In 1918 Lord Beaverbrook, the British Minister of Information, invited members of the Press in the British Dominions, the United States and India to visit Britain and the Western Front in order to report on the progress of the War and to influence public opinion back home. Newspaper editors from the Dominions had visited during the summer, followed by twelve American editors in September, while the selected party of five Indian editors finally arrived in Britain on 10 October, having left Bombay on 26 August. During the trip, the editors visited the Ministry of Information, the India Office, met representatives of the Press and, on 19 October, were received individually by King George V and Queen Mary at Buckingham Palace. They visited the battlefronts in France and Belgium for six days at the start of November, and were back in London when the War ended, finally leaving on 10 December (Basu, 1979, 353-354).

The Ministry undertook all expenses for the trip, but the selection process involved ‘protracted negotiations’ as Edwin Montagu, the Secretary of State for India, sought editors of the ‘highest standing and repute’. Historian Chandrika Kaul argued that the selection procedure highlighted ‘the underlying judgements on the nature of the Indian press and the propaganda imperatives of war’ (Kaul, 2003, 129). The chosen five included Mahlub Alam, editor of the Paisa Akhbar, ‘representing the “Mohammedan” vernacular press of the Punjab’; Gopal Krishna Deodhar, editor of the Dnyan Prakash, representing the ‘”moderate” vernacular press of Bombay’; and J. A. Sandbrook, editor of The Englishman, a newspaper described by Montagu as ‘not always in sympathy with Indian aspirations’. However, Kaul argued that the selection was ‘not altogether to the government’s satisfaction’, as a paucity of European editors and a reluctance of some Indian journalists to leave India during the War, restricted the choices. Indeed, the party included two editors deemed by Montagu as ‘anti-government’. The first, Hemendra Prasad Ghosh, ‘a registered suspect’, was editor of the Danaik Basumati, a paper that ‘takes a special interest in war and home rule matters’, while the other was Kasturi Ranga Iyengar, the editor of The Hindu, a paper described as ‘sometimes objectionable and generally anti-government’ (Kaul, 2003, 129). Despite Iyengar’s appearance, The Hindu was one of a number of nationalist Indian newspapers – others included New India, the Bombay Chronicle and the Amrita Bazar Patrika – banned in Britain at this time.

Kasturi Ranga Iyengar, who effectively led the party of editors, had spoken out against the reforms proposed in the Montagu-Chelmsford Report of July 1918, which The Hindu argued gave ‘an insulting response to the Indian national demand’. Iyengar joined leading national workers in Madras in issuing a manifesto opposing the proposals and he was intending to address this subject at a Special Congress in Bombay when he received the invitation to visit England (Narasimhan, 1963, 134, 135). His biographer V. K. Narasimhan, writing extensively on his trip, suggested that Iyengar recognised that the visit ‘might be helpful to the Indian nationalist cause’, enabling him to address influential leaders, meet supportive figures (for example, he regularly met Lokamanya Tilak during the trip) and ‘create public opinion in Britain in favour of progressive reforms for India’ (Narasimhan, 1963, 137). Annie Besant’s newspaper, New India, wrote before his trip that ‘though the mission on which he goes is not primarily connected with Indian imperial politics, we have no doubt that he will be consulted in England on Indian matters, especially about the reforms now before the country’ (Narasimhan, 1963, 138). Throughout the trip Iyengar spoke about conditions and demands in India and his efforts were noted within the Indian Press. For example, the nationalist Mahratta, in reference to the restrictions on Iyengar’s paper, The Hindu, commented that ‘Kasturi Ranga Iyengar’s writings were banned entry into England, though his speeches were allowed. They have thus barred the cage and let go the lion!’ (Narasimhan, 1963, 138). Indeed, one Tory MP, William Joynson-Hicks, a future Home Secretary, asked in the House of Commons in October 1918 whether any restrictions had been ‘imposed on the Indian newspaper representatives now visiting this country at the expense of the State?’ (House of Commons, 28 October 1918). Although Montagu dismissed this suggestion, a plan for the editors to visit the United States on their return to India was ‘vetoed by the Indian government, more concerned at the harm these journalists might do if they had access to the US press and public opinion’ (Kaul, 2003, 129).

The visits of the foreign newspaper editors were filmed by Ministry of Information cameramen. Film historian Stephen Badsey noted that Beaverbrook diverted ‘one of the official cameramen [J. B. McDowell] to record for posterity the visit to France of a number of leading newspapermen from the various dominions, as part of an MOI publicity exercise, in the first week of September. This followed hard on the heels of an original tour for Canadian newspapermen at the end of July, also filmed by official cameramen’. Badsey concluded that ‘as a result of this the “Advance Victory” of 1918, a far greater battle than the Somme in 1916, has no comparable film tribute’ (Badsey, 1981, 43).