Goanet Digest, Vol 21, Issue 59

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Today's Topics:

   1. Pctrust schemes (Nelson Lopes)
   2. How a Christian Convert Took on a Butcher Judge in Colonial
      India (Vivek Pinto)


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Message: 1
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2026 09:10:23 +0530
From: Nelson Lopes <[email protected]>
To: "Goa's premiere mailing list, estb. 1994!"
	<[email protected]>
Subject: [Goanet] Pctrust schemes
Message-ID:
	<CACCOym+JnS-76Tm+R7r3ZtL5uwHYkYnWF_fUuMRBnjE6FER6Bw-JsoAwUIsXosN+BqQ9rBEUg@public.gmane.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

PCTRUST  serves a purpose at Chinchinim  Village and beyond
A registered Trust since.2006 dedicated towards students welfare

It promotes excellence in Academics,  Sports.Felicitates teachers
.provides uniforms,  text books  ,medical aid and aid to elders.The awards
exists for teachers, students  ,special for boys and girls beyond
boundaries of Chinchinim Village .Special grants to deserving and bright
students for higher education .Some prominent social workers have also
been felicitated
The Trust has 8 publications with details ,amounts schemes  and list of
donors.Many of our Villagers and others are made known through Ryme and
verse here , when nothing exists about them  in written records.

There are  various vays of being generous and sharing
Trust is only  one such opportunity  that is responsible ,transparent with
funds using for specified purpose ,intersts paid as award subject to
administrative expenses Donors are regularly informed about distribution .
 Contributions are for ONCE  but  can be enhanced anytime
".Helping others in the memory of loved ones" is the moto
WE INVITE VOLUNTARY DONATIONS INCLUDING ENHANCEMENT ANY TIME.Facility U/S
80 G  , 50% deduction ITax Act. The reverse of citations carry resume of
Donee.

SCHEMES  SSC
presently honour rank holders upto  FOURTH.. Incentives for topping in
subjects ,.Toppers  std II(SMA) Std IV ( ACHS) .Maths Std IX toppers. Altar
Servers,( Boy and Girl ). Toppers in each school.  Awards for  toppers at
AVC includes Kon, Boy and girl, AVCC.  GBSHSE, LOYOLA , RHS ,GAHS, ZACL,
GEC, DSE Schools toppers  of Bicholim, Vasco, Navelim ,Chinchinim. COLVA,
MAJORDA .
HIGHER SECONDARY

Std XII Science also at MMHSS  ,Std XII CRM(MMHS), Std XII  Arts

 SCHOLARSHIPS

  for  toppers at GBSHE  , in Chinchinim for  Science Commerce,
Engineering, ,Medicine .etc.

TEACHER
 awards for Chinchinim by rotation  for Headmaster, Secondary , Primary,
Pre Primary ,Maths and PEd. Trs, besides sponsored Awards, and   for
teachers  16 DSE yearly 4 by rotation.Special Citations to PEd trs
connected with awards

SPORTS &MUSIC

Best boy & Girl, Basket ball,  Soccer,( Assolna),Volleyball, Athletics,
Violin, & western instrument.

Contact  9750926276, 9822384463,9405257132 ,9860384348
Nelson Lopes
Founder Chairman
Chinchinim
Nelson Lopes
Chinchinim
https://lopesnelsonnat.wordpress.com


------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2026 17:11:55 +0900
From: Vivek Pinto <[email protected]>
To: Goanet <[email protected]>
Subject: [Goanet] How a Christian Convert Took on a Butcher Judge in
	Colonial India
Message-ID:
	<CAH3OY9zSuGVyVzCAg9afzXkkG+=21C6qhjBo3zaEMean=uogWQ-JsoAwUIsXosN+BqQ9rBEUg@public.gmane.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

By: Mou Banerjee
Published in: *The Wire*
Date: February 2, 2026
Source:
https://thewire.in/books/how-a-christian-convert-took-on-a-butcher-judge-in-colonial-india
A Brahmin convert to Catholicism, Bhabanicharan Banerjee, had once
communicated his vision for a free nation in the toughest of circumstances
? while undergoing trial.

The following is an excerpt from *Mou Banerjee?s The Disinherited: The
Politics of Christian Conversion in Colonial India, *published by Harvard
University Press. The book is distributed in India by Harper Collins India.

Douglas Kingsford, the feared and hated judge, presided over an astonishing
scene in his court in September 1907. Judge Kingsford was already infamous
for his merciless treatment of prominent Bengali politicians and ideologues
during sedition? trials. He had sentenced nationalist leaders like Bipin
Chandra Pal and Bhupendranath Dutta to prison ?earlier in 1907

But on that hot autumn day, Kingsford found himself staring down a
particularly intractable culprit, who was being represented by an even more
obdurate barrister. The accused was a Brahmin convert to Catholicism,
Bhabanicharan Banerjee, who self-?styled himself as Brahmabandhab
(Theophilus) Upadhyay. He was the editor of a rabble-?rousing Bengali
vernacular periodical called the Sandhya. In this periodical, over its
four-?year print run from 1904 to 1908, Brahmabandhab Upadhyay espoused
armed extremism as the most important and immediate form of ?resistance to
colonial repression.

