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VERNACULAR LIBERALISM, CAPITALISM, AND ANTI-IMPERIALISM IN THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF DADABHAI NAOROJI*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2016

VIKRAM VISANA
VIKRAM VISANA*
Affiliation:
Homerton College, University of Cambridge
*
Homerton College, Hills Road, Cambridge, cb2 8ph vv233@cam.ac.uk
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Abstract

Dadabhai Naoroji's ‘drain theory’ of British imperialism described the way in which a colonial government could abscond with the wealth of a dependent country, leaving it impoverished. This theory conceptualized ‘poverty’ as the negation of liberal ‘citizenship’. As such, through an exposition of Naoroji's thought, this article offers an insight into both the origins of the Indian political subject and Indian anti-colonialism. In doing so, it opens up an avenue for investigating how Indian thinkers locally adapted modular concepts of a Western provenance and then reintroduced them into the metropole, contributing to the heterogeneity of the Victorian liberal canon. Finally, Naoroji's imperial critique is compared to that of prominent British anti-imperialists, especially John Hobson, in order to demonstrate that Dadabhai's economic account of empire not only pre-dates Hobson's thesis but that it was more expansive in its criticism and more hopeful about the ‘progress’ of indigenous peoples.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 59 , Issue 3 , September 2016 , pp. 775 - 797
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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Footnotes

*

I would like to especially thank the late Chris Bayly for his comments on drafts of this article, laying the intellectual groundwork for its writing, and his limitless generosity. I would also like to acknowledge the incisive and helpful comments of the two anonymous referees.

References

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2 The term is from Bernard Porter, Critics of empire: British radicals and the imperial challenge (New York, NY, 2008).

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9 See for instance Bayly, Recovering liberties.

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18 Ibid.; Jesse S. Palsetia, The Parsis of India: preservation of identity in Bombay city (New Delhi, 2008).

19 Kulke, The Parsees in India, pp. 67–8; Palsetia, The Parsis of India, pp. 214–18.

20 Manockjee Cursetjee, The Parsee panchayet, its rise, its fall and the causes that led to the same: being a series of letters in the Bombay Times of 1844–5, under the signature of Q in the corner, published at the request of some gentlemen of the Parsee community and with the permission of the author (Bombay, 1860), p. 24.

21 ‘The late Mr C. N. Cama’, Times of India, 9 Feb. 1885.

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24 ‘Review of the board of education’, DNP.

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26 R. P. Masani, Dadabhai Naoroji: the grand old man of India (London, 1919), p. 64.

27 Michel Foucault, Security, territory, population: lectures at the Collège de France (London, 2009), p. 111; Michel Foucault, ‘On the genealogy of ethics: an overview of work in progress’, in Michel Foucault, Ethics: subjectivity and truth, ed. Paul Rabinow (New York, NY, 1997), pp. 262–9.

28 Collini, Stefan, ‘The idea of “character” in Victorian political thought’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 35 (1985), pp. 29–50 Google Scholar, at pp. 41, 44.

29 Biagini, E. F., ‘Neo-roman liberalism: “republican” values and British liberalism, ca. 1860–1875’, History of European Ideas, 29 (2003), pp. 55–72;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Collini, ‘The idea of “character”’, pp. 42–3.

30 Times, 27 Mar. 1867.

31 Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce, 1 July 1848.

32 Sorabji Sharpurji, The evil social customs at present prevalent among the Parsees and the best means of eradicating them (Bombay, n.d.), p. 40.

33 ‘A note submitted to the Indian education commission of 1882 by Dadabhai Naoroji. 16 Sept. 1882, Bombay’, evidence taken before the Bombay provincial committee and memorials addressed to the Indian education commission, 1884, IOR/V/26/860/6, India Office Records, British Library, London.

34 Proceedings of the students’ literary and scientific society, 1854–1855 (Bombay, 1857), p. 2.

35 Notes and jottings, art and culture, group 2, fo. 7, DNP.

36 Palsetia, The Parsis of India, p. 277.

37 Bipan Chandra, The rise and growth of economic nationalism in India: economic policies of Indian national leadership, 1880–1905 (New Delhi, 1966), pp. 530–3.

38 Rajnarayan Chandavarkar, The origins of industrial capitalism in India: business strategies and the working classes in Bombay, 1900–1940 (new edn, Cambridge, 2002), pp. 60–2.

