he accompanied Baker to Ireland. There, he married an Irish woman. He and his wife later moved to London, where Mahomet opened the first Indian restaurant, The Hindustanee Coffee House, and later introduced the concept of Shampooing hair in a public steam bath he opened in Brighton. (Unfortunately, most of these details are not included in the narrative Mahomet published, which only deals with his early life in India.) See Amardeep Singh's blog post on Dean Mahomet here.

Ishuree Dass, A Brief Account of a Voyage to England and America (1851). From SAADA's summary of this text: "Dass traveled to England and the U.S. with Wilson in 1846, reaching New York harbor on October 4th that year. During his trip, he visited New York City, Philadelphia, Abington, Providence, Easton, Winchester, and Baltimore. Dass’ observes and describes several facets of American social and cultural life, including details of housing arrangements, wedding practices, government, and higher education. At several points during the narrative, Dass mentions his thoughts on slavery and his interactions with African Americans." (Source)

Pandita Ramabai, Peoples of the United States (1889) (brief excerpt). This travel narrative was published as a book in Marathi in 1888, and remained untranslated into English until 2003, when it was published as Pandita Ramabai's American Encounter (edited by Meera Kosambi). See Amardeep Singh's blog post on this text here.

Romesh Chunder Dutt is best known as a key intellectual figure and editor from the Bengal Renaissance. He published an account of his travels in Europe in 1896, called Three Years in Europe.

Lala Lajpat Rai, The United States of America: A Hindu's Impressions and a Study (1916, published in Calcutta). Here, the nationalist leader explores the history and culture of the United States. He is especially compelling in seeing the American race formation as an analogue for the caste system within India. In the final chapters, he describes the growing Indian community within the U.S. See our detailed summary of his book on the United States here.

Rabindranath Tagore, My Reminiscences (1912/1917). These autobgioraphical essays contain accounts of early travels, including his visit to England in the 1890s.

Rabindranath Tagore, Nationalism (1917). Not explicitly a travel narrative. These were a series of lectured Tagore delivered in English while traveling in the U.S. and Japan during the build-up to the U.S. entry into World War I. Drawing extensively on cross-cultural knowledge, he argues strongly against militarism, industrialism, and weaponized nationalism of all stripes. See Amardeep Singh's 2009 essay on Tagore's travel writings in America here.

Rabindranath Tagore also wrote short stories that describe characters traveling to the West. One such story is "Atonement," which features a husband stealing money from his wife's family for passage to England. While in England, he secretly marries a British woman; his Indian wife is left to suffer (she moves home to her parents' house). Then, when he returns he undergoes a ritual to restore his caste status, but is surprised when the British wife shows up in Calcutta! Another story describing a similar theft is "Master Mashai." (There the time in England is not directly described.

Mahatma Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments With Truth: An Autobiography (1929). Gandhi describes his year in England in considerable depth in chapters 11-25 in Part 1 of this text. His biggest difficulty initially was finding vegetarian food! As the chapters progress, we also get a sense of the formative impact of his experience in England on his developing political thought and anti-colonial ideology. Detailed summary here.

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