born Nov. 10, 1848, Calcutta, India
died Aug. 6, 1925, Barrackpore, near Calcutta
Indian statesman, one of the founders of modern India.
As a young man, he attempted unsuccessfully to serve in the Indian Civil Service, at the time virtually closed to ethnic Indians. He then became a teacher and founded a college in Calcutta (now Kolkata), which was later named for him. Banerjea attempted to bring Hindus and Muslims together for political action, and for 40 years he put forward a nationalist viewpoint in his newspaper, The Bengalee . Twice elected president of the Indian National Congress, he advocated for an Indian constitution on the Canadian model. He was elected in 1913 to two legislative councils and later was knighted (1921); in 1924 he was defeated by an independence candidate, whereupon he retired to write his autobiography, A Nation in the Making (1925).