Badruddin Tyabji was an Indian lawyer, activist and politician during British Raj. Tyabji was the first Indian to practice as a barrister of the High Court of Bombay who served as the third President of the Indian National Congress. He was one of the founding members and first Muslim president of Indian National Congress.

Badruddin Tyabji (Tyab Ali) was born in Bombay on 10 October 1844. His father was the scion of an old Cambay emigrant Arab family. His father Mullah Tyab Ali Bhai Mian, a member of the Sulaimani Bohra community, had sent all of his seven sons to Europe for further studies, at a time when English education was considered anathema for Muslims in India. His elder brother, Camruddin, had been the first Indian solicitor admitted in England and Wales, and inspired the 15-year-old Badruddin to join the Bar. In 1860, at the age of sixteen, he joined Newbury High Park College in London. Suffering from deteriorating eyesight he returned to Bombay in late 1864 but resumed studies at the Middle Temple in late 1865. After passing the London matriculation and the Middle Temple, became a Barrister in April 1867 - the first Indian Barrister in Bombay - and rose rapidly in the profession.

Tyabji entered public life after three years at the Bar. In July 1871, he was prominent in the agitation for an elective Bombay Municipal Corporation, and topped the list of those subsequently elected on that body. From then on, Badruddin Tyabji, Pherozeshah Mehta and Kashinath Telang were popularly known as ‘The Triumvirate’ or ‘The Three Stars’ of Bombay’s public life. In 1882 he became a Member of the Bombay Legislative Council, but resigned in 1886 for reasons of health. In 1885 he helped to found the Bombay Presidency Association and virtually ran it all by himself. Soon afterwards, the Indian National Congress held its first session in Bombay under its auspices; and Tyabji and Camruddin Tyabji (his brother) were among its delegates. Urgent business in Cambay prevented their attendance, which their opponents exploited, alleging that Muslims were boycotting the Congress. He vigorously denied this, declaring that he had “denounced all communal and sectarian prejudices.” Badruddin and his elder brother Camruddin were deeply involved in the founding of the Indian National Congress. Tyabji was instrumental in building the national scope of the Congress by working to gain support from both Hindus and Muslims and during his time as President of the Indian National Congress between 1887–88, he focused on uniting the Muslim community.[4] To promote social interaction among the city’s Muslims, Tyabji was instrumental in founding both the Islam Club and the Islam Gymkhana.

He missed the second Session also due to ill health, but was unanimously elected President of its third Session in Madras (1887). Camruddin Tyabji and he were principally responsible for establishing the Anjuman - I - Islam in Bombay (1876) “for the betterment and uplift of Mussalmans in every direction”.

Tyabji’s own education and background, a harmonious blend of the East and the West, made him acutely conscious of its lack, particularly among the Muslims. Indian attention, he thought, was too exclusively focused on politics. He felt that an advanced type| 67 of representative Government was useless if the majority was ignorant. Therefore, he campaigned against ‘Purdah’ all his life, holding that it went far beyond the Quranic injunctions. Tyabji was also active in women’s emancipation and worked to weaken the zenana system. He sent all of his daughters to be educated in Bombay and in 1904 he sent two of them to boarding school in Haslemere in England. His was the first Muslim family to discard it; his daughters were the first to be sent abroad for education. He supported the Age of Consent Bill (1891), despite Hindu and Muslim opposition. His all-pervasive intellectual and personal distinction enabled him to exert considerable influence for worthy causes on the more enlightened Englishmen, without loss of personal or national dignity; in fact, with an accretion to both.

In 1895, as his health failed, he accepted a judgeship of the Bombay High Court. As Pherozeshah Mehta stated, he was as enthusiastically welcomed by the Hindus and the Parsis as by the Muslims. He acted as Chief Justice in 1902, the first Indian to hold this post in Bombay. He was known as a great Judge and for his courage and impartiality, typically shown by his granting bail to Tilak in a sensational case after it had been rejected thrice by others, and by admonishing eminent British counsels for denigrating the Indian National Congress and Indian character.

Badruddin Tyabji was among the first to create a secular political consciousness; and nationally he was a pioneer in making it the Indian ideal.

On 26th August 1906, Badruddin Tyabji died suddenly of a heart attack and took his heavenly abode while in London, England.

Badruddin Tyabji – The First Indian Barrister of the High Court of Bombay

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