Dadabhai Naoroji
Encyclopedia
Dadabhai Naoroji (Hindi
: दादाभाई नौरोजी), known as the Grand Old Man of India, was a Parsi intellectual, educator, cotton trader, and an early India
n political leader. His book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India brought attention to the draining of India's wealth into Britain
. He was a Member of Parliament
(MP) in the British House of Commons
between 1892 and 1895, and the first Asian to be a British MP
. He is also credited with the founding of the Indian National Congress
, along with A.O. Hume and Dinshaw Edulji Wacha
.
and Natural philosophy
in Bombay. He travelled to London
in 1855 to become a partner in Cama & Co, opening a Liverpool
location for the first Indian company to be established in Britain. Within three years, he had resigned on ethical grounds. In 1859, he established his own cotton
trading company
, Naoroji & Co. Later, he became professor of Gujarati
at University College London
.
In 1867 Naoroji helped establish the East India Association, one of the predecessor organizations of the Indian National Congress
with the aim of putting across the Indian point of view before the British public. The Association was instrumental in counter-acting the propaganda by the Ethnological Society of London
which, in its session in 1866, had tried to prove the inferiority of the Asians to the Europeans. This Association soon won the support of eminent Englishmen and was able to exercise considerable influence in the British Parliament. In 1874, he became Prime Minister of Baroda
and was a member of the Legislative Council of Bombay (1885–88). He was also a member of the Indian National Association
founded by Sir Surendranath Banerjea
from Calcutta a few years before the founding of the Indian National Congress
in Bombay, with the same objectives and practices. The two groups later merged into the INC, and Naoroji was elected President of the Congress in 1886. Naoroji published Poverty and un-British Rule in India in 1901.
Naoroji moved to Britain once again and continued his political involvement. Elected for the Liberal Party
in Finsbury Central
at the 1892 general election
, he was the first British Indian MP. He refused to take the oath on the Bible
as he was not a Christian
, but was allowed to take the oath of office in the name of God on his copy of Khordeh Avesta
. In Parliament, he spoke on Irish Home Rule and the condition of the Indian people. In his political campaign and duties as an MP, he was assisted by Muhammed Ali Jinnah, the future Muslim
nationalist and founder of Pakistan
. In 1906, Naoroji was again elected president of the Indian National Congress. Naoroji was a staunch moderate within the Congress, during the phase when opinion in the party was split between the moderates and extremists. Naoroji was a mentor to both Gopal Krishna Gokhale
and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He was married to Gulbai at the age of eleven
. He died in Bombay on 30 June 1917, at age 92. Today the Dadabhai Naoroji Road
, a heritage road of Mumbai, is named after him. Also, the Dadabhoy Naoroji Road in Karachi
, Pakistan
is also named after him as well as the Naoroji Road in the Bloomsbury area of London.
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
: दादाभाई नौरोजी), known as the Grand Old Man of India, was a Parsi intellectual, educator, cotton trader, and an early 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...
n political leader. His book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India brought attention to the draining of India's wealth into Britain
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...
. He was a Member of Parliament
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,...
(MP) in the British House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
between 1892 and 1895, and the first Asian to be a British MP
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
. He is also credited with the founding of the Indian National Congress
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...
, along with A.O. Hume and Dinshaw Edulji Wacha
Dinshaw Edulji Wacha
Sir Dinshaw Edulji Wacha was a Parsi Indian politician from Bombay. He was one of the founders of the Indian National Congress, and its President in 1901.He was President of the Indian Merchants' Chamber in 1915. He was knighted in 1917.-Works:...
.
Career
At the early age of 25, he was appointed leading Professor at the Elphinstone Institution in 1850, becoming the first Indian to hold such an academic position. Being an Athornan (ordained priest), Naoroji founded the Rahnumae Mazdayasne Sabha (Guides on the Mazdayasne Path) on 1 August 1851 to restore the Zoroastrian religion to its original purity and simplicity. In 1854, he also founded a fortnightly publication, the Rast Goftar (or The Truth Teller), to clarify Zoroastrian concepts. By 1855 he was Professor of MathematicsMathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
and Natural philosophy
Natural philosophy
Natural philosophy or the philosophy of nature , is a term applied to the study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science...
in Bombay. He travelled to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1855 to become a partner in Cama & Co, opening a Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
location for the first Indian company to be established in Britain. Within three years, he had resigned on ethical grounds. In 1859, he established his own cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
trading company
Merchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
, Naoroji & Co. Later, he became professor of Gujarati
Gujarati language
Gujarati is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is derived from a language called Old Gujarati which is the ancestor language of the modern Gujarati and Rajasthani languages...
at University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
.
