Dhan Gopal Mukerji
| Dhan Gopal Mukerji | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Native name | ধন গোপাল মুখোপাধ্যায় |
| Born |
6 July 1890 Bengal Presidency, British India |
| Died | 14 July 1936 (aged 46) New York City, United States |
| Cause of death | Suicide by hanging |
| Signature | |
 |
|
Dhan Gopal Mukerji (Bengali: ধন গোপাল মুখোপাধ্যায় Dhan Gōpāl Mukhōpādhyāy.) (6 July 1890 – 14 July 1936) was the first successful Indian man of letters in the United States and winner of Newbery Medal 1928. He studied at Duff School (now known as Scottish Church Collegiate School), and at Duff College, both within the University of Calcutta in India, at the University of Tokyo in Japan and at the University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University in the US.
Dhan Gopal Mukerji was born to the Brahmin caste on 6 July 1890, in a village near Calcutta on the edge of a jungle called Kajangal. His father, whom he describes as "an Olympian who was lost in the world" was a lawyer who gave up his practice due to ill health and studied music instead, while also officiating as priest at the village temple. Dhan Gopal describes his childhood and adolescence in the first part ('Caste') of his autobiography Caste and Outcast (1923). 'Caste' details Dhan Gopal's induction into the Brahminical tradition of his ancestors, and his experiences wandering for a year as an ascetic, as was the custom for boys in strict priestly households. However, disillusioned with the traditional role and impatient of the backward-looking element in strict Hindu society, he left the ascetic life to study at the University of Calcutta. Here, in the circle of his brother Jadugopal Mukherjee's friends, he came in contact with the ideas of the Bengal resistance. Jadu Gopal was subsequently jailed without trial from 1923 to 1927. Dhan Gopal later wrote a memoir about Jadu Gopal, titled My Brother's Face.
In 1910, hoping to save the younger brother from police action, Dhan Gopal's family sent him to Japan to study industrial machinery. Although he was initially fascinated with the positivistic spirit of industrialisation, later he became deeply disillusioned by the assembly line method of production and proclivity towards sheer efficiency which he viewed as dehumanising, degrading and debasing. He was particularly shocked by how assembly line workers who had suffered serious accidents were quickly replaced by other workers, without consideration by the factory owners or employers for either their medical recovery, health benefits or adequate compensation. After a short stay in Japan, he boarded a ship for San Francisco.
...
Wikipedia