Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917) was an Indian political leader and one of the founders of the Indian National Congress. A leading nationalist author and spokesman, he was the first Indian to be elected to membership in the British Parliament.

Dadabhai Naoroji was born into a leading Parsi family in Bombay. After an outstanding career at Elphinstone College, Naoroji served briefly as professor of mathematics at Elphinstone. In 1855 Naoroji became a partner in an important Parsi commercial firm in London, and in 1862 he set up his own commercial house there. In the same year he founded the influential East Indian Association to educate the English public on Indian affairs.

In 1873 Naoroji accepted the difficult post of Divan, or chief minister, of the prominent Indian princely state of Baroda but left it fairly soon for an elected seat in the Bombay Municipal Corporation. It was here that his public service career...