SIR A. R. BANERJI - A FORGOTTEN CIVIL SERVANT - PART I

I am appending this to my last post on our Kerala trip. A very important development in my life took place during this visit in October, 2011. A long gone ICS officer was instrumental in my making a new friend online. It came about this way.

While driving through Kochi city one evening, our driver casually mentioned that the arterial road we were passing through was called Banerji Road. Since I was from Bengal, I was intrigued by the Bengali name of Banerji. I wondered how the road in Kochi came to be named after someone from distant Bengal.  Our driver did not know. Nor could we find the reason from anyone else that evening. The question remained in my mind.

The next morning, we started by road for the hill town of Munnar, famous for its lush green landscape dotted with tea gardens. On the way, we stopped to visit the famous Hilltop Palace of the erstwhile Rajahs of the Kingdom of Cochin. The palace itself was quite large though not as opulent as those of the Mughals found in Delhi, Agra and elsewhere in northern India. There is a museum on the first floor where pictures and articles from the days of the kingdom are displayed. While walking through the museum, my attention was drawn to a portrait of a young man in formal dress with many decorations on his chest. He cut a smart figure and I was drawn to the inscription at the base of the painting which said, Sir A. R. Banerji, Diwan of Cochin, 1907-1914. I had found the Banerji of Banerji Road at last!

As we were in a hurry to get on to Munnar and further south in our tour of Kerala, I could not make any further inquiries at that time. The matter had to wait until we completed our tour, about a week later.

On my return to Delhi, I did a systematic search on the net to get more details about Sir A.R. Banerji. I found quite a bit of information in different blogs and other websites. His background is interesting.

Albion Rajkumar Banerji was born of Indian parents in Bristol, England in 1871. His father was Sasipada Banerji and his mother’s name was Rajkumari. Sasipada Banerji was born in 1840 in Baranagore near Calcutta and grew up to be a reformist Hindu. He married a young girl of 13 at the age of 20. In 1861, he joined the Brahmo Samaj  and was involved in the social reformist movement in Bengal.

He met the English educationist and reformer Mary Carpenter during her visit to India in 1868 and went to England on her invitation with his wife. A son  was born to them on October 10, 1871 in Bristol (some sources say London). He was named Rajkumar after his mother and the name ‘Albion’ was prefixed to his name, probably because he was born in England. Upon his birth, he was hailed as the first Brahmin baby born in Britain and a letter was sent to Queen Victoria by Mary Carpenter informing her of his birth.

Albion Rajkumar Banerji later returned to India in 1872 with his parents and subsequently studied at the then famous school “General Assembly’s Institution”, which was inspired by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and started by the Rev. Alexander Duff, a young and dedicated missionary, who arrived at Calcutta, India’s colonial capital at that time, to set up the first English medium institution of India.

Albion later graduated from the University of Calcutta and went to England for higher studies. He obtained a Master’s degree from Balliol College, Oxford University and cleared the Indian Civil Services examination (the famous ICS) in 1894. In 1895, he took up his first posting as the Assistant Collector and Magistrate in Madras Presidency.

SIR ALBION RAJKUMAR BANERJI

Rajkumar was later appointed as the Diwan of Cochin and served there from 1907 -1914

 A lot of research has been done on this period in his life and is reported in

 http://muralirvarma.blogspot.com/2008/05/sir-albion-raj-kumar-banerji-ics.html

The same is reproduced below without any changes:

“After his studies in England, Albion joined the Indian Civil Service, the elite group of civil servants in India. It is interesting to recall that 500 such officers ran the British Indian Empire stretching from Baluchistan to Burma. The ICS officers comprised the administrative backbone of British rule and its officers – both English and native – were largely incorruptible, known for their intellectual integrity and unwavering impartiality. So just was their tenure in remote, rural districts that even today, several decades later, their names are invoked with reverence, even by those who never knew them.

Mr.Banerji had a most distinguished career and was the Diwan, the role equivalent to that of the Prime Minister, in two princely states, viz. Cochin and Mysore. Between AD 1907 and 1914, he was the Diwan of Cochin under Maharajah Rama Varma XV, (Ozhinja Valiya Thampuran meaning the one who abdicated the crown) who reigned from AD 1895 to 1914 and brought much prosperity to the State.