Gurusaday Dutt: Difference between revisions

| birth_place = Birasri, [[Karimganj district|Karimganj]], [[Assam Province]], [[British India]]

| death_date  = {{d-da|25 June 1941|10 May 1882}}

| occupation  = Civilian, folklorist

| spouse      = [[Saroj Nalini Dutt]] (nee Dé)<ref name="socialthoughtofrabindranathtagore:ahistoricalanalysis">[http://www.books.google.com/books?id=0HrBJJBFutsC&pg=PA138&lpg=PA138&dq=%22brajendranath+de%22&source=web&ots=6hzMYqYpVY&sig=j0LN8UVyO09xXv-DDGe4tWswGIo/ Tapati Das Gupta, Social Thought of Rabindranath Tagore: A Historical Analysis, (Calcutta, 1993), p. 138]</ref>

| children   = 1

'''Gurusaday Dutt''' ({{lang-bn|'''গুরুসদয় দত্ত'''}}) (1882–1941) ({{lang-bn|১২৮৭-১৩৪৮}})<ref name="Dasgupta1993">{{cite book|author=Tapati Dasgupta|title=Social Thought of Rabindranath Tagore: A Historical Analysis|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0HrBJJBFutsC&pg=PA138|access-date=11 July 2012|date=1 January 1993|publisher=Abhinav Publications|isbn=978-81-7017-302-1|pages=138–}}</ref> was a civil servant, folklorist, and writer. He was the founder of the [[Bratachari movement|''Bratachari'' Movement]] in the 1930s.

Dutt, born to Ramkrishna Dutta Chaudhuri and Anandamayee Debi, was a member of the ''zamindari'' family of Birasri (বীরশ্রি) village in Karimganj (করিমগঞ্জ) sub-division of [[Sylhet District|Sylhet]] district, in eastern Bengal (present day [[Bangladesh]]). Members of his family were followers of the Vaishnavite sect.

He was married to [[Saroj Nalini Dutt]] and they had one son.

==Career==

He was the district magistrate of Mymensingh, director of Industries, 

chief whip in the Bengal Legislative Council, member of the Council of States and of the [[Central Legislative Assembly]] (1930-1933) and secretary, Local Self Government and Public Health, Government of Bengal,

==Contributions to social work==

==Contributions to art and culture==

Gurusaday Dutt was mostly known for his interest and contributions to Bengal's folk art, folk dance and folk music. He spent a lifetime collecting and studying art objects and handiwork from the remotest corners of undivided rural Bengal collecting items of folk art such as Kalighat paintings, ''patuas'' ('পটুয়া') scrolls, embroidered ''kanthas'' ('কাঁথা'), terracotta panels, stone sculptures, wooden carvings, dolls and toys, moulds used for making patterns on sweets or mango-paste etc. Gurusaday Dutt also wrote extensively on folk culture. Rabindranath Tagore and C.F. Andrews wrote in the foreword of the biography of his wife, Saroj Nalini Dutt, which he wrote. Gurusaday Dutt also wrote a good deal about the Bratachari movement.

 

In 1928, at Howrah, in connection with the Bamangachi Firing case, he condemned the firing on a crowd of protesters by the police led by a British officer. The matter was raised in the House of Lords in London and as a punitive measure he was transferred to Mymensingh. In Mymensingh he refused to take against those who were protesting against the government's Salt Act, which led to his transfer to Birbhum.

*Pallisampad Raksha Samiti (পল্লি রক্ষা সমিতি);(1931)

*''Gramer Kaajer ka kha Ga'' (গ্রামের কাজের ক, খ, গ) (in Bengali)

*''Banglar Samrik Krira'' (in Bengali)

*''Chaander Buri'' (চাঁদের বুড়ি) (in Bengali)

==Death and commemoration==

He died at the age of 59 of cancer. After he died, his son, Birendrasaday Dutt, took the initiative in renaming Ballygunge Store Road, where he had built himself a house, after him.

 

 

Biographies have been written on his life and works in Bangladesh by Shankar Prasad De, Amitabha Chowdhury, Shaikat Azgar and Naresh Banerjee.

 

A Medal in his honour, known as "The Gurusaday Dutt Medal" along with a Cash prize, was endowed by his grandson, Devsaday Dutt, at the University of Calcutta, which is given to the student who stands First in the Post-Graduate Examination in Geography, from 2008 onwards.

 

Gurusaday Dutt Scholarships are also being awarded by the Sylhet Union(Srihatta Sammilani), Kolkata for brilliant students pursuing post-graduate studies.

 

His articles initially published in the 1930s in journals such as ''Prabashi'', ''Banglar Shakti'', ''Bangalakshmi'' and ''Aloka'' (in Bengali), have been republished in a book entitled ''Banglar Lokashipla o Lokanritya'' in August 2008.

 

His daughter-in-law, [[Aroti Dutt]], was an eminent social worker, and was the World President of the Associated Countrywomen of the World for two terms and President of the Saroj Nalini Dutt Memorial Association, Calcutta.

*[http://rajsaday.com/?p=86/ Profile of Gurusaday Dutt at Lives Less Forgotten]