ReneeRoby7626 at 01:11, 27 April 2026

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{{Short description|Indian politician (1891-1949)}}
{{POV|date=July 2024}}
{{Use Indian English| date=June 2024}}
{{Use dmy dates| date=June 2024}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific_prefix =
| honorific_suffix =
| name = Kiran Shankar Roy
| image = Kiran Shankar Roy.jpg
| caption =
| order = [[West Bengal]]
| office = Department of Home and Hill Affairs
| title = Home Minister (Police and Jails)
| governor-general = {{plainlist|*[[Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma]]
*[[Chakravarti Rajagopalachari]]}}
| premier = [[Bidhan Chandra Roy]]
| term_start = 7 May 1948
| term_end = 20 February 1949
| predecessor = ''Position established''
| successor =
| office1 = 1st [[Leader of the Opposition (Pakistan)|Leader of the Opposition of Pakistan]]
| term_start1 = 10 August 1947
| term_end1 = 6 May 1948
| leader1 = [[Muhammad Ali Jinnah]]
| predecessor1 = ''Position established''
| successor1 = [[Dhirendranath Datta]]
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1891|10|25|df=y}}
| birth_place = [[Shivalaya Upazila|Shivalaya]], [[Bengal Presidency|Bengal]], [[British Raj|British India]]
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1949|2|20|1891|10|25|df=y}}
| death_place = [[Calcutta]], [[West Bengal]], [[Dominion of India|India]]
| alma_mater = [[University of Oxford]]<br/>[[Lincoln's Inn]] (did not complete)
| party = [[Indian National Congress]]
| other_party = {{plainlist|*[[Swaraj Party]] (1922–1933)
*[[Pakistan National Congress]] (1947–1948)}}
| party position =
| spouse = Padma Roy
| children = [[Kalyan Roy]]
| relatives = [[Raja Shyama Sankar]]<br/>[[Parbati Sankar Roy Choudhury]]<br/>[[Tapan Raychaudhuri]] (nephew)<br/>[[Kumar Sankar Ray]] (cousin)
| website =
| occupation = {{Flatlist|*Professor
*minister
*writer
*freedom fighter
*barrister}}
| known_for = [[United Bengal|United Bengal proposal]]
| citizenship = {{plainlist|*British India (1891–1947)
*Pakistan (1947–1948)
*India (1948–1949)}}
}}
'''Kiran Shankar Roy''', also credited as '''Kiron Sankar Roy''' ({{respell|Kiy|ron|_|Shan|kor|_|Roi|}}; 25 October 1891 – 20 February 1949) was an Indian politician, academic, and freedom fighter. He was one of the leading figures of the [[Swaraj Party]] in the anti-British [[Indian independence movement|independence movement of the Indian subcontinent]] and one-time colleague of [[Subhas Chandra Bose]] and associate of [[Sarat Chandra Bose]]. He was one of Bengal's big five prominent Congress leaders during the two decades 1920s and 1940s. Roy was also a Leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party in the Bengal Assembly<ref name="সংসদ">[[Subodh Chandra Sengupta]] and Anjali Basu, eds., ''সংসদ বাঙালি চরিতাভিধান (1976)'', Part I, সাহিত্য সংসদ, কলকাতা, আগস্ট ২০১৬, পৃষ্ঠা ১৩৯, {{ISBN|978-81-7955-135-6}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.presidentofindia.gov.in/pranab_mukherjee/speeches/speech-president-india-shri-pranab-mukherjee-occasion-valedictory-ceremony-platinum|title=Speech by the President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee on the Occasion of the Valedictory Ceremony of the Platinum Jubilee Celebrations (1937 to 2012) of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly|publisher=[[President of India]]}}{{Dead link|date=February 2026 |bot=InternetArchiveBot }}</ref>

== Early life ==
Kiran Shankar Roy was born to Hara Sankar Roy on October 25, 1891, in a [[Bengalis|Bengali]] zamindar family of Teota village of [[Shivalaya Upazila]], [[Manikganj District]] of [[Bangladesh]]. His early education was at Teota Academy, a village school. Later he studied at [[Hindu School]] and [[St. Xavier's College, Kolkata|St. Xavier's College]], Calcutta and later [[Bangabasi College]] where he studied intermediate arts.

During his time in college, Roy was influenced by the radical nationalist movement during the [[First Partition of Bengal]]. To keep him away from participating in the movement, his family sent him to England to pursue his higher education. He studied history at [[New College, Oxford]] in 1909 where he was a prominent member of the Oxford Indian Majlis and was appointed its President for a term. He returned to the country in 1914 and taught history at [[Presidency University, Kolkata|Presidency College]] and [[Sanskrit College and University|Sanskrit College]].

