Sastri also functioned as India's delegate to the League of Nations,[4] as member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom[5] and agent to the Union of South Africa.

[7] However, some members of the Indian freedom struggle such as Nehru felt that Sastri was too sympathetic to the British rulers, and too co-operative with them.

He was educated at the Native High School in Kumbakonam and in 1887, graduated from Pachaiyappa's College, Chennai, with a first class degree in English and Sanskrit.

[11] In 1894, Srinivasa Sastri was appointed headmaster of Hindu High School, Triplicane and served for a period of eight years, until[12] 1902.

[5][9] Srinivasa Sastri established the Madras Teachers Guild during his term as headmaster of Triplicane High School.

[5][3] He opposed the Rowlatt Act which empowered the Government of India to imprison anyone without trial and delivered a well-appreciated speech in the Imperial Legislative Council denouncing the bill.

[17] During one of his speeches on "The Political Situation in India", he was accused of being a British agent and attacked by a mob and had to be hastily escorted away by mounted police.

[18] In 1922, the Government of India sent Sastri on delegations to Australia, New Zealand and Canada in order to investigate the conditions of Indians living in those countries.

[19][20] Due to his efforts, the Government of Australia passed the Commonwealth Electoral Act enlarging the franchise to include "natives of British India".

[3] Initially, Jan Smuts, the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, refused to treat Srinivasa Sastri on par with the European delegate.

[22] The delegation submitted a controversial report titled Conditions of Indian labour in Malaya which was published in Madras and Kuala Lumpur, the very same year.

[23] During 1930–31, he participated in the Round Table Conferences in London to discuss India's future and was instrumental in bringing about the Gandhi-Irwin Pact.

[25] At the peak of the Second World War, he participated in a 15-member Indian delegation which appealed to the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill to provide dominion status to India.

[3] In June 1940, the Government of Madras appointed a committee headed by Srinivasa Sastri to frame a set of general principles for coining words for scientific and technical terms in vernacular languages.

[27][28] The constitution of the committee was strongly condemned by the Madras Presidency Tamil Sangam and its Secretary E. M. Subramania Pillai who felt that Srinivasa Sastri was biased in favour of Sanskrit and hence, Anti-Tamil.

[28] The committee submitted its report after three months recommending the retention of the existing Sanskrit loanwords in Tamil and rejecting the need for them to be replaced.

The committee was eventually reshuffled by Provincial Education Minister T. S. Avinashilingam Chettiar soon after the demise of Srinivasa Sastri and balanced with the introduction of more members supporting the replacement of Sanskrit loan words.

[citation needed] His mastery over the English language was recognized by King George V, Winston Churchill, Lady Lytton and Lord Balfour[9] who rated him amongst the five best English-language orators of the century.

[12][33] The Master of Balliol, Arthur Lionel Smith swore that he had never realized the beauty of the English language until he heard Sastri.

[33] while Lord Balfour remarked that listening to Srinivasa Sastri made him realise the heights to which the English language could rise.

[9] Thomas Smart conferred upon Sastri the appellation "Silver Tongued Orator of the British Empire"[34] and he was so called all over the United Kingdom.

[12] Srinivasa Sastri's inspirations were William Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, George Eliot, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Harvey, Victor Hugo and Valmiki – Indian sage and the author of the Hindu epic Ramayana.

This led Nehru to later comment in his autobiography that while Sastri was an excellent orator, he appeared to advocate mute submission and was not very effective in times of crisis.