First Indian to enter House of Commons

Popularly known as the 'Grand Old Man of India', Dadabhai Naoroji was born on September 4, 1825, at a locality in Mandvi, now in Mumbai. He was four when his father, a Zoroastrian priest, died, and his mother enrolled him in a free school run by the Bombay Native Education Society. At a time when Bombay’s Elphinstone Institution was the preserve of the British, Dadabhai did the unthinkable, becoming the first Indian professor to teach maths and natural philosophy there.

The course had been set; he was destined for bigger things. It was during his first visit to Britain in 1855 that he became acutely conscious of the poverty of his countrymen and challenged the predominant sentiment that imperialism had brought prosperity to colonial subjects.

There was a sense of rage. In 1867, at a gathering of the East India Association in London, influential Dadabhai dared to present a contrarian view in his paper, ‘England’s Debt to India’, arguing that, in reality, India was being bled and compelled to pay an indirect tribute to England. Great Britain, he calculated, had, over the course of a century, amassed over £1.6 billion from its Indian Empire.

His theory was to later become the basis for the Indian National Movement with demand for Swaraj and self-governance. The Indian National Congress, of which he was the founding member and presided over its sessions thrice, adopted self-governance as its primary aim.

For his voice to be heard, this ‘Unofficial Ambassador of India’ realised that he needed to enter British Parliament. Over a period of two decades, he stood for elections four times. Notwithstanding racial abuse and jibes, including from the likes of British PM Lord Salisbury, he became the first Asian to become a British MP in 1892. Another glass ceiling had been broken.

When he visited Bombay on December 3, 1893, a procession of an astounding 5 lakh supporters came to welcome their fellow native — the first to sit in the House of Commons.

In 1901, Naoroji came out with his economic analysis, ‘Poverty and Un-British Rule in India’. The seminal work — a compilation of his lectures, speeches and essays — detailed his ‘drain theory’. On expected lines, the theory drew the ire of the British, who accused him of sedition and disloyalty. However, using means of persuasion, Naoroji was able to turn it on its head, eliciting support from European socialists, American Progressives, union leaders, working class, agriculturalists and clergymen. His vocal support of Women’s Suffrage movement also saw British feminists align with him. It was his moment to shine, again.

In the late 1840s, despite opposition from his conservative Parsi community, this advocate of education for women set up three schools for girls. His efforts yielded efforts, with the schools brimming with students within five years.

It was the free education received by this pioneering social reformer, who also mentored Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, which ingrained in him the seed to serve people. In an autobiographical article, Naoroji wrote, “The thought developed that I was educated at the expense of the people, I must make a return to them with the best I had in me. I must devote my life as far as I can in the service of the people.” He died in 1917 at the age of 91.