This year, 2022, marks the 130th anniversary of the election, in 1892, of the first person of Indian origin, Dadabhai Naoroji to the House of Commons.

Why in news?

• Election of Rishi Sunak as British PM with a narrow majority has brought to focus Naoroji.
• He too had won Finsbury seat as a MP with a three vote’s majority.

Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917)

• Dadabhai Naoroji is well known as the “Grand Old Man of India” and “Unofficial Ambassador of India”.
• He was a Liberal Party Member of Parliament in the British House of Commons, represnting Finsbury Central between 1892 and 1895.
• He was the second person of Asian descent to be a British MP, the first being Anglo-Indian MP David Ochterlony Dyce Sombre.
• He was an Indian political leader, merchant, scholar and writer who was served as 2nd, 9th, and 22nd President of the Indian National Congress from 1886 to 1887, 1893 to 1894 & 1906 to 1907.
• His book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India brought attention to his theory of the Indian “wealth drain” into Britain.
• He was also a member of the Second Communist International (1889).

Other 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)

Influence on Gandhi and Jinnah

• Before his Finsbury win, Naoroji met a young student of law in Inner Temple, 23-year-old Mohandas K Gandhi, and left an everlasting impact on the future leader.
• He also met another aspiring lawyer then enrolled at Lincoln’s Inn — 16-year-old Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who was to serve for a while as Naoroji’s secretary.
• Jinnah had the distinction of hearing Naoroji’s maiden speech in the House of Commons from the Visitors’ Gallery.

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