Scottish Church College, Calcutta

Scottish Church College
Motto	Nec Tamen Consumebatur ("Burning, but yet not consumed")
Established	1830: General Assembly's Institution 1843: Free Church Institution 1863: Duff College 1908: Scottish Churches College 1929: Scottish Church College
Type	Church of North India administered liberal arts and sciences college
Principal	Dr. John Abraham
Location	Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Campus	Urban
Recognition	National Assessment and Accreditation Council's Grade ‘A’ Institution; University Grants Commission’s ‘College with Potential for Excellence’
Affiliations	University of Calcutta
Website	http://www.scottishchurch.ac.in/

The Scottish Church College is the oldest continuously running Christian liberal arts and sciences college in India. It is affiliated with the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (for the Scottish Church Collegiate School), the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education for the awarding of baccalaureate and post baccalaureate diplomas, and with the University of Calcutta for graduate and postgraduate degrees.

It is well-known for its beautiful campus, renowned faculty, robust intellectual milieu and its English Palladian architecture. Its students and alumni call themselves "Caledonians" in the name of the college festival, "Caledonia".

The founder and institutional origins

The institutional origins are traceable to the life of Dr. Alexander Duff, D. D. LLD. (1806–1878), the first overseas missionary of the Church of Scotland, to India. Initially known as the General Assembly's Institution, it was founded on 13 July 1830.

Reverend Dr. Alexander Duff, DD, LLD

Alexander Duff was born on 25 April 1806, in Moulin, Perthshire, located in the inner Scottish countryside. He attended the University of St Andrews where after graduation, he decided to opt for a missionary life. Subsequently, he undertook his evangelical mission to India. In a voyage that involved two shipwrecks (first on the ship Lady Holland off Dassen Island, near Cape Town, and later on the ship Moira, near the Ganges delta) and the loss of his personal library consisting of 800 volumes (of which 40 survived), and college prizes, he arrived in Calcutta on 27 May 1830.

Principals of General Assembly's Institution (1830–1908)
Rev. Alexander Duff 1830-34 Rev. W. S. Mackay & Rev. D. Ewart 1834-39 Rev. Alexander Duff 1840-43 Rev. James Ogilvie, 1845–71 Rev. William Hastie, 1878–84 Rev. W. Smith, 1884–89 Rev. John Morrison 1889-1904 Rev. A. B. Wann, 1904–1908
Principal of Free Church Institution (1843–63)
Rev. Alexander Duff 1843-63
Principals of Duff College (1863–1908)
Rev. W. C. Fyffe, 1863–80 Rev. James Robertson, 1881–83 Rev. John Hector, 1883–1902
Principals of Scottish Churches College (1908–1929)
Rev. A.B. Wann, 1908–09 Rev. John Lamb, 1909–11 Rev. Alexander Tomory, 1910–1911 Rev. Dr. James Watt, 1911–1928
Principals of Scottish Church College (1929–present)
Rev. Dr. W. S. Urquhart, 1928–37 Rev. Allen Cameron, 1937–44 Rev. John Kellas, 1944–54 Dr. H. J. Taylor, 1954–60 Dr. N. K. Mundle, 1960–70 Jyotsna Pyne, 1970 B. Das, 1970–1971 S. K. Mitra, 1971–75 K. D. Bhatt, 1973–75 S. K. Mukherjee, 1975–76 A. K. Sen, 1976–78 A. K. Kisku, 1978–81 Aparesh Bhattacharyya, 1981–1983 Kalyan Chandra Dutt, 1983–1995 Dr. Kalyan Kumar Mandi, 1996–2002 Dr. John Abraham, 2002–present

With initial support from the Governor-General of India Lord William Bentinck, Rev. Alexander Duff opened his institution in Feringhi Kamal Bose's house, located in upper Chitpore Road, near Jorasanko. In 1836 the institution was moved to Gorachand Bysack's house at Garanhatta. Mr. MacFarlon, the Chief-Magistrate of Calcutta, laid the foundation stone on 23 February 1837. Mr. John Gray, elected by Messrs. Burn & Co. and superintended by Captain John Thomson of the East India Company designed the building. The construction of the building was completed in 1839.

