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Research and writing a biography of Indian politician Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917).

My book manuscript details the life of Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917), an Indian nationalist leader whose economic ideas transformed global anti-colonialism in the late Victorian era. Naoroji was the most significant Indian nationalist leader before Mahatma Gandhi. In 1892, he became the first-ever non-white elected to the British Parliament, from where he championed political reform for India. By developing the “drain of wealth” theory, Naoroji rubbished claims of colonial benevolence and instead demonstrated how British rule was responsible for a spate of deadly famines that killed millions of Indians in the nineteenth century. My book will be the first comprehensive study of Naoroji’s career. It situates Naoroji as a global leader, someone with a conscious commitment towards broader emancipatory politics worldwide. Consequently, my study reorients our understanding of how modern politics emerged in India, emphasizing its uniquely cosmopolitan foundations.