Surendranath Banerjea
(1848-1925)
President - Poona, 1895; Ahmedabad, 1902

Surendranath Banerjea was born on November 10, 1848 in Calcutta. He got his school education in the Parental Academic Institution, attended chiefly by Anglo-Indian boys. He graduated from the Calcutta University in 1868, and proceeded to England to compete for the Indian Civil Services. He passed the competitive examination but as there was some trouble over his exact age he was declared disqualified.

On his return to India in June 1875, Surendranath began his new career as a Professor of English. He took full advantage of his teaching profession to infuse Indian students with a new spirit. He was the most eloquent speaker that India had so far produced. This transference of Bengali youth's interest and energy to national regeneration constitutes the first great contribution of Surendranath to the national cause of India.

His second great contribution was the founding of the Indian Association on July 26,1876 which was intended to be the centre of an all-India political movement. For the first time there emerged the idea of India as a political unit. Thus he had set the stage for a more practical demonstration of the newly awakened sense of political unity of India in the shape of an all India political conference sponsored by the Indian Association. The first session of the National Conference, held in Calcutta on December 28, 29, and 30, 1883, was attended by more than a hundred delegates from different parts of India. The second session was more representative than the first and the plan of holding annual sessions of the Conference in different parts of India was accepted. For the first time in history a realistic picture of the political unity of India was held out before the public eye, forestalling the Indian National Congress. Immediately after the conclusion of the second session of the National Conference in Calcutta, the first session of the Indian National Congress was held in Bombay (December 28, 1885). Surendranath was not invited to the first session of the Congress until the very last moment when, preoccupied with the second session of the National Conference in Calcutta, he could not attend it. The Calcutta session of the Congress in 1886 marked a distinct advance in its tone and sprit and henceforth Surendranath played a leading part in the National Congress; he became its President twice in 1895 and 1902.

He had reached the climax of his political career in 1906, and then set in the decline. The cleavage between the Moderates and the Extremists led to the steady decline of the Moderate Party of which Surendranath was the strongest pillar. The Home Rule league and the emergence of Gandhiji made the people lose faith in the programme of the Moderate Party, and the publication of the Montagu Chelmsford Report was the signal of war between the Moderates and the rest. The Moderates went down, and when they walked out of the Congress in 1918, Surendranath along with them practically walked out of India's struggle for freedom. He died in 1925.

- R. C. Majumdar

We cannot afford to have a schism in our camp. Already they tell us that it is a Hindu Congress, although the presence of our Mohammedan friends completely contradicts the statement. Let it not be said that this is the Congress of one social party rather than that of another. It is the Congress of United India of Hindus and Mohammedans, of Christians, of Parsis and of Sikhs, of those who would reform their social customs and those who would not. Here we stand upon a common platform - here we have all agreed to bury our social and religious differences.

From the Presidential Address - Surendranath Banerjea
I.N.C. Session, 1895, Poona