The India Defence League was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 pressure group founded in June 1933 dedicated to keeping India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 within the British Empire

British Empire

The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

.

It grew from the parliamentary India Defence Committee and was founded with the support of 10 Privy Councillors, 28 peers

Peerage

The Peerage is a legal system of largely hereditary titles in the United Kingdom, which constitute the ranks of British nobility and is part of the British honours system...

, 57 MP

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

s, 2 former Governors and 3 former Lieutenant-Governors of Indian provinces and including members of the armed forces

British Armed Forces

The British Armed Forces are the armed forces of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.Also known as Her Majesty's Armed Forces and sometimes legally the Armed Forces of the Crown, the British Armed Forces encompasses three professional uniformed services, the Royal Navy, the...

 and the judiciary

Judiciary of the United Kingdom

The Judiciary of the United Kingdom is not a single body. Each of the separate legal systems in England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland have their own judiciary....

. Viscount Sumner

John Hamilton, 1st Viscount Sumner

John Andrew Hamilton, 1st Viscount Sumner GCB, PC was a British lawyer and judge. He was appointed a judge of the High Court of Justice in 1909, a Lord Justice of Appeal in 1912 and a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in 1913...

 was its Honorary President, with Lord Carson, Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...

, Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

, Sir Henry Page-Croft, the Marquess of Hartington

Edward Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire

Edward William Spencer Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire, KG, MBE, TD , known as Marquess of Hartington , was the head of the Devonshire branch of the Cavendish family...

, and Viscount FitzAlan

Edmund FitzAlan-Howard, 1st Viscount FitzAlan of Derwent

Edmund Bernard FitzAlan-Howard, 1st Viscount FitzAlan of Derwent KG, PC , known as Lord Edmund Talbot between 1876 and 1921, was a British Conservative politician and the last Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.-Background:...

 holding the Vice-Presidencies. It eventually had over 100 peers as members.

In the IDL also helped Admiral Keyes win the Portsmouth North by-election in 1934.