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Dadabhai Naoroji was born in Navsari in a Gujarati-speaking Parsi Zoroastrian family, and educated at the Elphinstone Institute School.
He was married to Gulbai at the age of 11.
His patron was the Maharaja of Baroda, Sayajirao Gaekwad III, and he started his career as Dewan (Minister) to the Maharaja in 1874. Being an Athornan (ordained priest), Naoroji founded the Rahnumai Mazdayasan Sabha (Guides on the Mazdayasne Path) on 1 August 1851 to restore the Zoroastrian religion to its original purity and simplicity. In 1854, he also founded a Gujarati fortnightly publication, the Rast Goftar (The Truth Teller), to clarify Zoroastrian concepts and promote Parsi social reforms.
Around this time, he also published another newspaper called The Voice of India. In December 1855, he was appointed Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in Elphinstone College in Bombay, becoming the first Indian to hold such an academic position.
He travelled to London in 1855 to become a partner in Cama & Co, opening a Liverpool location for the first Indian company to be established in Britain. Within three years, he had resigned on ethical grounds. In 1859, he established his own cotton trading company, Dadabhai Naoroji & Co. In 1861 he also founded The Zoroastrian Trust Funds of Europe alongside Muncherjee Hormusji Cama.
In 1865, Naoroji directed and launched the London Indian Society, the purpose of which was to discuss Indian political, social and literary subjects. In 1867, he also helped to establish the East India Association, one of the predecessor organisations of the Indian National Congress with the aim of putting across the Indian point of view before the British public. The Association was instrumental in counter-acting the propaganda by the Ethnological Society of London which, in its session in 1866, had tried to prove the inferiority of the Asians to the Europeans. This Association soon won the support of eminent Englishmen and was able to exercise considerable influence in the British parliament. The organization soon had branches in Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.
In 1874, he became Prime Minister of Baroda and was a member of the Legislative Council of Bombay (1885–88). He was also a member of the Indian National Association founded by Sir Surendranath Banerjea from Calcutta a few years before the founding of the Indian National Congress in Bombay, with the same objectives and practices. The two groups later merged into the INC, and Naoroji was elected President of the Congress in 1886. Naoroji published Poverty and Un-British Rule in India in 1901.
Naoroji moved to Britain once again and continued his political involvement. Elected for the Liberal Party in Finsbury Central at the 1892 general election, he was the first British Indian MP. He refused to take the oath on the Bible, as he was Zoroastrian. He was allowed to take the oath of office in the name of God on his copy of the Khordeh Avesta. During his time he put his efforts towards improving the situation in India. He had a very clear vision and was an effective communicator. He set forth his views about the situation in India over the course of the history of the governance of the country and the way in which the colonial rulers rule. In Parliament, he spoke on Irish Home Rule and the condition of the Indian people. He was a notable Freemason.
In 1906, Naoroji was again elected president of the Indian National Congress. He was a staunch moderate within the Congress, during the phase when opinion in the party was split between the moderates and extremists. Such was the respect commanded by him that assertive nationalists could not oppose his candidature and the rift was avoided for the time being. Naoroji's Poverty and Un-British Rule in India influenced Mahatma Gandhi.
Drain theory and poverty:
Naoroji's work focused on the drain of wealth from India to Britain during the period of British rule in India. One of the reasons that the Drain theory is attributed to Naoroji is his decision to estimate the net national profit of India, and by extension, the effect that colonial rule had on the country. Through his work with economics, Naoroji sought to prove that Britain was draining money out of India.
Naoroji described six factors that resulted in the external drain.
1. India was governed by a foreign government.
2. India did not attract immigrants who brought labour and capital for economic growth.
3. India paid for Britain's civil administrations in India and her Indian army.
4. India bore the burden of empire building in and out of its borders.
5. Opening the country to free trade allowed for foreigners to take highly paid jobs over those of equally qualified Indians.
6. The principal income-earners would spend their money outside of India or leave with the money as they were mostly foreign personnel.
His book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India estimated a 200–300 million pounds drain of India's revenue to Britain that was not recirculated into India.
Works :
• Started the Rast Goftar Anglo-Gujarati Newspaper in 1854.
• The manners and customs of the Parsees (Bombay, 1864).
• The European and Asiatic races (London, 1866).
• Admission of educated natives into the Indian Civil Service (London, 1868)
• The wants and means of India (London, 1876)
Condition of India (Madras, 1882)
• Poverty of India Bombay, Ranima Union Press (1876).A Paper Read Before the Bombay Branch of the East India Association.
C. L. Parekh, ed., Essays, Speeches, Addresses and Writings of the Honourable Dadabhai Naoroji, Bombay, Caxton Printing Works (1887). An excerpt, "The Benefits of British Rule", in a modernised text by J. S. Arkenberg, ed., on line at Paul Halsall, ed., Internet Modern History Sourcebook Archived 22 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine.
• Lord Salisbury's Blackman (Lucknow, 1889)
• Naoroji, Dadabhai (1861). The Parsee Religion. University of London.
• Dadabhai Naoroji (1901). Poverty and Un-British Rule in India. Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India.; "Poverty and Un-British Rule in India" Commonwealth Publishers, 1988.
He died in Bombay on 30 June 1917, at the age of 91.
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