Sir Surendranath Banerjee (; 10 November 18486 August 1925), often known as Rashtraguru was Indian nationalist leader during the British Rule. He founded a nationalist organization called the Indian National Association to bring Hindus and Muslims together for political action. He was one of the founding members of the Indian National Congress. Surendranath supported Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms, unlike Congress, and with many liberal leaders he left Congress and founded a new organisation named Indian National Liberation Federation in 1919.
Early life
Surendranath Banerjee was born in Calcutta, in the province of Bengal to a Bengali Brahmin family of Lonesingh, Faridpur district, Bengal (now in Bangladesh). It was his great-grandfather Babu Gour Kishire Banerjee who emigrated and settled in a village called Monirampur near Barrackpore. He was deeply influenced in liberal, progressive thinking by his father Durga Charan Banerjee, a doctor. After graduating from the University of Calcutta, he travelled to England in 1868, along with Romesh Chunder Dutt and Behari Lal Gupta, to compete in the Indian Civil Service examinations. He cleared the competitive examination in 1869, but was barred owing to a claim he had misrepresented his age. After clearing the matter in the courts by arguing that he calculated his age according to the Hindu custom of reckoning age from the date of conception rather than from birth, Banerjee cleared the exam again in 1871 and was posted as assistant magistrate in Sylhet. Banerjee also attended classes at University College, London. He took his final exams in 1871 and returned to India in August 1871. In 1874, Banerjee returned to London and became a student at the Middle Temple.
Banerjee was soon dismissed for making a minor judicial error. He went to England to appeal his discharge, but was unsuccessful because, he felt, of racial discrimination. He would return to India bitter and disillusioned with the British. During his stay in England (1874–1875), he studied the works of Edmund Burke and other liberal philosophers. These works guided him in his protests against the British. He was known as the Indian Burke. For his tenacity he was called 'Surrender Not Banerjee' by the British.
Surendranath was influenced by the writings of Italian nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini. He studied the writings of Mazzini in his stay in England (1874-1875) on Anandmohan's suggestion.
Political career
Upon his return to India in June 1875, Banerjee became an English professor at the Metropolitan Institution, the Free Church Institution and at the Rippon College, now Surendranath College, founded by him in 1882 and he inspired his students with a new spirit of nascent Indian nationalism. He 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 in a meeting to preach the Indian people 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........There may be religious difference between us. There may be social difference between us. But there is a common platform where we may all meet, the platform of our country's welfare". He used the organization to tackle the issue of the age-limit for Indian students appearing for ICS examinations. He condemned the racial discrimination perpetrated by British officials in India through speeches all over the country, which made him very popular.
In 1879, he bought the newspaper, The Bengalee(founded in 1862 by Girish Chandra Ghosh) and edited it for 40 years. In 1883, when Banerjee was arrested for publishing remarks in his paper, in contempt of court, 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.