Dec 04 2021 to Dec 04 2021 6:30 p.m.

EVENT HAS ENDED

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

The fourth annual New India Foundation Book Prize, named after the remarkable patriot and institution-builder Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, has been awarded to Dinyar Patel for his superbly-researched biography, Naoroji: Pioneer of Indian Nationalism published by Harvard University Press. On December 4th, 6.30 pm at the Bangalore International Centre, Dinyar will be in conversation with NIF Trustees Niraja Gopal Jayal and Manish Sabharwal. The event will also be live-streamed on the New India Foundation YouTube channel.

About the Book:

“Naoroji is a superbly researched portrait of a man of many parts – an incisive critic of imperialism, an adviser to princes, the first-ever Indian MP in the British Parliament, and a visionary who forged alliances across the world with anti-imperialists, socialists, and suffragists. This is a work of fine scholarship.” – Niraja Gopal Jayal, Chair of Prize Jury

The definitive biography of Dadabhai Naoroji, the nineteenth-century activist who founded the Indian National Congress, was the first British MP of Indian origin, and inspired Gandhi and Nehru.

Mahatma Gandhi called Dadabhai Naoroji the “father of the nation,” a title that today is reserved for Gandhi himself. Dinyar Patel examines the extraordinary life of this foundational figure in India’s modern political history, a devastating critic of British colonialism who served in Parliament as the first-ever Indian MP, forged ties with anti-imperialists around the world, and established self-rule or swaraj as India’s objective.

Naoroji’s political career evolved in three distinct phases. He began as the activist who formulated the “drain of wealth” theory, which held the British Raj responsible for India’s crippling poverty and devastating famines. His ideas upended conventional wisdom holding that colonialism was beneficial for Indian subjects and put a generation of imperial officials on the defensive. Next, he attempted to influence the British Parliament to institute political reforms. He immersed himself in British politics, forging links with socialists, Irish home rulers, suffragists, and critics of empire. With these allies, Naoroji clinched his landmark election to the House of Commons in 1892, an event noticed by colonial subjects around the world. Finally, in his twilight years he grew disillusioned with parliamentary politics and became more radical. He strengthened his ties with British and European socialists, reached out to American anti-imperialists and Progressives, and fully enunciated his demand for swaraj. Only self-rule, he declared, could remedy the economic ills brought about by British control in India.

Naoroji is the first comprehensive study of the most significant Indian nationalist leader before Gandhi.

About the Author:

Dinyar Patel is Assistant Professor of History at the S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research in Mumbai. He previously taught in the Department of History at the University of South Carolina. He has written for BBC News and the New York Times, among other publications. More at www.dinyarpatel.com

About the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize:

The Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize builds on the New India Foundation’s mission of sponsoring high-quality research and writing on all aspects of independent India. The prize was named after Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, the great patriot and institution-builder who had contributed significantly to the freedom struggle, to the women’s movement, to refugee rehabilitation and to the renewal of handicrafts. Previous winners of the prize include Milan Vaishnav for his remarkable book When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics (HarperCollins Publishers) in 2018 and Ornit Shani for her scholarly work How India Became Democratic (Penguin Random House) in 2019. The 2020 Prize was jointly awarded to Amit Ahuja for his outstanding debut Mobilizing the Marginalized: Ethnic Parties Without Ethnic Movements (Oxford University Press) and Jairam Ramesh for his compelling biography of VK Krishna Menon, A Chequered Brilliance (Penguin Random House).

Presented by The New India Foundation. Collaborator – Bangalore Literature Festival