Nalini Ranjan Sarkar

Nalini Ranjan Sarkar (Bengali: নলিনী রঞ্জন সরকার) (1882–25 January 1953) was an Indian businessman, industrialist, economist, public leader, and was greatly involved in the political and economic regeneration of Bengal. He was Finance Minister of West Bengal in 1948. The Sarkar Committee Report was instrumental in the subsequent establishment of the five Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) by the Government of India.

He was born in a middle class Kayastha family from Kendua of greater Mymensingh district (now Netrokona District, Bangladesh), British India. After passing the Entrance Examination in 1902 from the Pogose School, Dhaka, he joined the Jagannath College in Dhaka. Subsequently, he joined the City College, Calcutta, of the University of Calcutta but could not continue his studies for financial reasons.

Sarker had close contacts with Surendranath Banerjee, Tej Bahadur Sapru, Motilal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore and Chittaranjan Das, which developed his ideas related to nationalism and economic freedom. He joined the movement against the partition of Bengal in 1905. In later years, influenced by Gandhi's ideas of non-violence, he participated in the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1920.

In the early 1920s, when C. R. Das and Motilal Nehru founded the Swarajya Party, he joined it and soon became one of its leaders. He was, at the same time, involved with the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee. He was also a member of the Bengal Legislative Council from 1923 to 1930 and again from 1937 to 1946 as well as Chief Whip of the parliamentary Swarajya Party in Bengal. In the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress in 1928, he acted as the Secretary of the Exhibition organised for the occasion. Following the death of CR Das, he with Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy, Nirmal Chandra Chunder, Sarat Chandra Bose and Tulsi Chandra Goswami dominated the Congress movement in Bengal and constituted what was known as the "Big Five" of the Bengal Congress. He was elected a Councillor of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation in 1932 and became its Mayor in 1935. His cousin Dr.Dhirendra Nath Sarker also involved with his activities.

...
Wikipedia