39 Dwijendra Tripathi, The Oxford history of Indian business (Oxford, 2003), pp. 101–2.

40 Chandavarkar, Origins of industrial capitalism, p. 245.

41 Rekha Ranade, Sir Bartle Frere and his times: a study of his Bombay years, 1862–1867 (New Delhi, 1990), p. 80.

42 Dinshaw Wacha, A financial chapter in the history of Bombay city (Bombay, 1910), p. 35.

43 Ibid., p. 45.

44 Chandavarkar, Origins of industrial capitalism, p. 65.

45 Wacha, Financial chapter, p 209; Govind Narayan, Mumbai: an urban biography from 1863, trans. Murali Ranganathan (London, 2008), p. 135.

46 J. Masselos, Towards nationalism: group affiliations and the politics of public associations in nineteenth-century Western India (Bombay, 1974).

47 Reprinted in Bombay Gazette, 5 May 1870.

48 Dosabhai Framji Karaka, History of the Parsis: including their manners, customs, religion and present position (2 vols., London, 1884), ii, p. 271.

49 Ibid., p. 260.

50 Wacha, Financial chapter, p. 24.

51 Jam-e-Jamsed, 11 May 1868, from Report on native papers (RNP), Bombay, Apr. to Dec. 1868.

52 Dinshaw Wacha, The life and work of J. N. Tata (new edn, Madras, 1915 (orig. edn 1914)), pp. 3–5.

53 ‘The catastrophe in Bombay’, Times of India, 25 July 1865.

54 Jam-e-Jamsed, 9 Dec. 1868, RNP, Bombay, Apr. to Dec. 1868.

55 Annual report of the Bombay Presidency, 1864–5, pp. 56–7.

56 Wacha, The life and work of J. N. Tata, p. 93.

57 Narayan, Mumbai, p. 203.

58 Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal, Modern South Asia: history, culture and political economy (London, 1998), pp. 100–1.

59 Manu Gowami, Producing India: from colonial economy to national space (Chicago, IL, 2004), pp. 11–13.

60 James Thompson, British political culture and the idea of ‘public opinion’, 1867–1914 (Cambridge, 2013), pp. 42, 56–7.

61 Naoroji's annotated extract of this speech, E-72 (90), DNP.

62 Birla, Ritu, ‘Law as economy: convention, corporation, currency’, UC Irvine Law Review, 1 (2012), p. 1016 Google Scholar.

63 Thomas Babbington Macaulay, ‘Government of India’, 10 July 1833, in The works of Lord Macaulay: speeches, poems and miscellaneous writings (12 vols., London, 1898), i, p. 584; quoting Macaulay in Naoroji, Poverty and un-British rule, p. 277; E-72 (90), DNP; Hansard, House of Commons debates 14 Aug. 1894, xxviii, c. 1055.

64 Naoroji, ‘The poverty of India, part I’, in Naoroji, Essays, speeches, addresses, p. 217.

65 ‘Evidence before the royal commission on the administration of the expenditure of India’, in Dadabhai Naoroji, The grand little man of India: Dadabhai Naoroji, speeches and writings, ed. Moin Zaidi (New Delhi, 1985), pp. 270–2.

66 Naoroji, ‘On the commerce of India’, read before a meeting at the Society of Arts, London, Wednesday, 15 Feb. 1871, in Naoroji, Essays, speeches, addresses, p. 116.

67 Naoroji, ‘The wants and means of India’, previously circulated among the members, taken as read, in a meeting at the Society of Arts, London, Wednesday, 27 July 1870, ibid., pp. 102–3.

68 Ibid., p. 97.

69 Naoroji, East India revenue account: amendment for a full and independent parliamentary enquiry, 14 Aug. 1894, in Naoroji, Poverty and un-British rule, p. 282.

70 Naoroji, ‘England's duties to India’, p. 35; Naoroji's annotations on Liberal Magazine article in Mar. 1902, E-72 (67), DNP.

71 Naoroji, ‘Poverty of India, part I’, read before the Bombay branch of the East India association, 28 Feb. 1876, p. 190.

72 Naoroji, ‘Condition of India – correspondence with the secretary of state for India, 1880’, in Naoroji, Essays, speeches, addresses, pp. 443–4.

73 David Ricardo, On the principles of political economy and taxation (London, 1817), ch. 1.

74 Noel W. Thompson, The people's science: the popular political economy of exploitation and crisis, 1816–1834 (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 20–1.

