Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay

Rishi Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (27 June 1838 – 8 April 1894) was a Bengali writer, poet and journalist.Staff writer. "Bankim Chandra: The First Prominent Bengali Novelist", The Daily Star, 30 June 2011 He was the composer of India's national song Vande Mataram. It was originally a Bengali and Sanskrit stotra (hymn) portraying India as a mother goddess. The song inspired the activists during the Indian Independence Movement. Chattopadhyay wrote 13 novels. He also wrote several serious, serio-comic, satirical, scientific and critical articles in Bengali. His works were widely translated into other regional languages of India.

Chattopadhyay was born to an orthodox Brahmin family. He was educated at Hooghly Mohsin College. The college was founded by Bengali philanthropist Muhammad Mohsin and Presidency College, Calcutta. He was one of the first graduates of the University of Calcutta. From 1858, until his retirement in 1891, he served as a deputy magistrate and deputy collector in the government of British India.

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Category:1838 births
Category:1894 deaths
Category:19th-century Indian poets
Category:Indian essayists
Category:Lyricists
Category:Indian composers
Category:Indian journalists