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Syama Prasad Mookerjee birth anniversary

  • Posted By
    10Pointer
  • Categories
    History & Culture
  • Published
    7th Jul, 2022

Context

Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tribute to Bharatiya Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee (1901-1953) on his birth anniversary and remembered his contribution to India’s development particularly in sectors such as commerce and industry.

About Syama Prasad Mookerjee

Early life

  • Shyama Prasad Mukherjee was born in a Bengali family on 6th July 1901. 
  • He started his initial education in Bhawanipur’s Mitra Institution in 1906. 
    • He passed his matriculation exam and was admitted to Presidency College.
  • Father: Ashutosh Mukherjee, Judge at Calcutta High Court.
  • Mother: Jogamaya Devi Mukherjee
  • Spouse: Sudha Chakraborty
  • He stood seventeenth in the Inter-Arts Examination in 1916 and graduated in English, securing the first position in first class in 1921.
  • He lost his father in 1924, the same year he enrolled as an advocate in Calcutta High Court.

Major Contribution

  • At the age of 33, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee became the youngest vice-chancellor of Calcutta University in 1934.
  • During Mukherjee’s term as Vice-Chancellor, Rabindranath Tagore delivered the university convocation address in Bengali for the first time, and the Indian vernacular was introduced as a subject for the highest examination.
  • Mukherjee demanded the partition of Bengal in 1946 to prevent the inclusion of its Hindu-majority areas in a Muslim-dominated East Pakistan. 
    • A meeting held by the Mahasabha on April 15, 1947, in Tarakeswar, authorised him to take steps for ensuring partition of Bengal.
  • In May 1947, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee wrote a letter to Lord Mountbatten telling him that Bengal must be partitioned even if India was not.


    • He also opposed a failed bid for a united but independent Bengal made in 1947 by Sarat Bose, the brother of Subhas Chandra Bose, and Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, a Bengali Muslim politician.
  • Shyama Prasad Mukherjee is an example of great leadership and political milestone. 
  • He was the part of the first cabinet of Independent India. 
  • Syama Prasad Mookerjee founded the Bharatiya Jan Sangh in 1951 after consulting Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s MS Golwalkar.
    • Mookerjee became the first president of the party.
  • He was the independent India’s first Minister of Industry and Supply.
  • After he left the Indian National Congress due to difference of opinion with the then-Prime Minister Dr Jawaharlal Nehru on Jammu and Kashmir issues, he co-founded Janata Party in the year 1977-1979, which later on became the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Death

  • Mookerjee died in mysterious circumstances on June 23, 1953, after he was arrested in Kashmir.
  • The leader was detained in Srinagar for over a month before his death, for protesting against the special status granted to Kashmir and the permit system in place there.

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