Dadabhai Naoroji Quotes

Dadabhai Naoroji , known as the Grand Old Man of India, was a Parsi intellectual, educator, cotton trader, and an early Indian political and social leader. He was a Liberal Party member of Parliament in the United Kingdom House of Commons between 1892 and 1895, and the first Indian to be a British MP, notwithstanding the Anglo-Indian MP David Ochterlony Dyce Sombre, who was disenfranchised for corruption.

Naoroji is also credited with the founding of the Indian National Congress, along with A.O. Hume and Dinshaw Edulji Wacha. His book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India brought attention to the draining of India's wealth into Britain. He was also a member of the Second International along with Kautsky and Plekhanov .

In 2014, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg inaugurated the Dadabhai Naoroji Awards for services to UK-India relations.India Post dedicated a stamp to Naoroji on 29 December 2017, on the occasion of his 100th death anniversary.

✵ 4. September 1825 – 30. June 1917
Dadabhai Naoroji photo
Dadabhai Naoroji: 15 quotes26 likes

Famous Dadabhai Naoroji Quotes

“Naoroji’s fair skin was often described as an advantage, as it meant that voters did not associate him with Africans.”

Dadabhai Naoroji

The Weekly Dispatch noted page=5
About Dadabhai, Narrow-majority’ and ‘Bow-and-agree’: Public Attitudes Towards the Elections of the First Asian MPs in Britain, Dadabhai Naoroji and Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree, 1885-1906

“The greatest gift the Parsis have bestowed on India is in your own good self.”

Dadabhai Naoroji

The Congress reception committee chairman at Lahore observed when he was honoured he was in Golden Temple in Armritsar quoted in Dr. Dadabhai Naoroji: "The Grand Old Man of India"
About Dadabhai

“Materially: The political drain, up to this time, from India to England, of above, 500,000,000, at the lowest computation, in principal alone…The further continuation of this drain at the rate, at present, of above, 12,000,000 per annum, with a tendency to increase.”

Dadabhai Naoroji

Above two quoted by Dadabhai Naoroji as the estimated the economic costs and drain of resources from India, is an extract from one of his essays, “The Benefits of British Rule, 1871” in Drain of Wealth during British Raj, B Shantanu, 6 February 2006, 4 December 2013, Ivarta.com http://www.ivarta.com/columns/OL_060206.htm#_edn5, <br class="br">Drain Theory

“When the Marquis of Salisbury made a remark about me in connection with the Holborn contest, the whole Liberal Party – including our Great Leader – the Press, and the National Liberal Club … showed generous sympathy towards me”

Dadabhai Naoroji

Page=8
Narrow-majority’ and ‘Bow-and-agree’: Public Attitudes Towards the Elections of the First Asian MPs in Britain, Dadabhai Naoroji and Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree, 1885-1906

Dadabhai Naoroji Quotes

“He is not black nor anything like it, and we shall be surprised if he is the darkest member in the new House of Commons.”

Dadabhai Naoroji

Critical comment in India by The Amrita Bazaar Patrika, page=5.
About Dadabhai, Narrow-majority’ and ‘Bow-and-agree’: Public Attitudes Towards the Elections of the First Asian MPs in Britain, Dadabhai Naoroji and Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree, 1885-1906

“He was of opinion that we should be able to convince the general English public, the working man particularly, that the reforms that I advanced would be far more beneficial to the English nation, particularly to the working man…If India is prosperous and rich, she would buy far more English produce and give work proportionately to the working man.”

Dadabhai Naoroji

His noting in his dairy after his contesting election in 1886 page=10.
Narrow-majority’ and ‘Bow-and-agree’: Public Attitudes Towards the Elections of the First Asian MPs in Britain, Dadabhai Naoroji and Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree, 1885-1906

“More than 20 years earlier a small band of Hindu students and thoughtful gentlemen used to meet secretly to discuss the effects of British rule in India. The home charges and the transfer of capital from India to England in various shapes, and the exclusion of the children of the country from any share or voice in the administration of their own country, formed the chief burden of their complaint.”

Dadabhai Naoroji

As the theoretician of the &quot;Drain Theory&quot;, he explained in his lecture delivered at the East Indian Association, London on 2 May 1867 in Forerunners of Dadabhai Naoroji’s Drain Theory, 3 December 2013, Jstor Organization http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4411389?uid=3738256&amp;uid=2129&amp;uid=2&amp;uid=70&amp;uid=4&amp;sid=21103047963541, <br class="br">Drain Theory

“The elections clearly showed me that a suitable Indian candidate has as good a chance as any Englishman, or even some advantages over an Englishman, for there is a general and genuine desire among English electors to give to India any help in their power.”

Dadabhai Naoroji

His statement in Bombay page=11.
Narrow-majority’ and ‘Bow-and-agree’: Public Attitudes Towards the Elections of the First Asian MPs in Britain, Dadabhai Naoroji and Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree, 1885-1906

“Be united, persevere, and achieve self-Government, so that the millions now perishing by poverty, famine, and plague may be saved, and India may once more occupy her proud position of yore among the greatest and civilized nations of the world.”

Dadabhai Naoroji

In 1906 at the age of 80 when he became president of the Indian National Congress in Calcutta.
Dr. Dadabhai Naoroji: "The Grand Old Man of India"

“She made me what I am.”

Dadabhai Naoroji

About his mother
Dr. Dadabhai Naoroji: "The Grand Old Man of India"

“However great the progress of mankind has been, and however far we have advanced in overcoming prejudices, I doubt if we have yet got to the point of view where an English constituency would elect a Blackman.”

Dadabhai Naoroji

About Dadabhai, Narrow-majority’ and ‘Bow-and-agree’: Public Attitudes Towards the Elections of the First Asian MPs in Britain, Dadabhai Naoroji and Mancherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree, 1885-1906

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