3 December 1942
While a Talks Producer for the BBC’s India Section, Orwell arranged many series of talks. One of these was on ‘The History of Fascism’. The fifth in the series was to be on the Spanish Civil War and, on 7 October 1942, Orwell asked Mulk Raj Anand whether he would be willing to write and broadcast such a talk (1551). Anand (1905 – ), novelist, short-story writer, essayist and critic, was born in India and had fought for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, though he and Orwell did not meet there. He taught literature and philosophy to London County Council adult-education classes and wrote scripts and broadcast for the BBC, 1939–45. After the war he lectured in a number of Indian universities and was appointed Professor of Fine Arts, University of Punjab, 1963. He was awarded an International Peace Prize from the World Council of Peace in 1952. At the time of writing (1999) he is living in Bombay. He and Orwell remained friends and their relationship is discussed in Abha Sharma Rodrigues, ‘George Orwell, the BBC and India: A Critical Study’ (Edinburgh University, Ph.D, 1994).
Anand was formally booked to give the talk on 3 December 1942 for a fee of £8 8s. (1595) but his talk was not passed by the censor. Orwell wrote to E. W. D. Boughen of the Talks Booking Department on 10 December (1729) to ask that Anand be paid a proportion of his fee because the ‘subject is a particularly delicate one at the present time’ and it was not practicable to modify its ‘angle’. It was agreed that he be paid £5 5s. – but as he had already received his full fee his next fee would be reduced by £3 3s.