Dadabhai Naoroji
Dadabhai Naoroji also known as the Grand Old Man of India and Unofficial Ambassador of India was an Indian scholar, trader and politician. He was also the first Asian to be a British MP. He was also one of the founding members of Indian National Congress. His book ‘Poverty and Un-British Rule in India’ brought attention to his ‘DRAIN OF WEALTH’ theory from India to British.
EARLY LIFE• He was born on 4th September 1825 in Navsari, Bombay Presidency (present day Gujarat) to a Gujarati speaking Parsi family with a lineage of Zoroastrian Priests.
• He was brought up to take his father’s profession of conducting rites and rituals for the Parsi Community.
• He was married to Gulbai at the age of eleven.
• He was educated at the Ephinstone College.
• In the late 1840s, he opened schools for Indian girls, earning the wrath of orthodox Indian men.
• In 1851, ‘Rahnumae Mazdayasne Sabha’ was founded by him to revive the Zoroastrian religion.
• In 1855, he started working as a Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Mumbai’s Elphinstone College and became the first Indian to hold such position.
• Later, he also became the Professor of Gujarati at the University College London.
• He was also a partner in the firm Cama & Co.
• He was a keen businessman and started his own cotton trading company Dadabhai Naoroji and Co. in 1859 as well.
• In 1855, he first time visited England to manage the London branch of Cama & Co., which was the first Indian Company to have branch in England.
• In 1865, the ‘London India Society’ was formed by him to put forth views on Indian political, social and literary subjects.
• He also founded the ‘East India Association’ in 1867 to put Indians’ concerns across British Public.
• East India Association was the first organisation which has members from different Indian Provinces.
• As the Secretary of the East India Association he travelled across India to gather funds and raise national awareness.
• Many Britishers supported the East India Association and it was able to wield some influence on British Parliament.
• When he was in England he studied Economic Impact of British rule in India and in 1867 he propounded his much-quoted ‘Economic Drain Theory’ where he pointed out that a quarter of India’s economic revenues were being expropriated by Britain and hence India was being Economically bled dry.
• According to Naoroji’s famous paper, 350 million pounds sterling was drained out from India to England between 1814 and 1845.
POLITICAL CAREER
• In 1874, he started his political career as the Dewan of the Maharaja of Baroda.
• In 1885, Naoroji became the Vice-President of the Bombay Presidency Association and he was nominated to the Bombay Legislative Council by Governor Lord Reay.
• He remained member of Legislative Council of Mumbai during 1885-1888.
• In 1885 he formed Indian National Congress along with Dinshaw Wacha and Allan Octavian Hume.
• He became the Indian National Congress President three times in 1886, 1893 and 1906.
• In 1893, he helped form an Indian Parliamentary Committee to attend to Indian interests.
• He was of the view that Indians should participate in the British Parliamentary Politics and he left India for London to fight elections.
• He was accepted as a candidate for the Liberal Party from Holbourn constituency for the 1886 election but suffered a defeat.
• In 1892, he stood from Central Finsbury constituency of London, a working-class area from Liberal Party and this time he was elected to House of Commons and became the first Asian to become a British MP.
• Mahraja Sayajirao Gaekwad of Baroda was a big financial supporter of Dadabhai Naoroji during elections. Muhammad Ali Jinnah who was studying in London at that time also supported Dadabhai Naoroji in his elections along with Bengali Leader Chittaranjan Das. Florence Nightingale, founder of modern nursing also supported him during his both campaigns.
• Dadabhai Naoroji raised a variety of issues in the British Parliament such as suffragette, Civil Rights Situation in India, condition of Indian Labourers in South Africa and sticked to the principles of Liberal Party, Wealth Drain, the benefits of giving equal employment opportunities to Indians and Industrialisation of the country.
• As a result of his work on the drain theory, a Royal Commission on Indian Expenditure was set up in 1896. Naoroji was a member of this commission which reviewed the financial burdens on India.
• In his many papers and speeches, he gave statistical data to prove his drain theory. He got figures from authentic sources like Parliamentary Returns of Indian Accounts and the Second Customs Report, 1858. • He is known as the Man who brought Statistics into politics.
• In 1894, Mahatma Gandhi wrote to Naoroji- “ the Indians look up to you as children to the father. Such is really the feeling here.”
• He also contested elections in 1895 and 1907 but failed to win and after that he retired to India and mentored the next generation of leaders.
• He acted as the mentor to Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi and Gopal Krishna Gokhale.
• Dadabhai Naoroji passed away in Mumbai home on 30 june 1917 at an age of 92.
• After him his granddaughters Perin and Khrushedben were also involved in the independence movement.