Surendranath Banerjea

Indian politician

• Born: November 10, 1848
• Birthplace: Calcutta, India
• Died: August 6, 1925
• Place of death: Barrackpore, near Calcutta, India

Banerjea’s dedication to moderation in the Indian struggle for liberation from Great Britain served as a political focus during some of the most dangerous times of modern Indian history. His position as one of the most respected Bengali leaders helped to stabilize and concentrate Indian protest into the channel of the Congress Party, which was to inherit Indian government after independence.

Early Life

Surendranath Banerjea (soo-RAYN-draw-nawt BAH-nawr-jee) was born in Calcutta, a member of a respected Brahman family that supported and believed in the British presence in India. He was educated in local schools until about the age of ten, when he was sent to English-language schools, including Doveton College. His education was that of the English middle class, and, by the time he completed his bachelor of arts degree, Banerjea was fully Westernized. He was allowed to travel to England to study for admission to the Indian Civil Service, although at that time, such travel was costly to the Brahman caste. Nevertheless, in March, 1868, Banerjea left for London, where, in 1869, he passed the competitive examination for entry into the civil service. He was one of the very first Indians to do so. Before he could be assigned, however, his name was removed from consideration on the grounds that he was too old. This action on the part of the British commissioners was viewed by interested Indians as clearly biased, and, as a result of the uproar, Banerjea sued the commission. He won his suit and was reinstated, passing the final examinations for appointment in 1871.

Banerjea returned to India in August of that year to take up his post in the Bengal presidency at Calcutta. In 1873, he passed the departmental examination to become a first class magistrate, but, as a result of a clerical error, his conduct was judged inadequate, and he was summarily dismissed. In 1874, Banerjea returned to England to pursue legal study at the Middle Temple, but after satisfying the requirements, he was refused entry to the bar.

These two episodes in Banerjea’s life were both, in the main, the result of British reluctance to allow Indians to participate in the governance of their own country. Other Indians of Banerjea’s generation faced the same kind of obstacles with the same results. In Banerjea’s case, the obstacles turned his attention toward public service of another kind. In 1876, he began a career of public speaking among Bengali students, calling for the unification of all Indians, appealing for Indian patriotism unrestricted by religion or local loyalty, and urging that Indians continue to give Great Britain their loyalty and gratitude. As part of his activities he was a founding member of the Indian Association and traveled throughout India speaking on the need for greater Indian self-government within a British context.

In 1877, the Indian Civil Service renewed its attempts to stop Indians from entering the organization, and between May and November of that year Banerjea was especially active. As a result of the many political meetings that Banerjea conducted, a formal Indian protest was issued, and directed, for the first time, to the London government rather than to the government of India. This decisive move placed Banerjea in the center of the growing political activity in India.

Life’s Work

In January, 1879, Banerjea became the owner and editor of the weekly journal Bengalee , which he developed into the semiofficial publication of the Indian Association. He used its influence to comment on current events that affected relations between the British and Indians. His editorials and reporting increasingly discomfited the British authorities, and the voice of Bengalee was only one of many other similarly critical journals.

It was not until the issue of April 28, 1883, that the British took decisive action against Banerjea. Bengalee published on that date an article that was very critical of the actions of a justice in the Calcutta High Court; as a result, Banerjea was charged with contempt of court. He was found guilty and sentenced to two months’ imprisonment. Immediately, the political activists throughout India rallied in protest, culminating in an open-air meeting of more than twenty thousand held in Calcutta. The money raised for his defense later served as the genesis for the Indian “National Fund,” which was used throughout India to address, through rallies and publications, urgent Indian nationalist ideas and issues. This surge in unified political action led directly to the formation of the National Conference, which was the precursor of the National Congress.

The National Congress’s second annual meeting in 1885 was the first that Banerjea attended. By the Fifth Congress, he, along with two others, was selected to go to England and speak about the situation in India. The emissaries met with most of the British luminaries of the day, including William Ewart Gladstone, and continued the theme of demanding rights for Indians within the British Empire. The mission was generally regarded as successful, and when the group returned in July, 1890, it was to the acclaim of the Indian nationalists.

Still, the British continued to make political errors of governance within India, and, given the temper of the times, each was more bitterly resented than the last. The partition of Bengal Province in 1905 was perhaps the final straw. The British planned to separate the administrative and political functions of the province into those of Eastern Bengal and Assam, which was to be composed of Assam, Dacca, Chittagong, Rajshahi (without Darjeeling), and Malda. The proposal made by then-viceroy George Nathaniel Curzon was vigorously opposed by Banerjea and the Congress Party, and the discontent it provoked led directly to the Swadeshi and boycott movements. Thus, Banerjea found himself a proponent, not of freedom within the Empire but of true nationalism and the abolition of British influence entirely. He consistently recommended restraint, and Bengalee urged restraint from any kind of lawlessness, but it was becoming obvious that matters within India had passed the point of peaceful coexistence within the imperial structure.

As Indian politics grew more radical, Banerjea found his influence waning. In an attempt to regain his position, he participated in the Bengal Provincial Conference of 1906, at Barisal. Banerjea at that time spoke out in support of the patriotic Indian nationalism that had come to be represented by the shouts of “Bande Mataram,” or “The Mother,” which swept over the convention. This combination, not unreasonably, alarmed the British government even further.

Still, by 1907 Banerjea was no longer at the forefront of Indian politics. The struggles between “extremists,” who saw India’s future as one outside Britain entirely, and “moderates” such as Banerjea, who still believed that India could flourish within a modified form of British government, could no longer be papered over. In that year, Banerjea and the moderates formally split from the extremists and, with Banerjea as chair, held a separate convention.

