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Dadabhai Naoroji
‐
Businessman, economist, lecturer and elected Liberal MP for Central Finsbury in 1892
Other names
The Grand Old Man of India
Place of birth
Date of arrival to Britain
Location(s)
London
EC1R 4QT
United Kingdom
Place of death
Bombay, India
Date of time spent in Britain
1855–1907 (on and off)
About
Dadabhai Naoroji, of Bombay Parsee origin, was the first Indian to be elected to Parliament in Britain. Naoroji travelled to Britain in 1855 as a business partner of Cama and Company. A member of several businesses, he became Professor of Gujarati at University College, London (1856–65). He had also been founder-editor of the journal Rast Goftar in Bombay in 1851. He founded the London Zoroastrian Association in 1861. He was also founding member of the East India Association and London Indian Society, and became vocal in promoting Indian rights in regard to the Indian Civil Service and trade. Naoroji was an economist and proponent of the 'drain theory', building up a detailed economic critique of British imperialism in India. He also established links with Irish MPs and was one of the founders of the Indian National Congress in 1885 in Bombay.
In 1886 Naoroji campaigned as Liberal Party candidate for the strongly Conservative seat of Holborn. In 1888, referring to Naoroji's defeat, the Conservative Party Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, remarked that an English constituency was not ready to elect a 'Blackman', drawing greater notoriety to Naoroji. In 1892 he contested the seat of Central Finsbury, campaigning on Gladstone's platform of Liberalism, and was successfully elected with a majority of five. He lost his seat in the general election of 1895. In 1906 Naoroji stood as a candidate at Lambeth North but was again unsuccessful. In 1907 Naoroji left England to retire at Versova in Bombay, where he died in 1917.
General elections, 1886, 1892, 1895, 1906
Syed Ameer Ali, John Archer (Naoroji encouraged him to go into politics), Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree, W. C. Bonnerjee, Charles Bradlaugh, Josephine Butler, Madame Bhikaiji Cama, William Digby, Lalmohan Ghose, H. M. Hyndman, Mohammed Ali Jinnah (helped out in campaign), Elizabeth Adelaide Manning (through NIA), Florence Nightingale, Frank Hugh O'Donnell, Badruddin Tyabji, Alfred Webb, William Wedderburn, Henry Sylvester Williams (Naoroji encouraged him to go into politics).
Poverty of India (1876)
Mr D. Naoroji and Mr Schnadhorst (London: Chant & Co., 1892)
Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901)
Burton, Antoinette, 'Tongues Untied: Lord Salisbury's "Black Man" and the Boundaries of Imperial Democracy', Society for Comparative Study of Society and History (2000), pp. 632–61
Hinnells, John R., Zoroastrians in Britain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996)
Masani, R. P., Dadabhai Naoroji. The Grand Old Man of India (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1939)
Monk, C. J., ‘“Member for India?” The Parliamentary Lives of Dadabhai Naoroji (MP: 1892–1895) and Mancherjee Bhownaggree (MP: 1895–1906)’, unpublished MPhil thesis (University of Manchester, 1985)
Mukherjee, Sumita, ‘"Narrow-majority" and "Bow-and-agree": Public Attitudes towards the Elections of the First Asian MPs in Britain, Dadabhai Naoroji and Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree, 1885–1906’, Journal of the Oxford University History Society 2 (Michaelmas 2004), pp. 1–20
Patel, Dinyar, Naoroji: Pioneer of Indian Nationalism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020)
Ralph, Omar, Naoroji. The First Asian MP. A Biography of Dadabhai Naoroji: India's Patriot and Britain's MP (St John's Antigua: Hansib, 1997)
Schneer, Jonathan, London 1900: The Imperial Metropolis (London: Yale University Press, 1999)
Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto Press, 2002)
Parekh, C. L. (ed.) Essays, Speeches, Addresses and Writings of the Honourable Dadabhai Naoroji (Bombay: Caxton, 1887)
Patwardhan, R. P. (ed.) Dadabhai Naoroji Correspondence (Bombay: n.p., 1977)
Dadabhai Naoroji Parliamentary Centenary Celebrations, Mss Eur F279, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
Letters in William Digby Collection, Mss Eur D767, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
Minute books of East India Association, Mss Eur F147/27, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras
Notes relating to possible candidature in 1903–1910, Labour History Archive, Central Lancashire
Papers and correspondence, National Archives of India, New Delhi
For image and copyright details, please click "More Information" in the Viewer.
Debate on the Indian Council Cotton Duties, by Sydney Prior Hall, pencil, published in The Graphic, 2 March 1895, NPG 2307
© National Portrait Gallery, London, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
Image credit
Dadabhai Naoroji by London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company, published by Messrs R. M. Richardson & Co, sepia-toned carbon print cabinet card, circa 1892, NPG x128698
© National Portrait Gallery, London, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
