Khan 367articles but clearly stated goals. While the intended audience or specific
subject matter differed from newspaper to newspaper, each one ultimately
wanted to end British imperialism and saw itself as allied with the oth-
ers. Indeed, it might be argued that one of the reasons for the existence
of the sister publications of al-Liwa’ was to communicate with sympa-
thizers from the other movements. The journals would even share per-
sonnel, as they were dependent on volunteers to operate. Thus Mansour
Rifaat, one of the Egyptian students in Paris, helped edit Bande Mataram
while Chattopadhya, Dhingra’s friend, worked with his Egyptian col-
leagues on editing their articles and speeches in English.^30 Furthermore,
the papers would cooperate in getting through colonial customs and past
censors. For example, the Gaelic American was discovered in French India
(Pondicherry) with Indian Sociologist and Bande Mataram wrapped inside
it.^31 Here we see an alliance in nationalist printing, if not print capitalism,
that reflects the shared agenda.^32
ongresses were another example of the expatriate experience of C
European public spheres. In 1909, for example, the Egyptian Watanists
set up an annual meeting called the Egyptian Youth Congress in Geneva
which drew students from all over Europe, including Wardani. The second
gathering of this congress, in September 1910, was described by its secre-
tary as having been organized in Madame Cama’s home.^33 The confer-
ence was supposed to have been held in Paris, but the French authorities,
acting “entirely on its own initiative because it did not desire that Paris
should become the center of an anti-British crusade,” decided to ban it.^34
At the last minute the venue was changed to Brussels, where Labour M.P.
Keir Hardie gave a speech in which he warned the delegates about the
dangers of Britain’s policy of dividing religious and ethnic communities in
their colonies, referring to both the Indian and Egyptian situations. Bande
Mataram’s editor Lala Har Dayal also spoke, and is recorded by British
Intelligence as “causing a stir (by) rising and calling upon all Egyptians
to refuse to enter the Egyptian Army.”^35 This suggestion led to a second
directly out of British nightmares when “(a)n Irish delegate proposed the
formation of an Egyptian, Indian and Irish Congress so as to unite in one
gathering the victims of English domination.”^36 Since both Egyptian and
Indian nationalists at this point had gathered guns and bombs in their
home countries, the Criminal Intelligence Reports demonstrate the real
concern with which the authorities greeted such ideas.