Golak Mistri

Golak Mistri (also spelled Golok Mistri) was an Indian educator associated with the early Educational Initiatives of Raja Rammohan Roy in Calcutta during the early nineteenth century. He is recorded as the first headmaster of an English school established by Rammohun Roy for the free education of Hindu boys. The school was initially located at Suripara in Calcutta and later developed into Rammohun Roy's better-known Anglo-Hindu School.

Association with Rammohun Roy's educational work

Rammohun Roy regarded modern education as an important means of intellectual and social improvement in India. After becoming established in Calcutta, he supported educational initiatives that sought to introduce English and European learning alongside existing forms of instruction. Historical accounts distinguish these initiatives from the separately established Hindu College, with which Rammohun Roy was associated during its formation but from whose management he subsequently withdrew.

According to research published by Brajendra Nath Banerji, based on the unpublished diary of Kishori Chand Mitra and information obtained from Ramrutton Mukherjee, a close personal attendant of Rammohun Roy, an English school was established by Roy at Suripara around 1816. The school provided free instruction to Hindu boys and was supported financially by Rammohun Roy. Banerji's account identifies Golak Mistri, described in the source as belonging to the barber caste, as the school's first headmaster. Debnarayan Dutta served as an assistant teacher under him.

The identification of Mistri as the first headmaster is significant because the school preceded the formal development of Rammohun Roy's later Anglo-Hindu educational institution. The available evidence therefore places Golak Mistri within Rammohun Roy's early educational experiment rather than among the teachers of Hindu College.

The early English school

The school at Suripara was described as a private educational institution established and financed by Rammohun Roy. According to Banerji's account, it had approximately 200 pupils in its early phase. Rammohun subsequently established an English class at his garden house at Manicktala for some of the more advanced students. The class was conducted by an English teacher, Mr. Morecroft, who was paid by Rammohun Roy.

The early school was subsequently reorganised and moved to new premises near Cornwallis Square. A school building was constructed there in 1822, and the institution became known as the Anglo-Hindu School or Anglo-Indian School. It remained a free institution for Hindu boys and was largely supported from Rammohun Roy's own resources, with some assistance from his friends.

Contemporary and later accounts describe the Anglo-Hindu School as an institution intended to provide a broader form of education, including English and elements of Western knowledge. Among its later pupils was Debendranath Tagore, an important figure in the subsequent development of the Brahmo Samaj.

Historical significance

Golak Mistri occupies a relatively little-known place in the history of nineteenth-century Indian education. His significance derives principally from his position as the first headmaster of one of Rammohun Roy's earliest English educational ventures. The surviving evidence also illustrates that the early development of modern education in Bengal involved teachers and educational workers whose names have received considerably less attention than those of the prominent reformers who founded or supported the institutions.

The historical record concerning Mistri is limited. Most available information AbOUT him comes through accounts of Rammohun Roy's educational activities rather than from an independent biography of Mistri himself. Consequently, details concerning his birth, education, later career and death are not securely established in the currently accessible sources.

See also

• Raja Rammohan Roy
• Hindu College, Kolkata
• Bengal Renaissance
• History of education in India

Further reading

• Banerji, Brajendra Nath. "Rammohun Roy as an Educational Pioneer." Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, vol. 16, part 2, 1930, pp. 154–175.
• Home, Amal, ed. Rammohun Roy: The Man and His Work. Rammohun Centenary Committee, Calcutta, 1933.

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