Surendranath Banerjea

A BRILLIANT leader of the early Congress, Surendranath Banerjea was born in Calcutta an November 10, 1848, and contributed enormously to the nation’s freedom movement. Surendranath was educated at the Parental Academic Education, which was largely attended by Agno-Indian boys. After graduating from the Calcutta University in 1868, he proceeded to England where he appeared for the Indian Civil Services examination, but was disqualified due to some confusion about his age.
Banerjea returned to India in june 1875 and branched out into a new career in academics as a professor of English. One of his greatest contributions to the freedom movement was his ability to harness the energy of the Bengali youth for the national cause.
His other contribution was the founding of the Indian Association in 1876, which became the centre of national political awakening. And it was here that, for the first time, the idea of India as a political whole emerged. He set the stage for a practical demonstration of the newly awakened sense of political unity by sponsoring the Indian Association, whose first session was held in Calcutta in 1883. This was a path-breaker and a complete departure from the past because for the first time a realistic picture of India’s political unity emerged as a precursor to the Indian National Congress. The first Congress session was held in Bombay in 1885 but Banerjea was not invited to it since he was preoccupied with the National Conference in Calcutta.
Later, he was to become President of the Congress in 1895 and in 1902. For years later his political career climaxed after which he began to fade out along with the moderates, whom he lead. Also because with Gandhiji’s emergence, most of the other nationalist leaders began to fade into insignificance.
In his Presidential address at the Indian National Congress in 1895 in Poona, he said: ”We cannot afford to have a schism in our camp. Already they tell us it is a Hindu Congress, although the presence of our Mohammedan friends completely contradicts the statement. Here we stand upon a common platform. Here we have all agreed to bury our social and religious differences.” He died in 1925, after having spread his message of national unity far and wide.