South Asia Solidarity movements in berkeley (in progress)

• [1896-1897] "Berkeley Friends of the Hindoos" aims to raise $3 million in "corn and coin" to send to support "the starving people of India"; donations were presumably part of the large national effort to send grain to India which drew support from Bay Area residents, culminating in the ship City of Everett leaving San Francisco harbor in June 1897, carrying 2600 tons of corn and $200,000. When the ship arrived in Calcutta in August 1897, there was some controversy about how British officials received it. Americans reported to American newspapers that the famine was coming to an end by 1898.
• [1915] The California Chapter of Hindusthan Association of America organized a benefit performance for the Indian famine relief fund. The show was at the Berkeley High School Auditorium on Friday evening, October 1, 1915. It featured excerpts from Kalidasa and songs from Tagore, and was directed by Mr. S.N. Guha, a UC Berkeley alumni and the director of the Abu Hossain Dramatic Club of Los Angeles. 
• [1903] Lydia Gertrude and her father established the India Block to support missionary work in India
• [1966] The Sexual Freedom League tried to fundraise to support Indian Bengali poet Malay Roy Choudhury, who had been jailed for a month after his poem "Stark Electric Jesus" was deemed obscene.
• [1971] The Berkeley Council of Bangla Desh organized a benefit concert for Bangladesh at the Berkeley Community Theater featuring Ali Akbar Khan and Zakir Hussain
• [1971] the Bangla Desh League's phone number was listed in the Berkeley Barb from 1971-1972
• [1971] Bangladeshi students protested a speech by Pakistani government representative Mahmoud Ali
• [198?] Bangladesh Support Network founded, ran for about 15 years
• [1991] Asha for Education founded in Berkeley
• [1992] Coalition Against Communalism founded in Berkeley

Also see materials from the South Asian collection at San Jose State University, which includes materials from 1971-2004