75 ‘Finsbury politics’ in Holborn and Finsbury Guardian, 18 June 1892.

76 Gregory Claeys, Imperial sceptics: British critics of empire, 1850–1920 (new edn, Cambridge, 2012), pp. 65–6.

77 Ibid., pp. 101–3.

78 Ibid., pp. 60–1; Mantena, Alibis of empire.

79 J. A. Hobson, Imperialism: a study (London, 1902).

80 Ibid., pp. 89, 93–4.

81 Ibid., pp. 237–8.

82 Dadabhai Naoroji, ‘Presidential address, twenty-second session of Congress, Calcutta, 1906’, in Naoroji, The grand little man of India, pp. 76–7.

83 Naoroji to Khurshedji Cama, 4 June 1856, DNP.

84 Hobson, Imperialism, p. 56.

85 Naoroji to Lord Welby, Oct. 1895, DNP, p. 20.

86 Naoroji, ‘The Indian Civil Service’, read before an evening meeting of the East India association, London, Tuesday, 13 Aug. 1867, in Naoroji, Essays, speeches, addresses, p. 352.

87 Discussion at a meeting of the East India association at which Mr A. K. Connell read a paper on the ‘Indian Civil Service’, July 1887, ibid., p. 378.

88 Naoroji, ‘Third day's proceedings at the first Indian National Congress’, 30 Dec. 1885, in Naoroji, Essays, speeches, addresses, p. 330.

89 Naoroji, ‘Admission of educated natives into the Indian Civil Service’, read before a meeting of the East India association, 17 Apr. 1868, in Naoroji, Essays, speeches, addresses, pp. 86–8.

90 Naoroji, ‘Financial administration of India’, addressed to the select committee on East India finance 1871, in Naoroji, Essays, speeches, addresses, p. 138.

91 Naoroji, ‘Poverty of India, part I’, p. 212.

92 Naoroji, ‘Third day's proceedings’, p. 325.

93 Hobson, Imperialism, pp. 88, 95.

94 J. A. Hobson, Confessions of an economic heretic: the autobiography of John A. Hobson, ed, Michael Freeden (Hassocks, 1976 (orig. edn 1938)), p. 27.

95 London productive society of the co-operative cocoa and chocolate makers to Naoroji, 11 Sept. 1889, L-107d, DNP.

96 Henry George, Progress and poverty: an inquiry into the cause of industrial depressions and of increase of want with the increase of wealth: the remedy (London, 1884); Hobson, Confessions of an economic heretic, p. 27.

97 Naoroji, ‘On the commerce of India’, p. 122; David Hall-Matthews, Peasants, famine and the state in colonial Western India (Basingstoke, 2005).

98 Bayly, Recovering liberties, p. 195; Bombay association, fifth annual general meeting, 1873, p. 22; Native Opinion, 19 Jan. 1873, p. 44; Native Opinion, 16 Feb. 1873, pp. 97–8; third report from the select committee on East India finance, together with the proceedings of the committee, minutes of evidence and appendix, 28 July 1873, IOR/L/PARL/2/210, India Office Records, British Library, London, p. 507.

99 Verinder to Naoroji, 18 May 1889, E-54 (1), 31 Jan. 1890, E-54 (2), DNP.

100 Henry Mills, the national Sunday league to Dadabhai Naoroji, 14 Dec. 1888, N-63, 26 Sept. 1903, N-63 (18), DNP.

101 Naoroji to unknown, 6 Mar. 1891, N-1 (1760), DNP.

102 ‘Labour and the democratic vote’, Notes and jottings, political, group 7, fo. 36, DNP.

103 ‘Labour questions’, Notes and jottings, social, group 9, fo, 20, DNP.

104 N, ‘The rights of labour’, Westminster Review, 134, 1 (1890), pp. 95–103 Google Scholar; Naoroji revealed as the author in the Manchester Guardian, 30 Sept. 1890, p. 9.

105 N, ‘The rights of labour’, pp. 96–9, 103.

106 Samuel Moyn, ‘On the nonglobalization of ideas’, in Samuel Moyn and Andrew Sartori, eds., Global intellectual history (New York, NY, 2013), p. 193.

107 Naoroji, ‘At a meeting of the electors of the Holborn division’, 27 June 1886, in Naoroji, Essays, speeches, addresses, p. 307.