The Grand Old Man of Indian Independence Movement
It was while working on his PHD dissertation at Harvard University, USA, that author Dinyar Patel discovered not much has been written about Indian nationalism before the arrival of Mahatma Gandhi. This is where his interest in the Grand Old Man of India came to being. Dadabhai Naoroji, a Parsi nationalist became the first Asian to be elected as an MP in the House of Commons. “Every year in the United States, the UK, France, and other countries, so many biographies are churned out on important leaders — why has the situation been so different here in India?” asks Patel.
There were a few definitive moments that made Naoroji a stalwart in the Indian freedom struggle. Of them, is his theory of “Drain of Wealth”. In his book, Poverty and Unbritish Rule in India, he explained how steadily and clinically, the British were draining India’s wealth all the while when poverty was visibly increasing in the country. He wrote: “The British rule caused only impoverishment in India with their knife of sugar. That is to say there is no oppression, it is all smooth and sweet, but it is a knife notwithstanding.”
“The drain theory explains precisely why colonialism was an economically exploitative force: it lays bare the rationale of enriching the mother country (Britain in this case) at the expense of the colony (India). It has been similarly applied in other colonial contexts, such as in west Africa or the Caribbean,” says Patel.
Naoroji influenced numerous Indian leaders including Mahatma Gandhi, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Gopal Krishna Gokhale, among others. Interestingly, Naoroji also influenced Muhammad Ali Jinnah, whom Jinnah greatly admired. Jinnah witnessed his maiden speech at the House of Commons from the visitor’s gallery and acted as his secretary later on. “Naoroji would certainly have been wholeheartedly opposed to the idea of a partition of India. But we must remember that prior to returning to India in the late 1930s, Jinnah had been called the ambassador of Hindu-muslim Unity,” says the author.
However, the dwindling Parsi population has contributed in Naoroji’s legacy getting lost into oblivion.
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“Parsis are numerically insignificant today, although they still exert great economic and cultural influence. But, there’s simply no Parsi vote bank (outside of pockets of South Bombay, of course!), and there’s therefore little way to make political capital out of a Parsi political leader. This is a shame, because Naoroji was much more than just a Parsi leader,” he adds.
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