This image of Indian women is symptomatic of one of the arguments that British suffragists and suffragettes put forward for the female vote. The British Empire was at its height at this time and the Parliament governed the colonies as well as Britain. The issue of Indian women (or other racialised women) who might vote in Britain was not being raised. They were not there to represent the campaign for votes in India either. They were being used to show support for the British, largely ‘white’ campaign, and to represent the size of the empire, rather than to reflect in any way on the diversity of the British population at the time. British women had asked for them to be there to support the argument that white British women should be granted the vote so they could have a say over imperial matters in parliament.

Britain has been racially diverse for centuries and it is important to keep on emphasising this and to ensure that histories of minorities are not separated from ‘mainstream’ British social or political histories as they are taught – and so actually a story like suffrage is a great example of the ways in which a large-scale politically radical movement had the potential to celebrate ‘diversity’. The photo is evidence that Indian women were present in Britain and interacted with British suffrage campaigners.”