But as protested against the [[Rowlatt Act]], he resigned in displeasure with the British Ruler and went to England to study law again in 1919 at Lincoln's Inn but did not complete the course. He returned home as a barrister and joined the [[Indian National Congress]] in 1921. He became Vice-Principal and Professor of English Literature at National College (Calcutta Vidyapeeth). Subhash Chandra Bose was the principal at that time. Later became the Vice-Chancellor of the National University (Gauriya Sarva-Vidyayatana).<ref>{{Cite web |title=Roy, Kiron Sankar |url=https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php/Roy,_Kiron_Sankar |publisher= [[Banglapedia]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Zamindar Family of Teota |url=https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php?title=Zamindar_Family_of_Teota |publisher= [[Banglapedia]]}}</ref>

== Political career ==
===Political activities (1921–1946)===
In 1921, Roy became actively involved in the [[Indian independence movement]] and participated in the [[Non-cooperation movement (1919–1922)|non-cooperation movement]] under the leadership of [[Chittaranjan Das]]. During this period, he was detained by the British authorities for writing a seditious article. But in 1922, when the non-cooperation movement was withdrawn and the Alternative [[Swaraj Party]] was formed under the leadership of Chittaranjan Das and [[Motilal Nehru]], he was one of the five main members of the party. In 1923 he became the party's secretary. Roy had been a member of the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee and the All-India Congress Committee since 1922 and held important positions both in parliamentary and non-parliamentary wings. He was Leader of the Congress Party, and Leader of the Opposition, in the Bengal Assembly in the late 1930s and 1940s. He was arrested and imprisoned in the [[Salt March|Civil Disobedience Movement]] in [[British Raj|Colonial India]].

He re-joined the [[Indian National Congress]] in 1933 and was elected to the [[Bengal Legislative Assembly (1937—1947)|Bengal Legislative Assembly]] as a member of the Congress. He worked as a colleague of [[Subhas Chandra Bose]] and later became the secretary of the Ad. Hoc Congress Committee.

After the [[1946 Indian provincial elections]], Roy led Congress negotiations with [[Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy]] to form a Muslim-League coalition government but negotiations broke down due to disputes over issues such as the release of political prisoners and distribution of ministerial offices between Congress and the Muslim League coalesced with opposition to a Congress-Muslim League coalition by the Congress and Muslim League high command. Roy critiqued Suhrawardy for his complicity in the [[Direct Action Day]] communal riots in [[Calcutta]]. Roy also was elected to the Constituent Assembly in 1946 on a Congress party ticket.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ikramullah |first=Begum Shaista |title=Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy: A Biography |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=1991 |location=Karachi |pages=133–137}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Rashid |first=Harun-or- |title=The Foreshadowing of Bangladesh: Bengal Muslim League and Muslim Politics, 1906–1947 |publisher=University Press Limited |edition=2nd |location=Dhaka |publication-date=2003}}</ref>

===United Bengal (1947)===
Like Sarat Chandra Bose, Roy was vehemently and persistently opposed to the partition of Bengal and was naturally a supporter of the Provincial Coalition Party and Forward Bloc Congress led by Sarat Bose. Roy was against [[Rajagopalachari|C.R. Rajagopalachari's]] 1944 [[C. R. formula|Rajaji formula]] which essentially conceded Pakistan on condition that it come about with plebiscites in Muslim-majority regions and the Partition of Punjab and Bengal. Kiran Shankar supported Sarat Bose's [[United Bengal|United Bengal scheme]], which was in turn supported by Suhrawardy and [[Abul Hashim]]. Roy nonetheless had doubts about the viability of an independent Bengal at first but was converted to it. Roy supported [[Frederick Burrows]] and [[Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma|Louis Mountbattens]] proposal for the representative coalition government and joint electorates in Bengal. However, the United Bengal scheme failed given it had no mass support among Hindus and Muslims in Bengal, despite Bose and Suhrawardy's initial insistence that most people in Bengal (including Hindus) were against Partition. The Bengal Provincial Congress and Indian National Congress high command led by [[Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel]] vehemently opposed the defiant and lone efforts of Bose and Roy in agitating against the Partition of Bengal in 1947, calling for them to conform to Congress's official policy. Whilst [[Muhammad Ali Jinnah]] initially provided tacit support to the United Bengal scheme, the [[All-India Muslim League]] high command would also oppose the scheme with the Nazimuddin faction, in contrast to the Suhrawardy faction, of the [[Bengal Provincial Muslim League]] supporting Partition and inclusion in a unitary Pakistan.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://samakal.com/special-ayojon/article/97675/%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%82%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%A6%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%B6%E0%A7%87%E0%A6%B0-%E0%A6%B0%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%9C%E0%A6%A8%E0%A7%80%E0%A6%A4%E0%A6%BF|script-title=bn:বাংলাদেশের রাজনীতি|work=[[Samakal]]|language=bn}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |author = [[Joya Chatterji]] |title=Bengal Divided: Hindu communalism and partition, 1932-1947 |publisher= [[Cambridge University Press]] |year=1995 |isbn=9780521411288 |pages=259–265}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Hussain |first=Syed Sajjad |title=The Wastes of Time: Reflections on the Decline and Fall of East Pakistan |publisher=Muslim Renaissance Movement and Notun Safar Prokashani |year=1995 |edition=1st |location=Dhaka |pages=110}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Sen |first=Shila |title=Muslim Politics in Bengal, 1937-1947 |year=1976 |location=Delhi |publisher=Impex India |pages=237–245}}</ref>

