Kolkata-born barrister Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee was the co-founder and the first president of the Indian National Congress. He was born on December 29, 1844, into a prosperous Brahmin family. Bonnerjee studied at the Oriental Seminary and the Hindu School.

In 1862, he started out as a clerk with WP Gillanders, attorneys of the Calcutta Supreme Court. After a two-year stint at the firm, he went to England where he joined the Middle Temple, a distinguished institution for the education and training of advocates.

He returned to India in 1868 and soon became one of the foremost barristers of the country. He famously defended Surendranath Banerjee, a nationalist leader who was also one of the founding members of the Indian National Congress, in contempt of court case in the High Court of Calcutta. In 1882, WC Bonnerjee became the first Indian to act as a Standing Counsel.

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Bonnerjee's role in shaping the Congress party

The ongoing Indian freedom struggle and the country's political environment prompted Bonnerjee to get involved in politics. In 1885, he became the first Congress president when he was just 41. As the party president, he got a branch of the Congress -- called the ‘Congress Political Agency’ -- opened in London. He also presided over the first session of the Indian National Congress, attended by 72 members, held at Bombay in 1882.

In the second session of the Congress at Calcutta the following year, which was presided over by Dadabhai Naoroji, Bonnerjee proposed the idea to form standing committees of the Congress in each province for the better co-ordination of its work. Later, in 1892, Bonnerjee was again elected Congress president for the Allahabad session.

Bonnerjee, one of the party’s youngest presidents in its 137-year-old history, was a supporter of the Swadeshi movement. He denounced the British position that India had to prove to be worthy of political freedom. He also slammed the British Salt Tax, calling it an unjust tax on “almost the chief necessity of life” in an emerging country.

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Later, he moved to Britain for some years and practised law there. While he was a resident there, the Liberal Party gave him a seat to contest in the elections to the House of Commons. Though Bonnerjee lost the election, he became the first Indian to stand for election for the British Parliament.

Meanwhile, he continued to gather support for the Indian freedom struggle. Bonnerjee financed the British Committee of Congress and its journals in London. He also served as the general secretary of the London Indian Society, which was founded by Dadabhai Naoroji. In his last years, he returned to Calcutta. After battling a long illness, he passed away on July 21, 1906, at the age of 61 years.

(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)