Indian · 1838–1894
Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay was born in Naihati, north of Calcutta, and was among the first two graduates of the University of Calcutta. He spent his career as a deputy magistrate in the colonial civil service while writing the novels that created modern Bengali fiction. Durgeshnandini in 1865 was the first Bengali novel of consequence; Kapalkundala, Bishabriksha, and Anandamath followed. He founded and edited Bangadarshan, the journal that made Bengali a language for serious prose argument, and he wrote essays on Hinduism, equality, and Krishna that shaped Indian nationalist thought. His song Vande Mataram, embedded in Anandamath, became the anthem of the independence movement and is now India's national song; it was also the reason the novel became controversial, since its Hindu ascetic rebels made Muslims the enemy in a book published under British rule. He is called Sahitya Samrat, emperor of literature, in Bengal.