When Gandhi and other Indian thinkers joined the world to take on the race problem

In July 1911, more than 2,000 delegates from 50 countries and 22 governments gathered at the University of London for what was a truly ambitious international conference. The Universal Races Congress, as it was called, had set itself no ordinary task. It sought to examine, “in the light of science and the modern conscience”, relations between the peoples of the West and the East, between “so-called white and so-called coloured peoples”, in the hope of fostering greater understanding, friendship and cooperation.

To many who attended, the Congress embodied cautious optimism. As the globe-trotting Indian journalist S Nihal Singh wrote in the American Review of Reviews, the delegates believed that peace among nations and unity between races could be achieved through sustained collaboration and future congresses. Their faith proved tragically short-lived. Within three years, the First World War had shattered those hopes.

Yet the Universal Races Congress did not emerge in isolation. It was the culmination of nearly two decades of growing international concern over the “race question”. As empires expanded and anti-colonial movements gathered strength, some people across the world searched for ways to address the inequalities that empires had created. The Congress was an expression of that search.

Bold vision

Few people articulated the urgency of the moment as...

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