He was the first Indian to be elected to the British House of Commons, serving as Liberal Member of Parliament for Central Finsbury (1892–95). His campaign against the drain of wealth from India to Britain, defined in his classic study Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901), stimulated economic nationalism in the subcontinent. Active in promoting Indian social and political causes, he was a founder of the Indian National Congress, serving as its President (1886, 1893, and 1906).