Paresh Lal Roy () (20 December 1893 – 30 December 1979) was an Indian amateur boxer, credited with popularising the sport among Indians. He is known as the Father of Indian Boxing. His grandson is the Indian journalist and founder of the

NDTV New Delhi Television Ltd is an Indian news media company focusing on broadcast and digital news publication. The company is considered to be a legacy brand that pioneered independent news broadcasting in India, and is credited for launching t ...

television network,

Prannoy Roy Prannoy Lal Roy (born 15 October 1949) is an Indian economist, chartered accountant, psephologist, journalist and author. He is the former executive co-chairperson of NDTV and is considered to be one of its co-founders, along with his wife Ra ...

Early life

Roy came from the landlord family of Lakhutia in

Barisal district Barisal District, officially spelled Barishal District from April 2018, is a district in south-central Bangladesh, formerly called Bakerganj district, established in 1797. Its headquarters are in the city of Barisal, which is also the headqua ...

. He was born on 30 December 1898, he was the third of six children of Peary Lal Roy and Lolita Roy in a

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

family.

Indra Lal Roy Indra Lal Roy (), (2 December 1898 – 22 July 1918) was the sole Indian World War I flying ace. While serving in the Royal Flying Corps and its successor, the Royal Air Force, he claimed ten aerial victories; five aircraft destroyed (one shar ...

was his younger brother. Roy came from a family of highly qualified and established persons. His father was a

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...

and his maternal grandfather Dr.

Soorjo Coomar Goodeve Chuckerbutty Soorjo Coomar Goodeve Chuckerbutty, also spelled Surjo Kumar Chakraborty ( – 29 September 1874) was the first Indian to pass the examination of the Indian Medical Service (IMS) in 1855 and subsequently became the Professor of Materia Medica ...

was one of the first Indian doctors to be trained in Western medicine. Roy received his education in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. He attended the St. Paul's School in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. At the age of ten he began training in

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...

under Billy Childs, the then boxing coach at

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

who later became the featherweight world champion.

Jim Driscoll James Driscoll (15 December 1880 – 30 January 1925), commonly known as Peerless Jim, was a Welsh boxer who learned his trade in the boxing ring and used it to fight his way out of poverty. Driscoll was British featherweight champion an ...

himself took the responsibility of training Roy. Roy became the school champion. He passed in B.A. from Cambridge University. At Cambridge won the university championship from Oxbridge and became an Oxford Blue. Roy was the first Cambridge Blue from Asia. In 1914, Roy became the bantamweight champion in

. Apart from boxing Roy was also proficient in shooting and horse riding. He was the first amateur Indian jockey to have ridden a horse in a race. At the outbreak of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, he became a private in the Royal Artillery while his younger brother Indra Lal Roy obtained the King's Commission to the Royal Flying Corps. In the army he rose to be a lieutenant. After the war he completed in Masters in Economics from Cambridge University in 1919 and returned to India.

Career

He joined the Bengal Railway as a traffic superintendent. In the 1920s, the sport of boxing was popular mainly among the Anglo-Indians. In order to organize boxing as a sport and make it popular among the Indians, Roy opened a boxing training centre in Ballygunge. In 1928, he took initiative to organize the first inter-Railway Boxing Championship at

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

. In the same year he founded the Bengal Boxing Federation and became its secretary. Later he became its president. In 1933, in the competition between the military and the civilians, Santosh De, a student of Roy became the champion. Among the notable students of Roy were Pramatha Chaudhuri, Phanindra Krishna Mitra, Nagen Chatterjee, Joaquim C. A. Minus, Abulal, Johnny Natal, R. Austin, D. Gasper, Kartik Dutta etc. Though Roy himself was an amateur boxer, he fought against Edgar Bright, the then Indian champion in bantamweight division at the Old Empire Theatre and defeated him. He also defeated Philippine boxer Young Turley once.

Honor

In 2011 the Indian Railway immortalised Paresh Lal Roy by unveiling a marble bust of the boxer in an indoor stadium named after him. The P L Roy Indoor Stadium is located in Sealdah. The statue was unveiled by A K Gupta, additional general manager Eastern Railway and President Eastern Railway Sports Association.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roy, Paresh Lal 1893 births 1979 deaths Bengali Hindus People educated at St Paul's School, London Alumni of the University of Cambridge Royal Flying Corps officers Indian male boxers Indian military personnel of World War I Sportspeople from Kolkata Boxers from West Bengal People from Barisal