DADABHAI NAOROJI

 Dadabai was born in Bombay in a poor Parsi priest family on 4 September, 1825. He was educated in a free school conducted by the ‘Native Education Society’. The school had two branches – English and Vernacular. He received his college education at the Elphinstone Institution. He received the Clare Scholarship and was admitted to the newly opened class of Normal Scholars.

Dadabai was very active in his college days. He was appointed as the Treasurer of the ‘Students Literary and Scientific Society’. From that time onwards he devoted himself to the work of education and reform.

The Rules of the Students Literary and Scientific Society – The aim of the society was to develop the interest in literary and scientific knowledge. In keeping with this aim on e of the rules of the society provided that two members should be nominated by the Secretary of the society to read papers on literary, scientific or social subjects. The meeting of the Society was held twice a month. The society was keen on encouraging members to think independently on matters of public interest. The students and teachers should shoulder the responsibility of educating the people and therefore an in depth study of the current issues was also intended. The Society did not encourage entanglement in the political matters and religious questions.

The society maintained a strict discipline and therefore wished to weed out useless members or those who only accepted the membership as an ornament. Those who failed to read a paper in the first and second instance were fined and if the member failed to read the paper on the subject offered by him the third time, he was expelled.

The questions that were prepared and the subjects of the papers were discussed in the meetings of the Society. It was not to be merely an academic discussion to be confined within the four walls of the classroom but the conclusions were to be exposed to the full view of the public through the columns of journals conducted by two vernacular branches of the Society. One was the Gujarati ‘Dnyan Prasarak Mandali’ and the other was Marathi – ‘Dnyan Prasarak Mandali’. The Gujarati journal was edited by Dadabai Naoroji. It published the debates.

The work undertaken by the ‘Dnyan Prasarak Mandali’ under the guidance and direction of Dadabai Naoroji was of far reaching importance.

In 1849, a paper on female education was read by Behramji Kharshetji Gandhi. The discussion on this much debated issue led to a practical operation. The students began to visit several Parsi and Hindu families who allowed them to sit in their verandahs and teach the girls. After this girls got the consent of their parents and they could register 44 Parsi girls and 24 Hindu girls in the seven schools. The move to educate women attracted the attention of some leaders of Bombay Jagannath Shankar Sheth who gave a cottage to be used a school house. This inspired others to give concrete assistance to female education. Khershedji Nasarwanji Cama gave a substantial donation to the Society and this enabled the Society to maintain schools for girls.

Dadabhai lived to witness the diamond jubilee of the Society and the Dnyan Prakash Mandali. The Society had also undertaken the work of translating books into Marathi and Gujarati. The work of the Society began to get wider publicity. Among the Marathi speaking alumni Journalism had become a favorite tool to propose social and religious reforms. Dadabhai also felt an urgent need of an independent journal for the cause of reform. Dadabhai and K. Cama decided to start a fortnightly journal ‘Rast Goftar’ (Truth Teller). Cama agreed to provide the necessary funds and Dadabhai agreed to run it without remuneration. The new journal was issued on 15 November 1851. This was incidentally the sixth journal in Gujarati but the only one with an independent ideology. The journal was started in the wake of Muslim-Parsi riot which broke out on 7 October 1851. Within two months the journal with progressive views found favor with the readers and in January 1852 the fortnightly was converted into a weekly. Dadabhai was fully supported by the Society boys and his connection with the journal continued even after he left India in 1855 and made England his home. The student’s society had a wider acceptance and its activities were assuming larger dimensions under the able leadership of Dadabhai.

Important Events in his life

He was appointed Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in 1852. He was the first Indian to hold such a high position in any prominent colleges in the country. He left India in 1855 to settle in England. He joined the Cama Company and after a few years he started his own trading company. During the first decade he tried to educate the British public opinion on the Civil Service Examination. He stressed the importance of Sanskrit and Arabic, the two classical languages and the London Indian Society was able to force the British government to give up the proposal of reducing the marks gained by Indian candidates in one of these languages as optional subjects.

Dadabhai’s achievements in the political field are many. He became the first Indian member of the British Parliament. He worked as a Diwan of Baroda. He worked for the establishment of the Indian National Congress of which he was elected President thrice in his career. His greatest contribution to the intellectual field was his book ‘Poverty and the British Rule in India’, published in 1901. In 1876, when he was a Municipal Councilor of Bombay, he read a paper on the Poverty of India before the Bombay branch of East India Association.

Dadabhai enjoys a unique place in the hearts of Indian people. His greatness does not lie in the number of institutions he started or the number of lectures he delivered on different subjects or his work in this capacity or that. His greatness rests on his theory of drain that he propounded not merely by guess work but by indefatigable industry to collect the statistics and prove his thesis.

Here was a man brave enough to prove to the British masters that they were responsible for the poverty and the miserable conditions of the Indian people. He thrust on the attention of the people of India that the outward appearance of the British rule may be attractive but it acts as a disease to destroy the national interest of India.

The Drain Theory that he developed created a consciousness among the educated Indians throughout the country that self-rule has no substitute. Although he spent most of his life in England he never missed any opportunity to uphold the national honor. He had the good fortune of a long life. His political hopes of a better deal from the British rulers at the outbreak of World War I were very high. Dadabhai did not live long enough to see the constitutional changes after World War I.

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