Naoroji Furdunji (1817–1885) was a Parsi reformer from Bombay.

He was born at Bharuch and educated at Bombay, becoming a teacher.[1]

During the 1840s, he defended the Zoroastrianism of the Parsis, at that time under pressure from Christian missionary activity, in Fam-i-Farshid which he edited.[2] He was a founder of the Student's Literary and Scientific Society in 1845, with Dadabhai Naoroji, Bhau Daji Laad, Jagannath Shankar Shet, Vishwanath Mandlik and Sorabji Shapurji Bengali.[3] In 1851, with backing from K. N. Kama and in company with other like-minded Parsis, he founded the Rahnumai Mazdayasnan Sabha, becoming its president for the rest of his life.[4] As secretary of the Parsi Law Association from 1855 to 1864 he worked for legal codification.[5]

When the Bombay Association was set up in 1852, Naoroji Furdunji took the major part in drafting its petition, made in 1853, to the British Parliament.[6] He was one of the Association's secretaries, with Bhau Daji, whose investigative activities directed at British governance caused alarm, and a withdrawal of support by the Association's leadership at the time of the petition.[7]

Naoroji Furdunji visited Europe three times, being sent in 1873 by the Sabha and the Bombay Association to London, to give evidence to a parliamentary committee on Indian finance.[1][8] He worked with the British authorities as an interpreter, for a period from 1836 with Alexander Burnes, and for the Bombay court from 1845 to 1864.[1]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Dictionary of Indian Biography. Ardent Media. 1971. pp. 157–8. GGKEY:BDL52T227UN.
  2. ↑ Reddy (1 December 2006). Indian Hist (Opt). Tata McGraw-Hill Education. p. C-110. ISBN 978-0-07-063577-7.
  3. ↑ Mridula Ramanna (1 January 2002). Western Medicine and Public Health in Colonial Bombay, 1845-1895. Orient Blackswan. p. 45 note 140. ISBN 978-81-250-2302-9.
  4. ↑ Kenneth W. Jones (1989). Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India. Cambridge University Press. p. 147. ISBN 978-0-521-24986-7.
  5. ↑ Jesse S. Palsetia (1 January 2001). The Parsis of India: Preservation of Identity in Bombay City. BRILL. p. 215. ISBN 90-04-12114-5.
  6. ↑ Govinda Nārāyaṇa Māḍagã̄vakara (1 January 2009). Govind Narayan's Mumbai: An Urban Biography from 1863. Anthem Press. p. 360. ISBN 978-1-84331-305-2.
  7. ↑ elites in south asia. CUP Archive. 7 November 1970. p. 82. GGKEY:R8YQ4FKC94Z.
  8. ↑ Rosalind O'Hanlon (22 August 2002). Caste, Conflict and Ideology: Mahatma Jotirao Phule and Low Caste Protest in Nineteenth-Century Western India. Cambridge University Press. p. 191. ISBN 978-0-521-52308-0.
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