Historical context

In the early 1800s, under the regime of the East India Company, English education and Missionary activities were initially suspect. While the East India Company supported Orientalist instruction in the vernacular languages like Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit, and helped to establish institutions like Calcutta Madrasah College, and Sanskrit College, in general, colonial administrative policy discouraged the dissemination of knowledge in their language, that is in English. The agency of missionaries like Duff has to be contextualized in this backdrop.

Inspired by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Reverend Alexander Duff, a young and dedicated missionary, arrived in India's colonial capital to set up an English-medium institution. Though Bengalis had shown some interest in the spread of Western education from the beginning of the 19th century, both the local church and government officers were skeptical about the high-caste Bengali's response to the idea of an English-medium institution. While Orientalists like James Prinsep were supportive of the idea of vernacular education, Duff and prominent Indians like Raja Rammohun Roy supported the use of English as a medium of instruction.His emphasis on the use of English on Indian soil was prophetic:

“

The English language, I repeat it, is the lever which, as the instrument of conveying the entire range of knowledge, is destined to move all Hindustan.

”

Raja Ram Mohan Roy helped Duff by organizing the venue and bringing in the first batch of students. He also assured the guardians that reading the Bible did not necessarily imply religious conversion. Although his ultimate aim was the spread of English education, Duff was aware that a foreign language could not be mastered without command of the native language. Hence in his General Assembly's Institution (as later in his Free Church Institution), the teaching and learning of the dominant vernacular Bengali language and literature was emphasized. Duff and his successors also underscored the necessity of sports among his students . Interestingly, when he introduced political economy as a subject in the curricula, the Church strongly criticized him.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy Bahadur, who supported Rev. Duff in spreading English education in India

In 1840, Duff returned to India. At the Disruption of 1843, Duff sided with the Free Church. He gave up the college buildings, with all their effects and established a new institution, called the Free Church Institution. He had the support of Sir James Outram and Sir Henry Lawrence, and the encouragement of seeing a new band of converts, including several young men born of high caste. In 1844, governor-general Viscount Hardinge opened government appointments to all who had studied in institutions similar to Duff's institution. In the same year, Duff co-founded the Calcutta Review, of which he served as editor from 1845 to 1849. These two institutions founded by Duff, i.e., the General Assembly's Institution and the Free Church Institution would be merged later to form the Scottish Churches College. After the unification of the Church of Scotland in 1929, the institution would be known as Scottish Church College.

Along with Raja Ram Mohan Roy, the great social reformer often called the father of modern India, Dr. Duff supported Lord Macaulay in drafting his influential Minute for the introduction of English education in India. Eminent contemporary and successive missionary scholars from Scotland, notably Dr. Ogilvie, Dr. Hastie, Dr. Macdonald, Dr. Stephen, Dr. Watt, Dr. Urquhart contributed in spreading liberal Western education. The institutions founded by Duff have been coterminous with other contemporary institutions like Serampore College, and Hindu College in ushering the spirit of intellectual enquiry and a general acceptance of the ideals of the Enlightenment, among colonized Bengalis, in what has been widely regarded by historians specializing in nineteenth century India, as the epochs of the Young Bengal Movement and later, the Bengal Renaissance.

Duff's contemporaries included such luminaries as Reverend Mackay, Reverend Ewart and Reverend Thomas Smith. Till the early 20th century the norm was to bring teachers from Scotland (like William Spence Urquhart, Leslie Stephen, H.M. Percival, Ian Fairweather etc.) but eminent Indian scholars were also engaged as teachers by the college authorities. Scholars like Surendranath Banerjea, Kalicharan Bandyopadhyay, Jnan Chandra Ghosh, Gouri Shankar Dey, Adhar Chandra Mukhopadhyay Sushil Chandra Dutta, Mohimohan Basu, Sudhir Kumar Dasgupta, Nirmal Chandra Bhattacharya, Bholanath Mukhopadhyay and Kalidas Nag had all contributed hugely to enhance the academic standards of the college.

Dr. Duff played a leading part in founding the University of Calcutta in 1857, he was associated with the Agro-horticultural Society and the establishment of a medical college, the first in India. He also aimed at breaking down caste-barriers by founding several girls schools. The Scottish Church College played a pioneering role in women's education as well as co-education in the country. Female students comprise half the present roll strength of the college. With the added interest of the missionaries in educational work and social welfare, the college stands as a monument to Indo-Scottish co-operation. The aims and principles of the College are essentially those of its founder namely, the formation of character through education based on Christian teaching.

