Krishna Mohan Banerjee
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Krishna Mohan Banerjee (Bengali: কৃষ্ণ মোহন ব্যানার্জি) (1813-1885) (also referred to as Rev. Krishnamohan Bandopadhyay) was a prominent member of Henry Louis Vivian Derozio’s (1808-1831) Young Bengal group, educationist, linguist and Christian missionary.
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[edit] Early life
Son of Jibon Krishna Banerjee, he was born on 28th May 1813 in the house of his maternal grand father at Shyampukur, Kolkata. His maternal grand father was Ramjay Vidyabhusan, court-pundit of Santiram Singha of Jorasanko.
Around 1819, Krishna Mohan joined the School Society institution opened by David Hare at Kalitala. Impressed by his talents, Hare took him to his school at Pataldanga, later famous as Hare School in 1822.
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He joined the newly founded Hindu College with a scholarship. He was profoundly influenced by Derozio and that changed the course of his life. He used to live in his maternal grandfather’s house, which he used as a meeting place for Derozians. One day, when he was absent, they consumed hand-made bread and meat prepared by Muslims, an unthinkable act for upper-caste Hindus in those days, threw the leftover bones into neighbours' houses, and started shouting, “Cow-meat! Cow-meat!” In the commotion that followed, Ramjay Vidyabhusan, his maternal grandfather, was forced to turn him out of the house. He found a place for a short while in the house of a Christian friend.
In 1831, he started publishing the Inquirer. In the same year his The Persecuted fell like a bomb shell among his contemporaries. It described in vivid colours the characters of reformers, conformists and the orthodox sections of society. It tore asunder the veil of respectability which had concealed the secret debaucheries of the leaders of society and thoroughly exposed the greed, the insincerity and the trickery of those particular Brahmins.
While at college, he used to attend lectures of Dr. Alexander Duff, who had come in 1830 from Scotland to preach Christianity. They also went to the houses of Duff and Dealtry for serious discussions. His father died of cholera in 1828. In spite of his diverse activities and self-support in manual work, he continued to excel in his examinations.
[edit] Conversion to Christianity
On completion of his studies in 1829, he joined the Pataldanga school as an assistant teacher. In 1832, he converted to Christianity, under the influence of Duff. As a result of his conversion, he lost his job in David Hare’s school.
His conversion to Christianity raised a storm in Hindu society. The journals of the day became full of angry tirades against the activities of the Christian missionaries. He himself was too independent a man to remain silent. He declared his determination to pursue with steadfastness his course of action and endure with patience all opposition. The campaign against Hindu College led to the dismissal of Derozio.
When the missionary society was later established he became the first Bengali priest. In 1833, he was convicted of forcibly converting a young boy to Christianity. That did not daunt him. He converted his wife, his brother Kali Mohan, and Ganendra Mohan Tagore, the son of Prasanna Coomar Tagore. Subsequently, Ganendra Mohan married his daughter Kamalmani and became the first Indian to qualify as a barrister. He was also instrumental in the conversion of Michael Madhusudan Dutt. He became a deacon of the Anglican Church in 1836 and was superintendent of the Mirzapur School of Christ Church. He used to preach and deliver sermons in Bengali.
Throughout the 1840s and 1850s, he sought to convince the Brahmins of their folly and take the plunge into Christendom. While Krishna Mohan Banerjee always propagandized the superiority of Christianity over other religions and wrote extensively, Rajnarain Bose questioned how he could claim that Christianity represented the most advanced stage of religious evolution when it was still so full of superstition, mystery and miracles.
[edit] Later life
In 1852, he was made a professor of Bishop’s College at Shibpore. In 1864, he was elected to be a member of the Royal Asiatic Society along with Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar. In 1876, the University of Calcutta honoured him with a doctorate degree. Subsequently the citizens of Kolkata honoured him.
He was a pioneer in developing the encyclopaedia in Bengali and published a 13-volume English-Bengali encyclopaedia Vidyakalpadrum. He knew Bengali, English, Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and Hebrew, and was author of such books as The Aryan Witness, Dialogues on the Hindu Philosophy, and Upadeshkatha.
He died on 11 May 1885.
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[edit] References
- Ramtanu Lahiri O Tatkalin Banga Samaj in Bengali by Sivanath Sastri
- Sansad Bangali Charitabhidhan (Biographical dictionary) in Bengali edited by Subodh Chandra Sengupta and Anjali Bose
- Tattwabodhini Patrika and the Bengal Renaissance by Amiya Kumar Sen
