Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay Indian Freedom Fighter
Date of birth: 27the June, 1838, and Date of death: 8th April, 1894Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, was a famous Bengali writer, poet and journalist. He was the composer of India’s national song Vande Mataram, originally a Bengali and Sanskrit stotra personifying India as mother goddess and inspiring the activists during the Indian Freedom Movement. Bankim Chandra wrote 13 novels and several ‘serious, seriocomic, satirical, scientific and critical treaties’ in Bengali. His works were widely translated into other regional languages of India as well as in English.
Bankim Chandra was born to an orthodox Brahmin family at Kanthalpara, North 24 Parganas. He was educated at Hoogly College and Presidency College, Calcutta. He was one of the first graduates of the University of Calcutta. From 1858, until his retirement in 1891, he served as a deputy magistrate and deputy collector in the Government of British India.
When Bipin Chandra Pal decided to start a patriotic journal in August, 1906, he named it Vande Mataram, after Bankim Chandra’s song. Lala Lajpat Rai also published a journal of the same name.
Bankim Chandra was born in the village Kanthalpara in the district of Naihati, in an orthodox Bengal Brahmin family, the youngest of three brothers, to Yadav (or Jadab) Chandra Chattopadhyaya and Durgadebi. His family was orthodox, and his father, a government official who went on to become the Deputy Collector of Midnapur. One of his brothers, Sanjeeb Chandra Chatterjee, was also a novelist and his known for his famous book “Palamau”.
He was educated at the Mohsin College in Hugli-Chinsura and later at the Presidency College, graduating with a degree in Arts in 1857. He was one of the first two graduates of the University of Calcutta. He later obtained a degree in Law as well, in 1869.
He was appointed as Deputy Collector, just like his father, of Jessore, Chatterjee went on to become a Deputy Magistrate, retiring from government service in 1891.
His first fiction to appear in print was Rajmohan’s Wife. In was written in English and was probably a translation of the novelette submitted for the prize. (Citation needed) Durgeshnondini, his first Bengali romance and the first ever novel in Bengali, was published in 1865. Kapalkundala (1866) is Chatterjee’s first major publication. Bankim Chandra’s next major novel was Chandrasekhar (1877), which contains who largely unrelated parallel plots.
Bankim Chandra’s next novel, Devi Chaudhurani, was published in 1884. His final novel, Sitaram (1886), Bankim Chandra’s humorous sketches are his best known works other than his novels. He was one of the first intellectuals who wrote in a British colony, accepting and rejecting the status at the same time.
He was married at a very young of age of eleven, he had a son from his first wife, she died in 1859. He later married Rajalakshmi Devi. They had three daughters.