Current status and initiatives

• Until 1953, the administrative control over the college was exercised by the Foreign Mission Committee of the Church of Scotland. This was exercised by jointly by a local council consisting of representatives of the Church of Scotland and the United Church of Northern India. Later the Foreign Mission Committee of Church of Scotland relinquished its authority to the United Church of Northern India, and in 1970, the United Church of Northern India joined the Church of North India as a constituent body. This made the Church of North India the de facto and de jure successor (to the Church of Scotland) in running the administration of the college. As the college was founded on Christian (Protestant and Presbyterian) foundations, it derives its legal authority and status as a religious minority institution as defined by the scope of Article 30 of the Constitution of India.

• On September 27, 1980, the Indian Postal Service released a commemorative stamp on the college recognizing its contribution towards the historical, cultural,artistic and scientific heritage of India and the entire Indian subcontinent.
• Since 2004, this college has been a member of the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia and is a participant in that organization's Asian University Leadership Program. This effort ushered exchange programs with scholars and faculty of participating educational institutions.
• In recognition of its robust academic milieu, it has been granted the National Assessment and Accreditation Council's "A" rating in 2004.
• In 2006, the college celebrated 175 years of existence.
• The University Grants Commission (India) has accepted the recommendations of the University of Calcutta to regard the college as a centre of excellence.
• Since 2004, the college has been publishing the Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, an international refereed and annually published journal in the social sciences related sub-fields like liberalism, empiricism, Marxism, postmodernism, feminism, subaltern studies and postcolonialism.
• In 2011, the Scottish Government instituted a Centre of Tagore Studies in Edinburgh's Napier University, to facilitate integrated research on Rabindranath Tagore's works and philosophy. In Calcutta, this scholarly initiative will be extended to the college, involving the departments of English, Bengali and philosophy.

Scottish Church College in popular culture

In fiction

• Satyajit Ray's fictional scientist-cum-investigator Professor Shanku started his career as a professor of physics at the Scottish Church College.

• Samaresh Majumdar's bestsellng novel Kalbela is a gripping story about Calcutta's culture, politics and society in the aftermath of the 1970s Naxalite movement. Samaresh Majumdar won the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award for Kalbela in 1984.

In cinema

• Kaalbela: Calcutta My Love, a 2009 Bengali film directed by Goutam Ghosh, based on events of the 1970s Naxalite movement, which affected students of the college.
• Egaro: The Immortal Eleven, a 2011 sports film in Bengali directed by Arun Roy, which was based on the Mohun Bagan Athletic Club's victory over the East Yorkshire Regiment in the finals of the 1911 IFA Shield, in which two members of Mohun Bagan's victorious team were students of the college..

Notable alumni

Since its inception, it has continuously produced alumni who have excelled or have been influential in various fields. The spirit of the Protestant work ethic, originally espoused by its founders and teachers have been verily inculcated in its students. To sum it, the following excerpt from the 2004 NAAC Report is very appropriate:

“

Scottish Church College, Kolkata is perhaps the only college of India which can boast of producing a large number of extra-ordinary personalities most of whom are not only famous in the country but also could earn international repute...The very impressive and a very long list of alumni of the college includes the names of Governors, Chief Ministers, Ministers, Vice-Chancellors of some eminent Universities of India, Jurists, Administrators, Ambassadors, Speakers, Educationists, Historians, Scholars, Doctors, Authors, Poets, Dramatists, Novelists, Political Leaders, Religious Leaders, Sports persons, Film personalities, Actors, Singers, Artists etc. etc.

”

Swami Vivekananda

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Paramahansa Yogananda

Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala

Chandramukhi Basu

Sisir Bhaduri

Mrinal Sen

Mithun Chakraborty

Social reformers and religious leaders

• Swami Vivekananda, Hindu saint, proponent of Advaita Vedanta school of religious philosophy in the West and founder of the Ramakrishna Mission Order
• Rev. Lal Behari Dey, scholar, writer and theologian of the Free Church of Scotland
• Sitanath Tattwabhushan, philosopher and theologian of Sadharan Brahmo Samaj
• Brahmabandhab Upadhyay, convert and preacher of Anglicanism, Catholicism, and Brahmo Samaj
• Paramahansa Yogananda, Hindu mystic, Yogi and leading proponent of Kriya Yoga in the West
• A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Hindu author and teacher, Founder, International Society for Krishna Consciousness, leading proponent of Gaudiya Vaishnavism
• Swami Gambhirananda, president of the Ramakrishna Mission Order

