For a rapid retrospect of Tagore’s perception of “the Golden Foundation on which the National Council of Education, Bengal has been built”, let us go back to the first decade of the twentieth century. The nineteenth century had visioned a new India pulsating with energy fuelled by the first strong feeling of nationhood. Although Bengal had already lost some of her noblest sons, Vidyasagar (1891), Bankimchandra (1894) and Vivekananda (1902), a new generation of leaders in thought and action emerged to sustain and spur the new spirit of nationalism.
To curb the growth of this spirit, a potential threat to the British imperial rule then at its zenith in India, the Government under Lord Curzon took a number of repressive measures : the Indian Universities Act (1904), contriving to constrict and confine the field of higher education; the Carlyle Circular (1905) prohibiting students’ participation in politics; and the partition of Bengal, sinisterly designed to fracture and cripple Bengal politically and culturally.
Bengal accepted the challenge, and the magic mantra was Swadeshi. The patriotic songs composed by Rabindra Nath Tagore fostered and kept up the fire of the anti-partition agitation. On the economic front, the revolt addressed itself to the boycotting of British goods in favour of Swadeshi products. On the cultural front, the upsurge triggered, among other things, a demand for a national university.
November 1905 was vibrant with memorable events : countless meetings, historic assemblies and impassioned speeches and writings. Satis Chandra Mukherjee’s article “The Birth of the National Idea”, in the magazine DAWN, crystallised the close relation between national education and national consciousness. On 9 November, at a public meeting on the ground of Field and Academy Club (popularly known as Pantir Math) Subodh Chandra Mallik promised a personal gift of one lakh of rupees for establishing a national university. The next day, at the same spot, Bepin Chandra Pal made another thrilling announcement; other friends were ready to champion the cause with contributions in lakhs. On 11 November thousands of students under the stewardship of Ashutosh Chaudhuri congregated in College Square to demand the foundation of a national university. On 12 November Sister Nivedita delivered at the Dawn Society an illuminating speech entitled “The Present Crisis and the Need of a National University”. On 14 November Ashutosh Chaudhuri issued a historic manifesto asking the leading men of the country to assemble at the Bengal Land Holders’ Association. The Conference, which was held on 16 November, resolved to establish “a National Council of Education … to organise a system of education — Literary, Scientific and Technical on National Lines and under National Control”. It took four months to devise and formulate the “ways and means”, and on 11 March 1906, a formal resolution was adopted at a conference at the Bengal Land Holders’ Association. The foundation stone of the Council was laid. Some five months later on 14 August 1906 another historic meeting at the Town Hall witnessed the inauguration of the Council’s first academic institute, the Bengal National College and School.
There were too many expectations to be fulfilled, too many emotions to be harmonized. For the newborn Council and its College the task was not easy. But the Council’s prime object, its fundamental ideal, was clear; it was “to quicken the national life of the people”. Aurobindo Ghose was the first Principal of Bengal National College. In an article “A Word in Time” published in the 3rd May 1908 issue of the weekly journal BANDE MATARAM he wrote: “The Council is not merely an educational body nor is the College merely an educational institution; they are trustees to the people of a great instrument of National regeneration and should work always in that aspirit.”
