The History of Parliament
Historical books about the British Parliament and it's connections
with the Indian subcontinent
About the author
Mohamed Sheikh, Baron Sheikh of Cornhill, is a businessman, philanthropist, academic and writer. He was born in Kenya and brought up in Uganda, his parents originating from the sub-continent of India. He chairs businesses in the financial services and property sectors and has long been a leading figure in the insurance industry; he and his company have received numerous awards and accolades. He has travelled widely overseas and has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate for his community work.
Lord Sheikh is a Conservative Member of the House of Lords and participates regularly in parliamentary activities, being Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Groups on Islamic Finance and Sudan, and Vice-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Groups on Bangladesh and Race & Community. He is particularly concerned with promoting inter-faith dialogue and undertaking humanitarian work. He founded and funds a registered personal and family charity, the Sheikh Abdullah Foundation, in his father’s memory. He was made a Life Baron in 2006 and is a Freeman of the City of London.
The lives and times of the four trailblazers who first
brought India to the British Parliament
In the years when India was controlled and exploited by the British Empire, its people were not considered fit to have a say in the running of their own country, let alone to be given any political power. Around the turn of the 19th century, four men helped to change that forever: Dadabhai Naoroji, Mancherjee Bhownaggree, Shapurji Saklatvala and Satyendra Sinha. They were the first four Indians to achieve Parliamentary office in the United Kingdom, three of them as MPs, all for different parties, the last as a Cabinet Minister. This book tells their stories.
An Indian in the House
Background
For more than three centuries, India was systematically drained of its natural wealth by the British, first through the East India Company and later by the government itself. The four men who did more than anyone else to put this right in the 19th and early 20th centuries by winning office in government could scarcely have been more different. Dadabhai Naoroji was a visionary social reformer who became India’s charismatic champion in the UK; Mancherjee Bhownaggree was a right-wing, pro-Empire lawyer who nevertheless fought tirelessly for his countrymen; Shapurji Saklatvala was born into a family of wealthy industrialists, yet spurned them to fight tirelessly for the working classes under a communist banner; while Satyendra Sinha was the first native to govern an Indian province and the first to attain ministerial office in Westminster. All four men were highly motivated and fiercely intelligent, and all four shared a passion for justice and equity. Between them they earned India, and Indians, a long-overdue respect in the West, and opened the door for many of their countrymen to be welcomed into the ranks of government in their wake.