Politicians and freedom fighters

• Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, President of the Indian National Congress (1938–1939), co-founder of the Indian National Army and Head of State, Arzi Hukumate Azad Hind (1942–1945)
• Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala, first democratically elected Prime Minister of Nepal
• Gopinath Bordoloi, prominent freedom fighter, first Chief Minister of Assam
• Prafulla Chandra Sen, former Chief Minister of West Bengal
• Pu Lalthanhawla, former Chief Minister of Mizoram
• Brington Buhai Lyngdoh, former Chief Minister of Meghalaya
• George Gilbert Swell, Member of Rajya Sabha, former challenger to the Office of the President of India in July, 1992
• Banwari Lal Joshi, Governor of Uttar Pradesh, former Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, former Governor of Meghalaya and Uttarakhand
• Dr. Mohammed Mohsin, former chairman of the National Assembly of Nepal, and member, Rastriya Prajatantra Party of Nepal
• His Royal Highness Raja Maung Shwe Prue Chowdhury, ex-King of the Bomang tribe, Chittagong Hill Tracts
• Ajit Kumar Panja, Former Member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha and Ex-Minister of State for External Affairs
• Kamal Kumar Bose, Former mayor of Calcutta and Member of Parliament.

Industry

• Jagmohan Dalmiya, chief executive of M.L. Dalmia Construction Company.
• Mani Lal Bhaumik, scientist turned entrepreneur based in Beverly Hills, California; inventor of the excimer laser and author
• Dharam Bir 'Bill' Lall of Woodsland, entrepreneur, self-help and motivational speaker and author based in the UK
• Kashi Nath Memani, ex-chairman of Ernst & Young India and first Indian to be selected to the audit committee of the International Monetary Fund
• Mool Raj Vyas, ex-General Manager of J K Tyres Ltd., Kankroli, Udaipur, Rajasthan and ex-Senior Vice President of LML Limited Kanpur

Jurists

• Sir Gooroodas Banerjee, noted jurist and educationist,
• Honourable Justice Amal Kumar Sarkar, former Chief Justice of India
• Justice Amarendra Nath Sen, former judge, of the Supreme Court of India
• Justice Ganendra Narayan Ray, former judge, of the Supreme Court of India
• Honourable Justice Anandamoy Bhattacharjee, former Chief Justice of Bombay High Court
• Honourable Justice Umesh Chandra Banerjee, former Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court and Member of the International Law Association; also Founder-President of the Nalsar University of Law, Hyderabad

Academics

• Chandramukhi Basu, one of the first female graduates of the British Empire, and the first female head of an undergraduate college in South Asia (as principal of Bethune College, Calcutta)
• Sir Gooroodas Banerjee, first Indian vice chancellor of the University of Calcutta
• Sir Brajendra Nath Seal, formerly vice chancellor of Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan and later, the University of Mysore
• Tarak Nath Das, formerly professor at Columbia University
• Satischandra Ray, classical scholar and teacher
• Suniti Kumar Chatterjee, eminent linguist
• Biraja Sankar Guha, pioneering anthropologist, one of the first PhD recipients in anthropology in the world (Harvard University, 1924) and founder-director of the Anthropological Survey of India.
• Nirmal Kumar Bose, eminent anthropologist and freedom fighter
• Benoy Chandra Sen, Indologist
• Ramaprasad Chanda, anthropologist and archaeologist
• Hemchandra Raychaudhuri, formerly Carmichael Professor of Ancient Indian History and Culture, University of Calcutta
• Tapan Raychaudhuri, Ad-Hominem Professor of Indian History and Civilization and Emeritus Fellow, St. Antony's College, Oxford
• Rabindra Kumar Das Gupta, formerly Tagore Professor of Bengali literature, University of Delhi; also Director, National Library, Calcutta
• Asima Chatterjee, first Indian woman to earn a doctorate in science; formerly Khaira Professor of Chemistry, University of Calcutta.
• Bikash Sinha, physicist
• Sambhunath Banerjee, Nirmal Kumar Sidhanta, Ramendra Kumar Podder, and Santosh Bhattacharyya, former vice chancellors of the University of Calcutta
• Roma Chaudhuri, former principal of Lady Brabourne College, and former vice chancellor of Rabindra Bharati University (being the first Bengali woman to be a university vice chancellor).
• Nityananda Saha, former vice chancellor, University of Kalyani

