Introduction
Brajendranath De (23 December, 1852 – 20 September, 1932) was an early Indian member of the Indian Civil Service.
Early life and education
De studied at Canning College, Lucknow, and later travelled to England, where he was called to the Bar by the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple. He was also admitted to St. Mary Hall, Oxford, where he spent one year on a Boden Sanskrit Scholarship. He then joined the ICS, of which he was one of the earliest Indian entrants.
Career
He was assistant magistrate and collector of Shahabad, Bengal in 1881. He served as the district magistrate and collector of Khulna. He became the magistrate and collector of Balasore in Orissa and then of Malda and Hooghly. He was an acting commissioner of the Burdwan Division.
As the district officer of Hooghly, he started the Duke Club there which was meant to be exclusively for Indians. One of his Commissioners once told him not to entertain the thought of wanting to join a British club in the district.
After retirement he translated and edited, in two volumes, Nizamuddin Ahmad's Tabaqat-i-Akbari. The third volume, which he had left fully prepared, was published posthumously by Beni Prasad.He was a vice president of the Council of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. He was also appointed as a member of the Calcutta Improvement Trust.
Legacy
In 2001, approximately 2,000 photographs of himself and his family members were given in loan to the photographic archives of the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. Later, the archive was shifted to the newly established Jadunath Sarkar Centre for Historical Research, CSSSC, Calcutta, and the photographs too were deposited at 'Jadunath Bhavan', where the new Centre is located.
Publications
De translated Kālidāsa's play Vikramorvasi which was published in the Calcutta Review.
- (trans.), 'Vikramorvaçi', Canto I., in Calcutta Review, Oct. 1884, pp. 440–2.
His other works include:
- "Reminiscences of an Indian Member of the Indian Civil Service", in Calcutta Review, (1953–5).
- (trans.), The Tabaqat-i-Akbari of Khwaja Nizamuddin Ahmad, Vols. 1 and 2, (Calcutta, reprint, 1973).
- Schuyler, Jr., Montgomery (1902). "Bibliography of Kālidāsa's Mālavikāgnimitra and Vikramorvaçī". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 23: 93–101. doi:10.2307/592384. JSTOR 592384.
- Reminiscences of an Indian Member of the Indian Civil Service' in the Calcutta Review
- Tabaqat-i-Akbari by Khwaja Nizamuddin Ahmed