User:Barnalig/Girindra Mukerji

Girindra Mukerji was a Indian anti-British revolutionary, organizer and agriculturist. Mukerji's article "The Hindu in America" has been widely cited as a critical document describing early Indian immigration to the United States.

In 1901, he received an AB degree from Calcutta University. He moved to the United States and became a student at the University of California, Berkeley circa 1905.

As of 1908 he was the President of the Association of Oriental Students at UC Berkeley. In January 1908 he led a student protest against J. Lovell Murray, a Christian evangelist who was in Berkeley to give a talk titled, "Awakening the Orient" at the local Y.M.C.A. Just before Murray was about to enter Stiles Hall to give his lecture, 16 of the 17 Indian students at UC Berkeley, including Mukerji requested Murray to remove any references to the immorality of Hindu priests and its use in the justification of the occupation of India by the British but Murray refused. Once Murray was finished speaking, Mukerji was invited to respond to speaker. He spoke against the British occupation and six more students followed him until the organizers decided to shut down the event.

In 1907-1908, he received a Master of Science from the College of Agriculture at UC Berkeley; his thesis was entitled "A Comparative Study of Soil Columns in the San Joaquin Valley." He was a student of Professor Eugene W. Hilgard, an expert of agricultural chemistry. He left for New York in March 1908. President Wheeler, who was present at his farewell, spoke highly of his work and cited him as a role model for other Indians.

In a 1911 article, Sarangadhar Das wrote that after graduating from UC Berkeley in 1908, Mukerji "worked as the Superindending (sic) Chemist in a sugar factory in Porto Rico, Cuba, and now is employed in the Bengal National College. Mukerji was Hindustani Interpreter in the employ of the Immigration Department."