Education
Dakshinaranjan studied at Hare School and Hindu College.
Dakshinaranjan studied at Hare School and Hindu College.
An orator, editor of several periodicals, and a social reformer, he had donated land for the Bethune School and assisted David Hare in his social works. Dakshinaranjan Mukherjee"s father Jaganmohan Mukherjee, who belonged to Bhatpara, had married into the Pathuriaghata branch of the Tagore family and agreed to be a ‘ghar-jamai’ (a groom who remains back with his in-laws as part of their family). While a student Mukherjee published the magazine Jnananneswan in 1831.
The next year it became a bilingual magazine.
He spoke against suppression of newspapers by the government. He was one of main initiators for the establishment of the British Indian Association and contributed regularly to the Bengal Spectator.
He practiced as a lawyer and was the first Indian to be appointed as a collector of Calcutta Municipality. Later he also worked in the court of the Nawab at Murshidabad.
He had once given a loan of Rs.
60,000 to David Hare. As Hare was unable to pay back the loan, he gave Mukherjee some land in lieu of lieutenant Mukherjee, in turn, donated that land in 1849 to John Elliot Drinkwater Bethune for the establishment of Kolkata’s first secular school for girls.
Mukherjee prospered in Lucknow.
Foreign helping the British during the Sepoy Mutiny, he was rewarded with the Shankarpur taluk in 1859. He was made honorary assistant commissioner of Lucknow and Awadh.
He started publishing Lucknow Times, Samachar Hindustani and Bharat Patrika from Lucknow. He established the Canning College at Lucknow.
He was honoured with the title of ‘Raja’ by the Viceroy, Lord Mayo in 1871.
He established the Awadh British Indian Association in 1871 and campaigned for the formation of a provincial government with equal number of nominated and elected legislators and lost some favour with the British government. Dakshinaranjan Mukherjee died in Lucknow on 15 July 1898.
