‘Naoroji – Pioneer of Indian Nationalism’ Biography By Dinyar Patel
- Mahatma Gandhi called Dadabhai Naoroji the “father of the nation,” a title that today is reserved for Gandhi himself. Dinyar Patel examines the extraordinary life of this foundational figure in India’s modern political history, a devastating critic of British colonialism who served in Parliament as the first-ever Indian MP, forged ties with anti-imperialists around the world, and established self-rule or swaraj as India’s objective.
- Naoroji’s political career evolved in three distinct phases. He began as the activist who formulated the “drain of wealth” theory, which held the British Raj responsible for India’s crippling poverty and devastating famines.
- His ideas upended conventional wisdom holding that colonialism was beneficial for Indian subjects and put a generation of imperial officials on the defensive. Next, he attempted to influence the British Parliament to institute political reforms. He immersed himself in British politics, forging links with socialists, Irish home rulers, suffragists, and critics of empire.
- With these allies, Naoroji clinched his landmark election to the House of Commons in 1892, an event noticed by colonial subjects around the world. Finally, in his twilight years he grew disillusioned with parliamentary politics and became more radical.
- He strengthened his ties with British and European socialists, reached out to American anti-imperialists and Progressives, and fully enunciated his demand for swaraj. Only self-rule, he declared, could remedy the economic ills brought about by British control in India.
- Naoroji is the first comprehensive study of the most significant Indian nationalist leader before Gandhi.
- When the British government announced in 2014 that it would install a statue of Mohandas Gandhi in London’s Parliament Square, there were complaints in certain quarters that the wrong anticolonial Indian was being honored in the heart of an erstwhile empire. The statue, some said, should be not of the Mahatma—however great his status as tormentor-in-chief of the British Raj—but of Dadabhai Naoroji.
About Dinyar Patel-
- Dinyar Patel is Assistant Professor of History at the University of South Carolina. He has written for BBC News and the New York Times, among other publications.
- I am Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of South Carolina. I teach courses on modern South Asia, the Indian nationalist movement, and the British Empire.
- Most of my research has focused on the life and career of Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-17), arguably the most significant Indian nationalist leader before Gandhi.
- Naoroji was one of the founders of the Indian National Congress, became the first Indian elected to the British Parliament in 1892, and, 1906, declared swaraj or self-government to be the policy of the Indian National Congress. In 2015, I received my Ph.D. in History from Harvard University. My biography of Dadabhai Naoroji, Naoroji: Pioneer of Indian Nationalism, was published by Harvard University Press in May 2020.
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