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{{about||the British boys sent to work in coal mines|Bevin Boys}}
'''Bevin trainees''' were Indian men in technical training brought to the UK during the [[Second World War]] via a scheme created by [[Ernest Bevin]], to work in factories.<ref name=Webster2018>{{cite book |last1=Webster |first1=Wendy |title=Mixing it: Diversity in World War Two Britain |date=2018 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-873576-2 |page=114 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XPhJDwAAQBAJ&dq=Bevin&pg=PA114 |language=en |chapter=3. The Empire comes to Britain}}</ref><ref name=Sinha1988>{{cite journal |last1=Sinha |first1=Jagdish N. |title=Technical Education in India During The Second World War |journal=Proceedings of the Indian History Congress |date=1988 |volume=49 |pages=498–504 |jstor=44148437 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44148437 |issn=2249-1937|url-access=subscription}}</ref> They were better recognised in India, and sometimes informally referred to as 'Bevin boys', causing confusion with the adolescent [[Bevin Boys]] sent to work in coal mines in the UK.<ref name=Hickman2008>{{cite book |last1=Hickman |first1=Tom |title=Called Up, Sent Down: The Bevin Boys' War |date=2008 |publisher=The History Press |isbn=978-0-7509-4547-9 |page=230 |language=en |chapter=Notes|oclc=254076105 }}</ref> Broadcaster [[Princess Indira Devi of Kapurthala]] introduced some of them on [[BBC Radio]], so they could send messages back to India.<ref name=Webster2018/> Foreign office entrants after 1945 have also been referred to as Bevin boys.<ref name=Hickman2008/>

Bevin trainees featured in a popular BBC Radio series, in which Salamu and Chandu, two fictional mice, travelled from India to England in the suitcase of a trainee, and witnessed life in Britain.<ref>{{cite web |title=Divided loyalties: the historical presence of South Asian men and women in Britain has been ignored for too long, says Shompa Lahiri, who has investigated their experiences during the Second World War. - Free Online Library |url=https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Divided+loyalties%3A+the+historical+presence+of+South+Asian+men+and...-a0163470264 |website=www.thefreelibrary.com |access-date=23 July 2022}}</ref><ref name="Fisher">{{cite book |last1=Fisher |first1=Michael Herbert |last2=Lahiri |first2=Shompa |last3=Thandi |first3=Shinder S. |title=A South-Asian History of Britain: Four Centuries of Peoples from the Indian Sub-continent |date=2007 |publisher=Greenwood World Pub. |isbn=978-1-84645-008-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4hufAAAAMAAJ&q=salamo |language=en|page=156}}</ref><ref name=Potter2022>{{cite book |last1=Potter |first1=Simon J. |title=This is the BBC: Entertaining the Nation, Speaking for Britain, 1922-2022 |date=2022 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-289852-4 |page=99 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ziFnEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA99 |language=en |chapter=3. Propaganda and war 1939-1945}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
*{{cite web |last1=O'Brien |first1=John |title=Essays by 'Bevan Boys': How Britain convinced Indians to join engineering training during WWII |url=https://scroll.in/article/851488/essays-by-bevan-boys-how-britain-convinced-indians-to-join-engineering-training-during-wwii |website=Scroll.in |date=23 September 2017 |access-date=23 July 2022}}

==External links==
*{{cite web |title=Bevin Indian Trainees during the Second World War |url=https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2017/09/bevin-indian-trainees-during-the-second-world-war.html |website=blogs.bl.uk |access-date=25 August 2022 |language=en}}
*[https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-19-metre-band-1941-online BBC documentary: 19 Metre Band ("Go behind the scenes of Indian programmes on the BBC General Overseas Service (later the World Service)")]

[[Category:1940s in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:1940s in British India]]

Bevin trainees - Revision history

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