Naoroji: Pioneer of Indian Nationalism, by Dinyar Patel

Abstract

Biography is a curiously under-used genre in Indian academic history (in marked contrast to Indian popular history and cinema, where biography and biopics continue to thrive). Whether this absence is because of a dearth of sources, a theoretical scepticism of methods that assume a fundamental unity and narrative coherence of individual lives, or because Indian historians, as Dinyar Patel mordantly puts it, ‘are very prone to the vagaries of academic fashion [and] have been loath to accept biography as a legitimate form of scholarship’ (p. 10), is difficult to say. Whatever the reason may be, there are few biographies of modern Indian figures beyond the now classic studies of canonical nationalist leaders such as Gandhi or Jinnah, a fact that represents a significant gap in the field. Patel’s meticulously researched and elegantly written biography of Dadabhai Naoroji (1825–1917) provides an admirable model of what this genre can offer to the field of modern Indian history. In doing so, the book also narrates a fascinating transnational account of Indian nationalism and wider British imperial politics in the long nineteenth century.