page_title: V. S. Srinivasa Sastri
section_title: International delegations
hierarchical_section_title: V. S. Srinivasa Sastri / International delegations
caption_attribution_description: English: Clipping from The New York Times
context_page_description: Valangaiman Sankaranarayana Srinivasa Sastri CH PC was an Indian politician, administrator, educator, orator and Indian independence activist. He was acclaimed for his oratory and command over the English language. Srinivasa Sastri was born to a poor temple priest in the village of Valangaiman near Kumbakonam, India. He completed his education at Kumbakonam and worked as a school teacher and later, headmaster in Triplicane, Madras. He entered politics in 1905 when he joined the Servants of India Society. Sastri served as a member of the Indian National Congress from 1908 to 1922, but later resigned in protest against the Non-Cooperation movement. Sastri was one of the founding members of the Indian Liberal Party. In his later days, he was strongly opposed to the partition of India.
  Srinivasa Sastri served as a member of the Madras Legislative Council from 1913 to 1916, Imperial Legislative Council of India from 1916 to 1919 and the Council of State from 1920 to 1925. Sastri also functioned as India's delegate to the League of Nations, as member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom and agent to the Union of South Africa.
context_section_description: 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 Naval Conference and a signatory to the Five Power Naval Disarmament Treaty. 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 Union 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 Union 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".
caption: Report in The New York Times dated 29 January 1922, on the incident at the Town Hall, Washington D. C.
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