Performing arts, theater and cinema

• Kshirode Prasad Vidyavinode, thespian
• Sisir Bhaduri, noted playwright
• Ajitkumar Chakravarty, scholar and teacher of literature, drama and music
• Pankaj Mullick, Bollywood and Bengali cinema music director and composer
• Suchitra Mitra, Rabindra Sangeet exponent
• Manna Dey, Bollywood film music exponent
• Mrinal Sen, internationally acclaimed art film director and cultural commentator
• Buddhadeb Dasgupta, renowned art cinema director and poet
• Tarun Majumdar, film director
• Mithun Chakraborty, National Film Award winning Indian film actor and social activist.
• Diptendu Pramanick, First Secretary of the Eastern India Motion Pictures Association (EIMPA); Secretary of Film Federation of India (1953–54)
• Birendra Krishna Bhadra,a poet widely remembered in Bengal for his recital of Mahishashura Mardini
• Rudraprasad Sengupta, eminent theatre personality, director Nandikar theatre group and cultural critic
• Badal Sircar, dramatist
• Manoj Mitra, dramatist
• Shyamanand Jalan, theatre director
• Madhav Sharma, Indian born comedian and actor based in the UK
• Utpala Sen, Rabindra Sangeet exponent
• Pulak Bandyopadhyay, Bengali lyricist and composer
• Arun Kumar Shaha, sitar performer
• Tanmoy Bose, internationally renowned tabla exponent

Visual arts

• Bivas Chaudhuri, artist of the abstract art form
• Bulbul Chowdhury, Bangladeshi performing artist, dancer and writer
• Ajmal Husain, Bangladeshi artist based in Paris
• Mustafa Manwar, Bangladeshi artist, media personality, critic and scholar

Writers, poets and journalists

• Dhan Gopal Mukerji, socio-cultural critic and first successful Indian man of letters in the United States of America; winner of Newbery Medal (1928)
• Nirad C. Chaudhuri, polymath, historian and encyclopedic commentator on culture, acclaimed Victorian scholar and honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire
• Manomohan Bose, nationalist poet, playwright and journalist
• Satyendranath Dutta, Bengali poet
• Sudhindranath Dutta, author and poet
• Birendra Krishna Bhadra,a poet widely remembered in Bengal for his recital of Mahishashura Mardini
• Parvati Prasad Baruwa, noted Assamese litterateur
• Premendra Mitra, novelist
• Subhas Mukhopadhyay, Bengali poet
• Rudraprasad Sengupta, eminent theatre personality, director Nandikar theatre group and cultural critic
• Badal Sircar, poet and dramatist
• Samaresh Majumdar, Bengali novelist
• Sanjeev Chattopadhyay, Bengali journalist, author and critic
• Bani Basu, Bengali author, postcolonial and feminist scholar, cultural critic
• Farrukh Ahmed, East Pakistani and later Bangladeshi poet, writer, activist of the Language Movement
• Derek O'Brien, nationally acclaimed quiz-master and author
• Bina Sarkar Ellias, founder-editor and publisher of International Gallerie, an award-winning global arts and ideas magazine.

Administrators

• Binay Ranjan Sen, Director General, Food and Agriculture Organization
• Jagmohan Dalmiya, ex-President of Board of Control for Cricket in India and the first Indian to be the chairman of the International Cricket Council
• Shyamal Ghosh, ex-Chairman, Working Group on Internet Governance, International Telecommunication Union
• Kashi Nath Memani, ex-chairman of Ernst & Young India and first Indian to be selected to the audit committee of the International Monetary Fund

Sportspersons

• Gourgopal Ghosh, football player for the Mohun Bagan Club and mathematician
• Dharma Bhakta Mathema, Nepalese bodybuilder , political activist and anti-royalist martyr
• Surya Shekhar Ganguly, FIDE chess Grandmaster and national champion
• Sreerupa Bose, former member, India national women's cricket team

External links

• Official Website
• Stamp on the college
• Christianity in Bengal
• Christian Missionaries in Bengal