Dadabhai Naoroji

Subject: History

Context:

• Dadabhai Naoroji presented the first estimates of poverty in his 1877 paper ‘Poverty in India’, subsequently published in his book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India in 1899.
• These estimates were closely linked to the idea of freedom not just from the British rule but also from a life of poverty.

Concept:

• He is “Grand Old Man of India” because one of the first leaders who stirred national consciousness in the country.
• In 1865 and 1866, Naoroji helped found the London Indian Society and the East India Association respectively. The two organisations sought to bring nationalist Indians and sympathetic Britons on one platform.
• In 1885, Naoroji became a vice-president of the Bombay Presidency Association, was nominated to the Bombay legislative council by Governor Lord Reay, and helped form the Indian National Congress.
• DadabhaiNaoroji was among the key proponents of the ‘Drain Theory’, disseminating it in his 1901 book ‘Poverty and Un-British Rule in India’.
• Naoroji argued that imperial Britain was draining away India’s wealth to itself through exploitative economic policies, including India’s rule by foreigners; the heavy financial burden of the British civil and military apparatus in India; the exploitation of the country due to free trade; non-Indians taking away the money that they earned in India; and the interest that India paid on its public debt held in Britain.
• He served as the first Indian member of the British parliament.
• He was Congress president thrice, in 1886, 1893, and 1906.