The British Indian Association may have lost its old building, and the street named after it may have been renamed after Abdul Hamid, but now it can boast its brand new website launched recently.
The association occupies several rooms on the third floor of a new office building at the head of Barretto Lane constructed on the site of its old building. The website (http://biakolkata.co.in) displays the history of the association, lists of its important members past and present, of the invaluable books, newspapers, and journals in its 163-year-old library, and of its publications 1868 onwards.
Apart from a rich collection of books, the association possesses paintings and other artefacts, among which are the portraits of local Indian dignitaries who were association members, and two busts of Radhakanta Deb and Kristo Das Paul.
The association was originally a political organisation that had a role in the creation of the Indian National Congress, whose early meetings were held in the old building. From a political organisation it became a landholders’ organisation, although it also took up causes that affected Indians in general. After the abolition of the zamindari system in the early 1950s, its functions may have been curtailed but over the years it has become a repository of valuable research material.
About 20 years before the establishment of the British Indian Association in 1851, the Zamindari Association, later renamed Landholders’ Society, was formed in 1831. But after the death of Dwarkanath Tagore, it was as good as dead. Thereafter, in 1839, the Bengal British India Society was formed. It was meant to further the interests of all classes of Indians through its recommendations and measures which had to be “consistent with pure loyalty to the person and government of the reigning sovereign of the British dominions”.
Subsequently, the Landholders’ Society and the Bengal British India at a meeting held on October 29, 1851, at Kasaitola (subsequently Bentinck Street) decided to form the British Indian Association by merging the two bodies to highlight the grievances of Indians. The first committee of the association was composed of Radhakanta Deb, Kalikrishna Deb, Debendranath Tagore, Digambar Mitra, Prasanna Kumar Tagore, Peary Chand Mitra and Sambhunath Pandit. Besides rajas and maharajas and zamindars, Derozians and the intellectual aristocracy of the Bengal Presidency also held important positions on the committee. Traders and businessmen were also members. But membership was strictly confined to Indians. The objects of the association “were related partly to improvements in the local administration of the country and partly to the system of Indian government laid by Parliament”. Joteendra Mohan Tagore and Joykrishna Mukherji enabled the association to have a home at 18 Raneemoody Gully, whose name was later changed to British Indian Street.
The association had “an all-India outlook” and championed the causes of the Indian people at a time when there was no strong political body in the country.
After the Indigo Rebellion of 1859-60, it pleaded with the government to appoint a commission of inquiry to solve the problems of indigo cultivation. The association suggested measures on epidemics, floods, famines, taxation, the practice of Sati, burning ghats and property and inheritance. The association gave the people the first lesson in the art of fighting constitutionally for their rights and giving expression to their opinions. Now it will support research work and try to survive as an institution promoting excellence.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Calcutta / Front Page> Calcutta> Story / Sunday – December 28th, 2014