Jatindra Mohan Sengupta (22 February 1885 – 23 July 1933) was an Indian revolutionary against the

British rule The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was hims ...

. He was arrested several times by the British police. In 1933, he died in a prison located in Ranchi, India. Sengupta studied at Hare School, Calcutta and Presidency College, Calcutta. After that he travelled to England, where he studied law at Downing College, Cambridge. During his stay there, he met and married Edith Ellen Gray, later known as

Nellie Sengupta Nellie Sengupta (''née'' Edith Ellen Gray; 12 January 1884 – 23 October 1973) was an Englishwoman who fought for Indian Independence. She was the first woman Alderman for Calcutta and was elected president of the Indian National Congress at ...

. He was elected president of the Cambridge Majlis in 1908. After returning to India, he started a legal practice. He also joined in Indian politics, becoming a member of the

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British E ...

and participating in the

Non-Cooperation Movement The Non-cooperation movement was a political campaign launched on 4 September 1920, by Mahatma Gandhi to have Indians revoke their cooperation from the British government, with the aim of persuading them to grant self-governance.

. Eventually, he gave up his legal practice in favour of his political commitment.

Early life

Nellie and Jatindra Mohan Sengupta 1985 stamp of India

Jatindra Mohan Sengupta was born on 22 February 1885 to a prominent land-owning (''

zamindar A zamindar ( Hindustani: Devanagari: , ; Persian: , ) in the Indian subcontinent was an autonomous or semiautonomous ruler of a province. The term itself came into use during the reign of Mughals and later the British had begun using it as ...

'') family of Barama, in Chittagong district of

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

(now in Chittagong,

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

). His father, Jatra Mohan Sengupta, was an advocate and a member of the

Bengal Legislative Council The Bengal Legislative Council ( was the legislative council of British Bengal (now Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal). It was the legislature of the Bengal Presidency during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. After reforms we ...

. Sengupta became a student of the Presidency College in

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

. After completing his university studies, he went to England in 1904 to acquire a bachelor's degree in law. While in England, he met his future wife, Edith Ellen Gray, who is now better known as Nellie Sengupta.

Career

After being awarded his degree in law, Sengupta was called to the Bar in England then returned with his wife to India, where he began practicing law as a barrister. In 1911, he represented Chittagong in the Bengal Provincial Conference at Faridpur. This was the beginning of his political career. Later, he joined the Indian National Congress. He also organised the employees of the

Burmah Oil Company The Burmah Oil Company was a leading British oil company which was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. In 1966, Castrol was acquired by Burmah, which was renamed "Burmah-Castrol". BP Amoco (now BP) purchased the company in 2000. History ...

to form a union. In 1921, Sengupta became the chairman of the Bengal Reception Committees of the Indian National Congress. That same year, during a strike at the Burmah Oil Company, he was also serving as the secretary of the employees' union. He abandoned his legal practise due to his commitment to political work, particularly related to the Non-Cooperation Movement led by

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

. In 1923, he was selected as a member of the Bengal Legislative Council. In 1925, after the death of

Chitta Ranjan Das Chittaranjan Das (5 November 1870 – 16 June 1925), popularly called ''Deshbandhu'' (Friend of the Nation), was an Indian freedom fighter, political activist and lawyer during the Indian independence movement and founder-leader of the Swar ...

, Sengupta was elected president of the Bengal Swaraj Party. He also became president of the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee. He was mayor of Calcutta from 10 April 1929 to 29 April 1930. In March 1930, at a public meeting in Rangoon, he was arrested on charges of provoking people against the Government and opposing the India–Burma separation. In 1931, Sengupta went to England to attend the

Round Table Conference The three Round Table Conferences of 1930–1932 were a series of peace conferences organized by the British Government and Indian political personalities to discuss constitutional reforms in India. These started in November 1930 and ended in Dec ...

, supporting the position of the Indian National Congress. He submitted pictures of police atrocities committed by the British to control the Chittagong rebellion, which shook the British Government.

Death

Sengupta was repeatedly arrested due to his political activities. In January 1932, he was arrested and detained in Poona and then in

Darjeeling Darjeeling (, , ) is a town and municipality in the northernmost region of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located in the Eastern Himalayas, it has an average elevation of . To the west of Darjeeling lies the easternmost province of Nepal ...

. Later, he was transferred to prison in Ranchi. There, his health started to decline and he died on 23 July 1933.

Influence

Because of his popularity and contribution to the Indian freedom movement, Jatindra Mohan Sengupta is affectionately remembered by people of Bengal with the honorific ''Deshpriya'' or ''Deshapriya'', meaning "beloved of the country". In many criminal cases he defended the nationalist revolutionaries in the court and saved them from the

gallows A gallows (or scaffold) is a frame or elevated beam, typically wooden, from which objects can be suspended (i.e., hung) or "weighed". Gallows were thus widely used to suspend public weighing scales for large and heavy objects such as sacks ...

. He pled for Surya Sen, Ananta Singh, Ambika Chakrabarty in the Pahartali trial and also saved a young revolutionary, Premananda Dutta, who had been accused in the case relating to the murder of Inspector Prafulla Chakraborty. In 1985, a postal stamp was issued by the Indian Government in memory of Sengupta and his wife, Nellie

Gallery

File:Jatindra Mohan Sengupta Memorial 3.jpg, Bust of Jatindra Mohan Sengupta at his Memorial in Kolkata

Early life

Career

Death

Influence

Gallery

References

Further reading