The question the influence of the Dadabhai Naorojis political views on the formation of the Indian nationalistideology

The article considers political views of Dadabhai Naoroji - one of thegreatest Indian thinkers, who live in the historical period, when the questions of the Indian national unity and attitude to the foreigngovernment were actively discussed, but the full demand of independence was not firmly stated. Although Dadabhai belonged to Parseereligious community and kept his primary religious identity during all his life, he always spoke about Indian population as unit politicalbody. The author analyses the meaning of Dadabhais political concept for the common development of the anti-colonial ideology. Inparticular, Dadadhais attitude to the Indian history, its contemporary situation and his views on the future of the country are exanimated.The main attention is paid to the question of his ambiguous attitude to the British power. On the one hand, he recognized the progressivehistorical role of the colonial age. But it did not hamper to his harsh critic of the current political course of the colonial government. Fromthese points the Dadabhais theory of «moral drain» is important for the given research. According to this theory, European colonizers tookout of the colony not only material wealth, but also the knowledge and experience in the governing of the state. On opinion of Dadabhai, thissituation did not let the appearance and growing of the national Indian leaders and unavoidable led India to the great social catastrophebecause the educated Indians felt that they are not needed by their native country. The program of reforms, which Dadabhai thought wouldhelp to avoid the future catastrophe, provided the extension of indigenous representation in the Indian civil service. Dadabhai Naorojicontested co-called rule of the colonial difference, which concluded that indigenous people were inferior in comparison with Europeans, sothey could not to participate in the government affairs. Well-known historian P. Chatterjee wrote that Indian nationalism, whish tried tooutline the differences with Western civilization in the cultural sphere, aimed for the abolition of such differences in political domain. Theanalysis of Dadadhais views proves this assumption. Although the idea of sovereignty was not expressed by Dadabhai, his contribution tothe evolution of anti-colonial ideology was very important. His recognition of the necessity of the wide indigenous representation in Indiancivil service was the transitive point through which political discourse was transformed from pro-Britain position to the nationalist ideology.

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