Lord Satyendra Prasanna Sinha
(1863-1928)
President - Bombay, 1915

Satyendra Prasanna was born at Raipur in March 1863. His father was a rich and aristocratic Kayastha. After Lincoln's Inn he was called to the Bar in 1886 and returned to Calcutta. While there he acquired a large practice and in 1903 became the Standing Counsel of the Government of India, overriding the claims of an English Barrister. He was the first Indian to become the Advocate-General of Bengal (1905), also the first Indian to enter the Governor General's Executive Council (1909) which for so long had been the preserve of Englishmen. This, however, meant a great financial loss to him. Due to a difference of opinion with the Government over the Press Bill he tendered his resignation but later withdrew it on request. He returned to the Bar in 1910.

Satyendra was a liberal in outlook. Due to the influence perhaps of the Tagore family, he became a supporter of the Brahmo Samaj. A moderate in politics, he was a firm believer in constitutional methods. To him, India's political goal was "autonomy within the Empire, which should be reached not by any sudden or revolutionary change, but by a gradual evolution and cautious progress." Satyendra was an active member of the Indian National Congress from 1896 to 1919 when along with other moderates he left the organisation. At the Calcutta session of the Congress in 1896 he brought forward a proposal that no ruler of any Indian State should be deposed without an open judicial trial.

In 1915 he was elected to preside over the Bombay session of the Congress. As President, he delivered a closely reasoned address demanding an authoritative statement from the British Government regarding the British policy towards India and this led to the historic announcement of Edvin Montagu the Secretary of State for India, on August 20, 1917. In 1919 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Sinha of Raipur and was entrusted with piloting the Government of India Bill (1919) through the House of Lords. He was appointed Under-Secretary of State for India in the same year. In both these capacities he was the first and only Indian to attain such distinctions. In 1920 he returned to India to take up the Governorship of the Province of Bihar and Orissa. He held this position only for a short while and in 1921 was compelled to retire on grounds of health.

Satyendra Prasanna was the recipient of many honours. He was Knighted in 1914. He was perfect synthesis of the East and West and possessed a modesty which no success could spoil.

- D. P. Sinha

Let us argue out for ourselves freely and frankly the various ways by which we can obtain the priceless treasure of self-government. It seems to me that it is possible only in one of the three following ways:

First, by way of a free gift from the British nation.

Second, by wresting it from them.

Third, by means of such progressive improvement in our mental, moral and material condition as will, on the one hand, render us worthy of it and, on the other, impossible for our rulers to withhold it.

From the Presidential Address - Lord Satyendra Prasanna Sinha
I.N.C. Session, 1915, Bombay.