the J. B. Petit library for more material and obtained a transcript of a speech that Naoroji had made in 1876 while municipal councillor in Bombay. In the paper, Naoroji established that although India has a positive trade balance, the taxes that the colonial authorities levied consumed the advantage, leaving virtually nothing that could be invested. Ardeshir was incensed and resolved that if India was ever to be independent, it would have to develop a local industry that was economically self-reliant. For Ardeshir, independence could not be achieved by simply boycotting British goods. Moreover, he "propagated the philosophy that every country, India or any other, had to choose its technology, production, consumption habits and marketing techniques depending on its resources and based on its genius" and that no country had the right to "coerce another to export its techniques, production and marketing systems." (Karanjia, 2001, preface) Ardeshir was however not willing to accept that consumers should favour indigenous products just because they were indigenous. In an interview published in the Indian National Herald on 27 April 1927, Ardeshir was bitterly critical of the leaders of the Swadeshi movement who encouraged the acceptance of domestic products even if these were of substandard quality. In his opinion, there was absolutely no valid reason why Indian goods manufactured in India could not be as good as or better than those that were imported, and the encouragement to accept substandard goods was simultaneously the reinforcement of the idea that products made in India were automatically of lower quality than those manufactured abroad. Ardeshir found the passivity of Gandhi's non-violence movement exasperating and insisted that India could become independent only if it actively made itself independent, and that self-reliance (Swadeshi) could only be achieved when accompanied by mental self-reliance, that is, self-respect. Death Ardeshir Godrej died in 1936. Bibliography Portions of the book are available online. Further reading Ardeshir and Pirojsha Godrej Postage Stamp, issued on 11 July 1998 by IndiaPost. References 1868 births 1936 deaths Parsi people from Mumbai Businesspeople from Mumbai 20th-century Indian inventors 20th-century Indian engineers Godrej Group 19th-century Indian engineers 19th-century Indian inventors 19th-century Indian businesspeople 20th-century Indian businesspeople Parsi people Godrej family