Dadabhai Naoroji Extended Biography
Dadabhai NaorojiExtended BiographyYou may wish to share this biography with students, or just to read it for your own information.Dadabhai Naoroji was born in 1825 in Mumbai (then Bombay). He was a member of a Parsi family, with roots in Persia (Iran), but they spoke the local Gujarati language. His family were Zoroastrians in faith, and he himself became a priest. He was also a Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy by the age of 30, the first Indian to get this appointment at Elphistone College in Mumbai. Naoroji later entered business, and worked for the first Indian company to establish a branch in Britain (rather than the other way around), the Cama and Family Company. He lived in Liverpool. Later, he established his own mercantile company, Dadabhai Naoroji and Co. Back in India in the 1870s, Naoroji became a leader of the movement for Indian rights. In 1867, he helped to establish the East India Association and then, in 1885, became a leader in the Indian National Association, which would become the Indian National Congress. This was the origin of the Indian nationalist, anti-colonial party.But Naoroji returned to Britain again, where he campaigned—as a subject of the Empire—for a seat in the House of Commons, generally as a member of the Liberal party. In race after race, Naoroji faced extraordinary racism. But in 1892, he won as the candidate for the Central Finsbury Borough. He was therefore the first Asian and the first Zoroastrian member of the British parliament. Naoroji’s politics were liberal. Although Indian rights—and later independence—were among his key topics, he also supported self-government for Ireland, women’s suffrage, and other causes.But perhaps even more importantly, Naoroji published a series of deep, evidence-based studies of British colonial rule in India. The most extensive is Poverty and un-British Rule in India. This book argued that although British culture had in some ways added to the potent multi-cultural mix that was Indian society, nevertheless it had impoverished India.Naoroji’s life history tells a story of the restrictions on colonial subjects. Even though he broke some of these restrictions, his struggles demonstrate just how difficult it was for his fellow colonial subjects