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...
with the aim of putting across the Indian point of view before the British public. The Association was instrumental in counter-acting the propaganda by the Ethnological Society of London
Ethnological Society of London
The Ethnological Society of London was founded in 1843 by a breakaway faction of the Aborigines' Protection Society . It quickly became one of England's leading scientific societies, and a meeting-place not only for students of ethnology but also for archaeologists interested in prehistoric...
which, in its session in 1866, had tried to prove the inferiority of the Asians to the Europeans. This Association soon won the support of eminent Englishmen and was able to exercise considerable influence in the British Parliament. In 1874, he became Prime Minister of Baroda
Vadodara
Vadodara formerly known as Baroda is the third most populated city in the Indian State of Gujarat . It is one of the four cities with the population of over 1 million...
and was a member of the Legislative Council of Bombay (1885–88). He was also a member of the Indian National Association
Indian National Association
The Indian National Association was the first avowed nationalist organization founded in British India by Surendranath Banerjea and Anand Mohan Bose in 1876. The objectives of this Association were “promoting by every legitimate means the political, intellectual and material advancement of the...
founded by Sir Surendranath Banerjea
Surendranath Banerjea
Sir Surendranath Banerjee was one of the earliest Indian political leaders during the British Raj. He founded the Indian National Association, one of the earliest Indian political organizations, and later became a senior leader of the Indian National Congress...
from Calcutta a few years before the founding of the Indian National Congress
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...
in Bombay, with the same objectives and practices. The two groups later merged into the INC, and Naoroji was elected President of the Congress in 1886. Naoroji published Poverty and un-British Rule in India in 1901.
Naoroji moved to Britain once again and continued his political involvement. Elected for the Liberal Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
in Finsbury Central
Finsbury Central (UK Parliament constituency)
Finsbury Central was a parliamentary constituency centred on the Finsbury district of North London. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post system....
at the 1892 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1892
The 1892 United Kingdom general election was held from 4 July to 26 July 1892. It saw the Conservatives, led by Lord Salisbury, win the greatest number of seats, but not enough for an overall majority as William Ewart Gladstone's Liberals won many more seats than in the 1886 general election...
, he was the first British Indian MP. He refused to take the oath on the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
as he was not a Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
, but was allowed to take the oath of office in the name of God on his copy of Khordeh Avesta
Avesta
The Avesta is the primary collection of sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, composed in the Avestan language.-Early transmission:The texts of the Avesta — which are all in the Avestan language — were composed over the course of several hundred years. The most important portion, the Gathas,...
. In Parliament, he spoke on Irish Home Rule and the condition of the Indian people. In his political campaign and duties as an MP, he was assisted by Muhammed Ali Jinnah, the future Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
nationalist and founder of Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
. In 1906, Naoroji was again elected president of the Indian National Congress. Naoroji was a staunch moderate within the Congress, during the phase when opinion in the party was split between the moderates and extremists. Naoroji was a mentor to both Gopal Krishna Gokhale
Gopal Krishna Gokhale
Gopal Krishna Gokhale, CIE was one of the founding social and political leaders during the Indian Independence Movement against the British Empire in India. Gokhale was a senior leader of the Indian National Congress and founder of the Servants of India Society...
and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He was married to Gulbai at the age of eleven
Child marriage
Child marriage and child betrothal customs occur in various times and places, whereby children are given in matrimony - before marriageable age as defined by the commentator and often before puberty. Today such customs are fairly widespread in parts of Africa, Asia, Oceania and South America: in...
. He died in Bombay on 30 June 1917, at age 92. Today the Dadabhai Naoroji Road
Dadabhai Naoroji Road
Dadabhai Naoroji Road , a North–South commercial artery road, in the Fort business district in South Mumbai of Maharashtra, India, is the nerve centre of the city, starting from the Crawford Market, linking Victoria Terminus, leads to the Flora Fountain at the southern end of the road...
, a heritage road of Mumbai, is named after him. Also, the Dadabhoy Naoroji Road in Karachi
Karachi
Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
is also named after him as well as the Naoroji Road in the Bloomsbury area of London.
Works
- The manners and customs of the Parsees (Bombay, 1864)
- The European and Asiatic races (London, 1866)
- Admission of educated natives into the Indian Civil Service (London, 1868)
- The wants and means of India (London, 1870)
- Condition of India (Madras, 1881)
- Poverty of India: A Paper Read Before the Bombay Branche of the East India Association, Bombay, Ranima Union Press, (1876)
- C. L. Parekh, ed., Essays, Speeches, Addresses and Writings of the Honourable Dadabhai Naoroji, Bombay, Caxton Printing Works (1887). An excerpt, "The Benefits of British Rule", in a modernized text by J. S. Arkenberg, ed., on line at Paul Halsall, ed., Internet Modern History Sourcebook.
- Lord Salisbury’s Blackman (Lucknow, 1889)
- Commonwealth Publishers, 1988. ISBN 819000662
Further reading
- Rustom P. Masani, Dadabhai Naoroji (1939).
- Munni Rawal, Dadabhai Naoroji, Prophet of Indian Nationalism, 1855-1900, New Delhi, Anmol Publications (1989).
- S. R. Bakshi, Dadabhai Naoroji: The Grand Old Man, Anmol Publications (1991). ISBN 8170414261
- Verinder Grover, ‘'Dadabhai Naoroji: A Biography of His Vision and Ideas’’ New Delhi, Deep & Deep Publishers (1998) ISBN 8176290114
- Debendra Kumar Das, ed., ‘'Great Indian Economists : Their Creative Vision for Socio-Economic Development.’’ Vol. I: ‘Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917) : Life Sketch and Contribution to Indian Economy.’’ New Delhi, Deep and Deep (2004). ISBN 8176293156
- P. D. Hajela, ‘'Economic Thoughts of Dadabhai Naoroji,’’ New Delhi, Deep & Deep (2001). ISBN 8176293377
- Pash Nandhra, entry Dadabhai Naoroji in Brack et al. (eds).Dictionary of Liberal History; Politico's, 1998
- Zerbanoo Gifford, Dadabhai Naoroji: Britain's First Asian MP; Mantra Books, 1992