V. S. Srinivasa Sastri - International Delegations

International Delegations

Srinivasa Sastri was a part of the delegation of Indian moderates who visited England in 1919. He was also a part of the Indian delegation to the Imperial Conference (1921) and the Second session of the League of Nations in 1921. As a member of the Viceregal council, Srinivasa Sastri was also a part of the British delegation which participated in the Washington Council of Limitation of Disarmament. During one of his speeches on "The Political Situation in India", he was accused of being a British agent and attacked by a mob and had to be hastily escorted away by mounted police.

In 1922, the Government of India sent Sastri on delegations to Australia, New Zealand and Canada in order to investigate the conditions of Indians living in those countries. Due to his efforts, the Government of Australia passed the Commonwealth Electoral Act enlarging the franchise to include "natives of British India".

In 1919, Srinivasa Sastri visited the Republic of South Africa along with Sir Benjamin Robertson as a part of the delegation which signed the Cape Town Agreement with the Government of South Africa. As a result of this agreement, South Africa gave up its Class Area Bill intended to segregate Indians in South Africa. Initially, Jan Smuts, the Prime Minister of the Republic of South Africa, refused to treat Srinivasa Sastri on par with the European delegate. However, on Srinivasa Sastri's departure from South Africa as India's Agent in 1928, Smuts recognized Sastri as the "most respected man in South Africa".

Srinivasa Sastri was sent to the Federated Malay States in 1937, to report on the conditions of the Indian labourers in the country. The delegation submitted a controversial report titled Conditions of Indian labour in Malaya which was published in Madras and Kuala Lumpur, the very same year. Srinivasa Sastri, being the author of the report, was criticized by Indian nationalists for "his reluctance to comment at length on the political and social status of Indians in Malaya".