Surendranath Banerjee Biography: Sir Surendranath Banerjee (Bengali: Rrrguru; 10 November 1848 – 6 August 1925), also known as Rashtraguru, was a prominent Indian nationalist during the British Rule. To unite Hindus and Muslims in political action, he founded the Indian National Association, a nationalist organisation. He was one of the Indian National Congress’s foundation members. Surendranath, unlike Congress, supported the Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms. In 1919, he and other liberal leaders quit Congress and founded the Indian National Liberation Federation.
Surendranath Banerjee Biography
Early years
Born in Calcutta, Bengal, Surendranath Banerjee belonged to a Rarhi Kulin Brahmin family whose progenitors migrated to East Bengal and settled in Lonesingh. His great-grandfather, Babu Gour Kishire Banerjee, immigrated to Monirampur, close to Barrackpore. Banerjee was profoundly influenced by his physician father, Durga Charan Banerjee. In 1868, he travelled to England after graduating from the University of Calcutta in order to compete in the Indian Civil Service examinations. He passed the examination in 1869, but was disqualified on the grounds that he had misrepresented his age. Banerjee passed the examination a second time in 1871 and was appointed assistant magistrate of Sylhet. In 1871, after attending classes at University College, London, he returned to India. Banerjee returned to London in 1874 and enrolled at the Middle Temple.
Banerjee was dismissed for a minor judicial error and went to England to appeal his discharge, but was unsuccessful due to racial discrimination. He returned bitter and disillusioned with the British. During his stay in England (1874-1875), he studied the works of Edmund Burke and other liberal philosophers, which guided him in his protests against the British. He was called ‘Surrender Not Banerjee’ by the British for his tenacity.
Surendranath was also influenced by the writings of Italian nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini, who studied his work during his stay in England.
Surendranath Banerjee Political career
In June 1875, Banerjee returned to India and became an English professor at the Metropolitan Institution, Free Church Institution, and Rippon College, now Surendranath College. He inspired his students with a new spirit of nascent Indian nationalism and began delivering public speeches on nationalist and liberal political subjects, as well as Indian history. He founded the Indian National Association with Anandamohan Bose, one of the earliest Indian political organizations of its kind, on 26 July 1876. In 1878, he said “The great doctrine of peace & goodwill between Hindus & Muslims, Christians & Paresees, aye between all sections of our country’s progress. Let the word “Unity” be inscribed therein characters of glittering gold.” Banerjee used the organization to tackle the issue of the age-limit for Indian students appearing for ICS examinations and condemned racial discrimination perpetrated by British officials in India through speeches all over the country, making him very popular.
In 1879, he bought the newspaper, The Bengalee, and edited it for 40 years. In 1883, when Banerjee was arrested for publishing remarks in his paper, protests and hartals erupted across Bengal, and in Indian cities such as Agra, Faizabad, Amritsar, Lahore, and Pune. He became the first Indian journalist to be imprisoned. The INC expanded considerably, and hundreds of delegates from across India came to attend its annual conference in Calcutta. After the founding of the Indian National Congress in 1885 in Bombay, Banerjee merged his organization with it owing to their common objectives and memberships in 1886. He was elected the Congress President in 1895 at Poona and in 1902 at Ahmedabad.
Surendranath Banerjee was one of the most important public leaders who protested the partition of the Bengal province in 1905. Banerjee was in the forefront of the movement and organized protests, petitions, and extensive public support across Bengal and India, which finally compelled the British to reverse the bifurcation of Bengal in 1912. Banerjee became the patron of rising Indian leaders like Gopal Krishna Gokhale and Sarojini Naidu.
Later career
The declining popularity of moderate Indian politicians affected Banerjee’s role in Indian politics. He supported the Morley-Minto reforms in 1909, which were resented and ridiculed as insufficient and meaningless by the vast majority of the Indian public and nationalist politicians. Banerjee was a critic of the proposed method of civil disobedience advocated by Mahatma Gandhi, the rising popular leader of Indian nationalists and the Congress Party.
Surendranath Banerjee, a moderate and veteran leader of Congress, was in favor of accepting the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms, which left the Congress and founded the Indian Liberation Federation. They were termed as Liberals and lost their relevance in the Indian National Movement thereafter.
As a minister in the Bengal government, Banerjee earned the ire of nationalists and much of the public, and he lost the election to the Bengal Legislative Assembly in 1923 to Bidhan Chandra Roy, the candidate of the Swarajya Party. He was knighted for his political support of the British Empire.
As a pioneer leader of Indian politics, Banerjee was remembered and widely respected today as a pioneer leader of Indian politics, first treading the path for Indian political empowerment.
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Surendranath Banerjee Commemoration
His name is commemorated in the names of the following institutions: Barrackpore Rastraguru Surendranath College, Raiganj Surendranath Mahavidyalaya, Surendranath College, Surendranath College for Women, Surendranath Evening College, Surendranath Law College (formerly Ripon College) and the Surendranath Centenary School in Ranchi and the Surendranath Banerjee Road (popularly known as S. N. Banerjee Road).
Death
Banerjee died at Barrackpore on August 6, 1925.
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