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Brajendranath De

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Brajendranath De
Born(1852-12-23)December 23, 1852
DiedSeptember 20, 1932(1932-09-20) (aged 79)
OccupationOrientalist
SpouseNagendranandini De (nee Bose)

Brajendranath De (23 December, 1852 – 20 September, 1932) was an early Indian member of the Indian Civil Service.[1]

Early life and education

De studied at Canning College, Lucknow, and later travelled to England, where he was called to the Bar by the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple.[2] He was also admitted to St. Mary Hall, Oxford, where he spent one year on a Boden Sanskrit Scholarship.[3] He then joined the ICS,[4] of which he was one of the earliest Indian entrants.[5][6]

Career

He was assistant magistrate and collector of Shahabad, Bengal in 1881.[7] He served as the district magistrate and collector of Khulna.[8][9] He became the magistrate and collector of Balasore in Orissa and then of Malda and Hooghly.[10] He was an acting commissioner of the Burdwan Division.[11]

As the district officer of Hooghly, he started the Duke Club there which was meant to be exclusively for Indians.[12] One of his Commissioners once told him not to entertain the thought of wanting to join a British club in the district.[13]

After retirement he translated and edited, in two volumes, Nizamuddin Ahmad's Tabaqat-i-Akbari. The third volume, which he had left fully prepared, was published posthumously by Beni Prasad.[14] [15] He was a vice president of the Council of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.[16] He was also appointed as a member of the Calcutta Improvement Trust.[17]

Legacy

In 2001, approximately 2,000 photographs of himself and his family members were given in loan to the photographic archives of the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. Later, the archive was shifted to the newly established Jadunath Sarkar Centre for Historical Research, CSSSC, Calcutta, and the photographs too were deposited at 'Jadunath Bhavan', where the new Centre is located.[18]

Publications

De translated Kālidāsa's play Vikramorvasi which was published in the Calcutta Review.[19]

  • (trans.), 'Vikramorvaçi', Canto I., in Calcutta Review, Oct. 1884, pp. 440–2.

His other works include:

  • "Reminiscences of an Indian Member of the Indian Civil Service", in Calcutta Review, (1953–5).[20]
  • (trans.), The Tabaqat-i-Akbari of Khwaja Nizamuddin Ahmad, Vols. 1 and 2, (Calcutta, reprint, 1973).[21]

References

  1. ^ Indiasaga Who's Who
  2. ^ University of Wisconsin Law Library
  3. ^ Oxford University Calendar, 1875, p. 366
  4. ^ India Office, Great Britain (1905). The India List and India Office List 1905. Harrison and Sons. p. 447.
  5. ^ "Situating an Eminent Historian Eminently" - Sabyasachi Bhattacharya Retrieved 2015-03-21.
  6. ^ Forbes, Geraldine Hancock (1996). Women in Modern India. The New Cambridge History of India. Vol. IV.2. Cambridge University Press. pp. 28–29. ISBN 978-0-521-65377-0.
  7. ^ Military and ICS Manual
  8. ^ Heehs, Peter (2008). The Lives of Sri Aurobindo. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 33. ISBN 978-0-231-14098-0.
  9. ^ "Govt. Notifications: Orders by the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal". The Liberal and the New Dispensation. XII (30). Calcutta: R.S. Bhattacharji: 9. 6 August 1893.
  10. ^ "Mr. B. De", in Bengalee, 7 September 1910; see also Indian Daily News, 3 September, 1910
  11. ^ Gupta, Tapati Dutta (1993). Social Thought of Rabindranath Tagore: A Historical Analysis. Abhinav Publications. p. 122. ISBN 9788170173021.; see also "Late Mr. B. De.: Passing Away of an Old Civilian" in Liberty, Friday, 30 September, 1932
  12. ^ Sinha, Mrinalini (October 2001). "Britishness, Clubbability, and the Colonial Public Sphere: The Genealogy of an Imperial Institution in Colonial India". The Journal of British Studies. 4 (44): 489–521. JSTOR 3070745. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |subscription= ignored (|url-access= suggested) (help)
  13. ^ Ballantyne, Tony; Burton, Antoinette M. (2005). Bodies in Contact. Duke University Press. p. 193. ISBN 0-8223-3467-4.
  14. ^ "Mr.B.De Dead Retired Member of the Civil Service" in The Statesman, 30 September 1932
  15. ^ Sudha Sharma, Status of Muslim Women in Medieval India, Allahabad
  16. ^ "Birth-Centenary of B. De. Celebrated" in The Statesman, 24 December, 1952; see also "He Rehabilitated Persian in Bengal: Tributes to Late B.De: Birthday Celebration" in Amrita Bazar Patrika, Wednesday, December 24, 1952
  17. ^ "Late Mr. B. De, Calcutta Corporation Tributes", in Liberty, Saturday, 1 October 1932
  18. ^ Jadunath Sarkar Resource Centre for Historical Research, (Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, 2009), p. 7
  19. ^ Schuyler, Jr., Montgomery (1902). "Bibliography of Kālidāsa's Mālavikāgnimitra and Vikramorvaçī". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 23: 93–101. doi:10.2307/592384. JSTOR 592384.
  20. ^ Reminiscences of an Indian Member of the Indian Civil Service' in the Calcutta Review
  21. ^ Tabaqat-i-Akbari by Khwaja Nizamuddin Ahmed