Upendranath Barman (1 December 1899 – 7 February 1988) was an Indian politician. He was elected from

Cooch Behar Cooch Behar (), or Koch Bihar, is a city and a municipality in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is the headquarters of the Cooch Behar district. It is in the foothills of the Eastern Himalayas at . Cooch Behar is the only planned city in t ...

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fou ...

to the

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-p ...

, lower house of the

Parliament of India The Parliament of India ( IAST: ) is the supreme legislative body of the Republic of India. It is a bicameral legislature composed of the president of India and two houses: the Rajya Sabha (Council of States) and the Lok Sabha (House of the ...

as 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 ...

Personal life

Barman belonged to a Rajbanshi family. He was born in

to father Biranarayan Barman. He graduated from Victoria College in Cooch Behar and earned his LLB degree from University Law College, Calcutta. He practiced law for a few years in

Jalpaiguri Jalpaiguri is a city in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is the headquarters of the Jalpaiguri district as well as of the Jalpaiguri division of West Bengal, covering the jurisdiction of the five districts of North Bengal. The city is loca ...

. He married Kshirodebala Debi in 1926 and had two sons and four daughters. He died in 1988.

Political career

Barman was a part of the

and was elected to the Bengal Legislative Assembly from 1937 to 1945. He also served as a minister in the state between 1941 and 1943. In the first general elections in 1952, he contested from the North Bengal Lok Sabha seat and won. He again fought the Lok Sabha polls from Cooch Behar constituency in 1957 and won.

Ideology

Barman was vocal about the rights of the backward castes. Reservation for the Scheduled Castes, then known as ‘Depressed Class’, was incorporated in the Government of India Act, 1935 which was passed by the British Parliament but Barman believed the condition of the backward castes had not improved. According to him, only a privileged few, who got the opportunity to get education, were in better condition.

Literary career

Barman authored ''History of Rajbanshi Community'' and ''History of Rajbanshi Literature''.

References

External links

Official biographical sketch in Parliament of India website
1899 births 1988 deaths Rajbongshi people West Bengal politicians India MPs 1952–1957 India MPs 1957–1962 Lok Sabha members from West Bengal People from Cooch Behar district Indian National Congress politicians from West Bengal {{WestBengal-politician-stub