Abbas Tyabji

Abbas Tyabji
Abbas Tyabji and Mahatma Gandhi in 1934
Born	(1854-02-01)1 February 1854 Baroda state, Bombay Presidency, British India
Died	9 June 1936(1936-06-09) (aged 82) Mussoorie, United Provinces, Indian Empire
Other names	Grand Old Man of Gujarat
Political party	Indian National Congress

Abbas Tyabji (1 February 1854 – 9 June 1936) was an Indian freedom fighter from Gujarat, and an associate of Mahatma Gandhi. He also served as the Chief Justice of Baroda State. His grandson is the Marxist historian and ideologue Irfan Habib.

Abbas Tyabji was born to an extremely rich Sulaimani Bohra Muslim family of Cambay in Gujarat. He was the son of Shamsuddin Tyabji and grandson of Mullah Tyab Ali, an immensely successful merchant. His father's elder brother was Badruddin Tyabji, a judge of the Bombay High Court and an early, loyalist president of the Indian National Congress.

Abbas Tyabji was born in Baroda State, where his father was in the service of the Gaekwad Maharaja. He was educated in England, where he lived for eleven years. He returned, a cultivated Brown Sahib, very loyal to the Raj, devoted to western ways, and with a contempt for the customs and traditions of India. As his nephew, the ornithologist Salim Ali, says in his autobiography,

(Abbas Tyabji), though a moderate nationalist at heart, would stand no adverse criticism of the British as a people, or of the Raj, and even a mildly disparaging remark about the King-Emperor or the royal family was anathema to him. . . If he had any strong sentiments about Swadeshi, he certainly didn't show it by precept or example. . . This being so, he naturally disagreed vehemently with Gandhiji and his methods of political mass agitation. . . In other respects, his moderate but simmering nationalism and his absolute integrity and fairness as a judge were widely recognized and lauded, even by leftist Congressmen and anti-British extremists.