This All-India Conference codified everything in which Banerjea had believed since his first return from England. It drew up a completely new constitution for the Indian National Congress that rested firmly on the ideas of gradual reform and evolution of Indian political affairs to the point where the majority of positions would be held by Indians and yet insisted that all such change would remain within the framework of the British Empire. To the degree that the formal split between the two groups was confined by the formalities of the two conferences, it may be said with reason that Banerjea and his moderates defused an increasingly dangerous political situation for a time. The moderates were never in the position of representing the majority of Indian opinion, and Banerjea himself had come to represent retrograde political beliefs.

British political attitudes toward the government of India had also been changing during the early 1900’s. The adoption of the “Minto Reforms” in 1909 seemed to represent a compromise between the imperialists, who believed India should always be governed as it had been governed, and the liberals, who with some foresight believed that concessions toward participation by Indians within government were necessary. The reforms were embraced with enthusiasm by Banerjea and his wing of Indian political activists. As part of his appreciation for them, during his speech at the Imperial Press Conference, which he attended in 1909 on behalf of the Indian press, he publicly thanked Lord Gilbert Minto. This loyalty did not go unremarked in England, nor in India.

In 1913, Banerjea was elected to the Bengal Legislative Council and to the Imperial Legislative Council. These bodies were, however, the type of bodies that the advocates of complete Indian self-government most deplored. His tenure lasted until 1916, and it was during this period that he was at his most outspoken in opposition to the home rule advocates who were attempting to form their own association through congress. He was successful in resisting the formal association, but it was to be the last success of that nature in excluding the self-government representatives from positions within the party. By 1916, these representatives, including Mahatma Gandhi, Chandra Pal, and Annie Besant, had effectively taken control of the party that Banerjea had been instrumental in creating.

Still, the British were appreciative of Banerjea’s efforts to maintain a balance for India within the Empire. In 1921, he was knighted and appointed minister of local self-government unfortunately for his position within Indian politics, the appointment came at the very time that the “non-Cooperators,” or self-rule proponents, were personally renouncing such honorifics and resigning from such legislative councils as a mark of their dissatisfaction. In accepting the honors, Banerjea received an enormous amount of opprobrium, and his reputation did not recover. The final humiliation came in November of 1923, when Banerjea was defeated for the Bengal Legislature by Bidhan Chandra Roy, a “Swarajist” (self-government) candidate, little known by the populace.

Significance

Banerjea had both the fortune and the misfortune to live through the most volatile period of modern Indian politics without ever changing the political opinions he had formed as a young man. His admiration for the British Liberal tradition remained firm throughout his life, and he acted on it in the best way he could. During his youth, he had the audacity to demand full privileges with the Empire as a citizen of the Empire, and he continued to believe that that position was a profoundly important one. He was unable, however, to recognize that the mood of India and of the Empire itself had altered dramatically, nor was he able to work effectively with representatives who more fully understood that change.

When Banerjea was elected unopposed in 1920 from the Barrackpore subdivision, he believed it was a tribute to his political position indeed, such a triumph was almost unprecedented. By subsequently accepting the ministry from Bengal’s governor lord Ronaldshay, he placed himself firmly on the losing side of Indian political life and, thus placed, was unable to reassume his former position.

Banerjea is best viewed as a “bridge” between the traditional roles that Indians had accepted under the British and the “Non-Cooperatives,” who came to be accepted as the future of India. In that sense, his early political and personal bravery in opposing British bigotry was remarkable. If, in later years, he made errors of judgment, he did so only because he refused to change the commitments to moderation and belief in the system he had made as a young man.

Bibliography

Argov, Daniel. Moderates and Extremists in the Indian Nationalist Movement, 1883-1920, with Special Reference to Surendranath Banerjea and Lajpat Rai. New York: Asia Publishing, 1967. One of the very few scholarly examinations of Banerjea’s life, although Argov draws very heavily on Banerjea’s autobiography. Its meticulous detail and analysis make it ideal for more thorough investigation of Banerjea’s life in comparison to his opponents.

Banerjea, Sir Surendranath. A Nation in the Making: Being the Reminiscences of Fifty Years of Public Life. London: Oxford University Press, 1925. Banerjea’s calm self-appraisal of his own life, detailing the turning points and mistakes as he saw them. The old-fashioned presentation is balanced by the extreme precision and detail about virtually every incident that occurred and every individual whom he met.

Chintamani, Sir C. Yajneswara. Indian Politics Since the Mutiny. Allahabad, India: Kitabistan Press, 1937. A clear presentation by this leading Indian political philosopher of the development of the Congress Party, antipartition and Non-Cooperation during 1919-1935. Chintamani devotes considerable attention to Banerjea and his pivotal role within the party.

Desai, A. R. The Social Background of Indian Nationalism. London: Oxford University Press, 1948. Discusses the economic importance of Banerjea to modern India, while examining the role of the Indian press in the nationalist movement. Desai particularly emphasizes Banerjea’s influence on the propagation of “moral values” as part of the movement.

Masselos, Jim. Indian Nationalism: A History. New Delhi: New Dawn Press, 2005. Masselos’s account of Hindu nationalism includes information about Banerjea.

Philips, C. H., and Mary Doreen Wainwright, eds. Indian Society and the Beginnings of Modernization, Circa 1830-1850. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1976. A collection of articles that provide a useful background to understanding Banerjea’s early influences and surroundings. J. F. Hilliker’s “The Creation of a Middle Class as a Goal of Educational Policy in Bengal, 1833-1854,” while very scholarly, is extremely helpful in seeing how the Indian middle class embraced Anglophilia in their lives and education.

Wolpert, Stanley. A New History of India. 6th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. This comprehensive one-volume history includes information about Banerjea and his significance to Indian history.