THE moment a question was proposed to the class, he quickly took a step before the rest, contracted his brows in deep and anxious thought, and with parted lips and finger eagerly uplifted towards the master…The little fellow seemed wholly animated with the desire of excelling," writes Marianna Postans, British travel writer, as a member of the audience during a public examination for mathematics. She is referring to seven-year-old Dadabhai Naoroji Dordi, the Parsi scholar and Indian nationalist leader, who was already the star pupil at the central English school of the Bombay Native Education Society.

Naoroji-s emergence as an educational visionary had its roots in his own struggle. Free education was a rarity back then, and certainly in India. Having lost his father when he was four, he was encouraged by Manekbai, his illiterate mother, to pursue vernacular and English education. "It broke the cycle of impoverishment, which had afflicted a family that had moved from Navsari in Gujarat to Bombay. It allowed him to meet and learn from the greatest minds. The education imbued him with a strong appreciation for rational thought and progressive politics," says Dinyar Patel, whose just-published title Naoroji HarperCollins is a definitive biography of the Indian leader, offering unique insights into his early life before he became a voice
for free India.