self-respect, there was some hostility against him. An occasion soon presented itself to gratify this feeling. Surendranath’s peshkar (a clerk who keeps and presents papers, files, etc.) returned an accused person as an absconder, though the man was not an absconder and ought to have been discharged. The
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Surendranath Banerjea
(Indian Delegate to the Imperial Press Conference 1909)
young Assistant Magistrate affixed his signature to this paper, along with other papers, inadvertently, without reading its contents. This sort of signing papers without scrutinising their contents has often to be done even now by many busy officers. But this oversight on the part of Surendranath was treated as a serious offence, it being held that he had knowingly and intentionally made a false statement. A commission was appointed for his trial. He wanted to be tried in Calcutta, but that facility and some other facilities which he wanted, were not given him. He was dismissed from the service with a compassionate allowance of Rs. 50 per mensem.
Whether the peshkar made the false entry in sheer ignorance and carelessness or in order to conceal his neglect of duty (because the making of the correct entry was part of his duty), or whether he intentionally laid a trap for the inexperienced young Indian officer to curry favour with the Anglo-Indian superior officers, can never be known. But there can be no reasonable doubt that Surendranath was guilty of no worse fault than inadvertence or oversight, for he bore no grudge against the man returned as an absconder, there was no element of official zid in the case, and Surendranath had no motive for, nothing to gain by, making a false entry. Hence, it cannot but be held that he was unjustly and too severely punished.
But he was not the man to take things lying down. He carried his case up to the higher authorities in England, but without success. Being thus excluded from one career, he qualified for the bar, but the benchers of Middle Temple refused to call him to the bar on the ground of his being a dismissed servant of the Crown. He took steps to have their decision reversed, but could not gain his object.
He now returned to India a disappointed and almost a ruined man. But he was always hopeful and irrepressible and would never give way to despair. In this respect, his life sets an example to all of us, and particularly to those of our boys and young men who weakly give way to despair on failing to pass some petty examination or when they find that some wish of theirs has not been fulfilled. He was made of sterner stuff and was always stout-hearted. His conduct throughout life has been characterised by robust optimism.
It is not our desire in this note to recount even hurriedly all the principal events in his long life of usefulness to the
