Sasipada Banerji
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Shasipada Banerjee (also referred to as Sasipada Banerji, Shashipada Bandhopadhyay) (2 February 1840 – 15 December 1924) was a teacher,
social worker Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social wo ...
and leader of the
Brahmo Samaj Brahmo Samaj ( ) is the societal component of Brahmoism, which began as a monotheistic reformist movement during the Bengal Renaissance. It was one of the most influential religious movements in India and made a significant contribution to ...
who is remembered as a champion of
women's rights Women's rights are the rights and Entitlement (fair division), entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st c ...
and education and as one of the earliest workers for labour welfare in
India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
. He was the founder of several
girls' school Single-sex education, also known as single-gender education, same-sex education, same-gender education, and gender-isolated education, is the practice of conducting education with male and female students attending separate classes, perhaps in se ...
s, a widow's home,
temperance societies The temperance movement is a social movement promoting temperance or total abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and its leaders emphasi ...
, a workers' organisation and the editor of the journal ''Bharat Sramajibi''.


Life and family

Shasipada Banerjee was born in 1840 at
Baranagar Baranagar (Bengali language, Bengali: বরানগর) is a city and a municipality in the Kolkata Metropolitan Area of North 24 Parganas district in the Indian States and territories of India, state of West Bengal. It is a part of the area ...
near
Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...
(then Calcutta). His father's name was Rajkumar Bandyopadhyay who was a school teacher. Sasipada married Rajkumari Banerjee (née Devi), then a thirteen-year-old girl, in 1860 and taught her to read and write within a year. In his early career, Sasipada taught in school in
Salkia Salkia is a neighbourhood in Howrah of Howrah district in the Indian States and territories of India, state of West Bengal. Salkia is under the jurisdiction of Golabari Police Station and Malipanchghara Police Station of Howrah Police Commission ...
as well as was involved in
Temperance movement The temperance movement is a social movement promoting Temperance (virtue), temperance or total abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and ...
, and
Brahmo Samaj Brahmo Samaj ( ) is the societal component of Brahmoism, which began as a monotheistic reformist movement during the Bengal Renaissance. It was one of the most influential religious movements in India and made a significant contribution to ...
. He was a major proponent of widow marriage. In 1871 Shashipada travelled with his wife to London. While on the trip, their son,
Albion Rajkumar Banerjee Sir Albion Rajkumar Banerjee (10 October 1871 – 25 February 1950) was an Indian civil servant and administrator who served as the Diwan of Cochin from 1907 to 1914, 21st Diwan of Mysore from 1922 to 1926, and as Prime Minister of Kashmir ...
was born. Albion went on to become a member of the
Indian Civil Service The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British Raj, British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 3 ...
and served as Diwan of
Cochin Kochi ( , ), formerly known as Cochin ( ), is a major port city along the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea. It is part of the district of Ernakulam in the state of Kerala. The city is also commonly referred to as Ernaku ...
. Rajkumari died in 1876 and Shasipada remarried the following year to a widow..


Brahmo leader

Banerjee became involved in the social reform movement in
Bengal Bengal ( ) is a Historical geography, historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the Eastern South Asia, eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Benga ...
through the Brahmo Samaj which he joined in 1861. Banerjee was an advocate of women's rights and education. He promoted the establishment of schools to train women teachers, organised several widow remarriages and established a Widows' Home at
Baranagar Baranagar (Bengali language, Bengali: বরানগর) is a city and a municipality in the Kolkata Metropolitan Area of North 24 Parganas district in the Indian States and territories of India, state of West Bengal. It is a part of the area ...
in 1887. He founded girls' schools in 1865 and 1871 and later established an institute for their higher education. Banerjee is credited with founding the first women's journal named 'Antapur' in Bengali which was headed by his two daughters and run exclusively by a team of women.


Temperance movement and visit to England

Banerjee was a member of the
Temperance movement The temperance movement is a social movement promoting Temperance (virtue), temperance or total abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and ...
in India and was a close associate of
Mary Carpenter Mary Carpenter (3 April 1807 – 14 June 1877) was an English educational and social reformer. The daughter of a Unitarian minister, she founded a ragged school and reformatories, bringing previously unavailable educational opportunitie ...
whom he first met during her visit to India in 1866. On her invitation, Shasipada and Rajkumari paid a return visit to England in 1871. His decision to visit England was met with approbation in Bengal (as it would involve them crossing the oceans, an act that would lead to the Banerjis' loss of caste) and Banerjee and Rajkumari were stoned when they paid a visit to his ancestral home before leaving for Britain. The ''Asiatic'' of London declared in 1872 that Rajkumari was "the first Hindu lady who has ever visited England". The couple had their first-born child, a son, while in England whom they name
Albion Albion is an alternative name for Great Britain. The oldest attestation of the toponym comes from the Greek language. It is sometimes used poetically and generally to refer to the island, but is less common than "Britain" today. The name for Scot ...
. During the visit, Shasipada spoke at several meetings of the National Temperance League. At one such meeting, he accused British rule of introducing the hitherto alien vice of intemperance to Hindu society. He also met and was received by a large number of common people and dignitaries including the
Secretary of State for India His (or Her) Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for India, known for short as the India secretary or the Indian secretary, was the British Cabinet minister and the political head of the India Office responsible for the governance of ...
during this visit. In England he became a member of the Good Templars Body and also of the Order of the Day Star Lodge and attended meetings of the National Indian Association and helped establish its branches in other British cities.


Labour Movement

Shasipada Banerjee was among the earliest Indians to work for the rights of the labour class in India, the Working Men's Club he established in 1870 has been described as the first labour organisation in Kolkata. The Brahmo Samaj established a Working Men's Mission in 1878 and established several schools for working men and the depressed classes and Banerjee founded the Baranagar Institute the same year. In 1870 he founded the workers' organisation Sramajivi Samiti and established the newspaper ''Bharat Sramajivi''. The Bharat Sramajivi was the first Indian journal of the working class and its circulation peaked at 15,000 copies a remarkable number for its time. Banerjee's contributions to the welfare and upliftment of the working class have however been criticised by
Sumit Sarkar Sumit Sarkar (born 1939) is one of the foremost historians of modern India. He is a Marxist historian. He is the author of ''Swadeshi Movement'' ''in Bengal, 1903-1908'' (1973), ''Modern India'' (1989), and ''Writing Social History'' (1998), a ...
of being little more than 19th century middle class interest in industrial and plantation labour and of not going beyond the realm of philanthropy. Others like Dipesh Chakrabarty have argued that Banerjee's efforts aimed to create an "ideal working class imbued with bhadralok values" and to create "not only orderly but also noiseless Bengalis for the jute mills".


Books

Shasipada's memoir ''An Indian pathfinder'' was compiled by his son Albion and published in 1924. ''A modern saint of India: A sketch of the religious life of Sevabrata Brahmarshi Shasipada Banerjee'' is a biography by Satindranath Roy Choudhary.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Banerjee, Shasipada 1840 births 1924 deaths Indian temperance activists People from Baranagar Social workers from West Bengal Indian health activists