===Last years (1947–1949)===
After independence, he also became the Congress party leader in the [[East Bengal Legislative Assembly]] and [[Pakistan Constituent Assembly]]. However, he returned to India in 1948 and took charge of the Home Minister in the Cabinet of Ministers of [[West Bengal]] led by [[Bidhan Chandra Roy]], who invited him to join his government. As Home Minister Roy banned the Communist Party in West Bengal and swiftly pushed through a West Bengal Security Act which was even more draconian than the one it replace.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chatterji |first=Joya |title=The Spoils of Partition: Bengal and India, 1947-1967 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2007 |location=Cambridge |pages=224–225}}</ref> He died on 20 February 1949.<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40285016|title=A Partition of Contingency? Public Discourse in Bengal, 1946–1947|pages=1365|jstor=40285016 |last1=Roy |first1=Haimanti |journal=[[Modern Asian Studies]] |date=2009 |volume=43 |issue=6 |doi=10.1017/S0026749X08003788 |hdl=1721.1/51358 |hdl-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/dr-b-c-roy-forms-new-cabinet-in-west-bengal-sworn-in-at-government-house-for-his-second-ministry-since-india-s-independence-101683392087511.html|title=May 7, 1948 -- West Bengal cabinet reconstituted|work=[[Hindustan Times]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://openthemagazine.com/cover-stories/the-lost-dominion/|title=The Lost Dominion|date=11 August 2023 |magazine=[[Open (Indian magazine)|Open]]}}</ref>

==Key writings==
Kiran Shankar Roy, alongside his political career, was interested in literature. He was a prominent member of the [[Sabujpatra|Sabuj Patra]] Patrika edited by [[Pramatha Chaudhuri]] and the Monday Club by [[Sukumar Roy]]. His articles and short stories were regularly published in the ''[[Sabujpatra]]'', ''[[Prabasi]]'' and ''Atmashakti''. They were highly appreciated in the reading community. The stories published in ''Sabujpatra'' were later published in book form as ''Saptaparno''.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Roy, Kiron Sankar |url=https://en.banglapedia.org/index.php/Roy,_Kiron_Sankar |publisher= [[Banglapedia]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title= Saptaparna|url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.355712/|author =Roy, Kiran Shankar|publisher=K.l. Mukhopadhya |year=1956 |location=Kolkata}}</ref>

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== Bibliography ==

* {{Cite book |last=Bose |first=Mihir |year=2004 |title=Raj, Secrets, Revolution: A Life of Subhas Chandra Bose |location= |publisher=Grice Chapman Publishing |isbn=9780954572648 |oclc=959922484}}

==External links==
* {{URL|https://www.constitutionofindia.net/members/kiran-sankar-roy/|Kiran Sankar Roy}}
{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roy, Kiran Shankar}}
[[Category:1891 births]]
[[Category:1949 deaths]]
[[Category:Indian barristers]]
[[Category:State cabinet ministers of West Bengal]]
[[Category:Bengal MLAs 1937–1945]]
[[Category:East Bengal MLAs 1947–1954]]
[[Category:Members of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan]]
[[Category:Bengali Hindus]]
[[Category:Pakistani Hindus]]
[[Category:Pakistani emigrants to India]]
[[Category:Naturalised citizens of India]]
[[Category:Indian independence activists from Bengal]]
[[Category:Indian National Congress politicians from West Bengal]]
[[Category:Academic staff of Presidency University, Kolkata]]
[[Category:Alumni of New College, Oxford]]
[[Category:University of Calcutta alumni]]
[[Category:St. Xavier's College, Kolkata alumni]]
[[Category:People from Manikganj District]]
[[Category:Leaders of the opposition (Pakistan)]]
[[Category:Leaders of the opposition in the Provincial Assembly of East Pakistan]]
[[Category:Politicians from Dhaka Division]]

Kiran Shankar Roy - Revision history

ReneeRoby7626 at 01:11, 27 April 2026