The paper was very cheap and cost one paisa, and by 1906 it had reached a
circulation of almost 7,000 copies a day. His editorials, written in
colloquial idiomatic Bengali, had taken that message to ?every corner of
Bengal, especially to the non-?elite Bengalis. His violent rhe?toric was a
response to the turbulent ?political atmosphere during the swadeshi or ?own
country? movement in Bengal and across India, which had emerged in protest
of the partition of Bengal by the viceroy Lord Curzon on October 16, 1905.

Brahmabandhab found himself in a difficult situation, since Kingsford had
often been the target of his revolutionary diatribes. He had smeared
Kingsford with the appellation of paji or ?wicked.? He also frequently
referred to Kingsford as the kasai kazi, or the ?Butcher Judge.? On August
28, 1907, a mere fortnight before his own arrest, Brahmabandhab learned
that Kingsford had ordered the whipping of a fifteen-?year-?old boy named
Sushil who was accused of brawling with the police. The magistrate turned a
deaf ear to all pleas for clemency on account of the boy?s youth.

Brahmabandhab was furious: ?The Government of Bengal has set up a Kasai
Kazi (a butcher of a Magistrate) at Lal Bazar. . . . Sushil Chandra Sen was
tried yesterday ?? one loathes to call it a trial ? he was butchered; how
to talk of a trial before a butcher!?

On September 21, 1907, as it became clear that Brahmabandhab faced a
lengthy and rigorous prison term, the Sandhya printed a parody of folk
singer Pagla Kanai?s songs, heaping obloquies on Kingsford:

The prison to me is Heaven.

O it is the kind ?favor of the butcher Kazi.

? Whatever may be our fate, brothers,

To the Andamans, if need be, we shall go!

Tempers ?were frayed inside the courtroom at Lal Bazar. Indecorous
confrontations between Upadhyay, his ?legal team, and the magistrate ?were
regular occurrences. The meanness of Kingsford?s conduct weighed heavi?ly
on the trial. The Bengalee, a newspaper founded and edited by Surendranath
Banerjee, a prominent leader of the ?Moderate? old-?school faction of the
Indian National Congress, which was usually restrained in its reportage,
recorded at least two such instances. On September 20, 1907, Brahmabandhab
and his counsel J. N. Roy were ?rudely? treated by a police constable, who
hit and pushed them around repeatedly. Kingsford took notice of the
incident and instructed the police to take steps to discipline the
constable, but TheBengalee went on to say, ?We are glad Mr. Kingsford took
prompt notice of the man?s conduct. But he must be very much mistaken if he
thinks that mere departmental punishment can satisfy public opinion in such
a case. Indeed, it is not enough that the man should be punished. The
public must know what punishment he receives for his misconduct.?

Kingsford was rude and condescending to Brahmabandhab?s ?legal counsel, the
young barrister Chittaranjan Das, who would emerge as one of the most
important nationalist politicians in India in the next two ?decades. On
October 5, Chittaranjan had requested a short break in the court
proceedings so he could eat lunch, being dizzy with hunger due to Kingsford
only allowing a thirty-?minute break during the day. Most barristers and
?lawyers usually went home for lunch in ?those days, making the half-?hour
break insufficient. Faced with Chittaranjan?s polite request, Kingsford
behaved as if his dignity as a judge had been affronted and accused him of
purposefully wasting the court?s time. The incident was, once again,
reported widely in the Bengali press. TheBengalee opined ruefully on the
deteriorating relationships between the Indian barristers and the British
judges and the judiciary?s overt expression of racial prejudices: ?Surely,
Mr. Kingsford could easily have avoided being as discourteous as he was,
without any detriment to the cause of justice. Mr. Kingsford is not only
not cordial to Mr. Das, but is positively rude?.Would he have treated it
the way he did if it had proceeded from an English Barrister??

Noting the many daily humiliations the magistrate heaped on both the
accused and his ?legal team, Chittaranjan Das was naturally worried about
judicial impartiality. His ?daughter Aparna Devi left ?behind a poignant
portrait of Chittaranjan and his client, exasperated by Kingsford?s petty
tyranny, lack of decorum, and refusal to maintain any pretension of
impartiality or even civil behavior ?toward Indians:
Father decided to represent Brahmabandhab Upadhyay. . . . During the trial,
my ?father protested against the prejudiced conduct of Magistrate
Kingsford. . . . My ?father said to Brahmabandhab, ?I feel a ?great
reluctance in? going back to the court of that unreasonably behaved
magistrate?? I regret that it seems you may have to go to prison.?

Brahmabandhab smiled and replied, ?I assure you ?? the ?English lack the
power to imprison me.?

The case was temporarily adjourned while Das made an ultimately
unsuccessful application in the Calcutta High Court to have the trial
shifted to another judge. While Kingsford and the government attorney Mr.
Gregory asked for a continuation of the trial, Brahmabandhab had already
refused to defend himself in a judicial court administering British
justice. To him, the British were an alien power, with no right of
jurisdiction over Indian patriots.

Brahmabandhab had always been an extraordinary prose stylist: the
popularity of the Sandhya, and the unease that his fiery language caused
among British administrators, reflects his charisma and the power of his
stirring speeches. Standing on the dock, Brahmabandhab now made an
impassioned plea that rocked the very foundation of the civilizing mission
that purportedly justified British imperialism: the creation of Pax
Britannica in India.

In his statement, he said:
I accept the entire responsibility of the publication, management and
conduct of the newspaper, ?Sandhya? and I say that I am the writer of the
article, ?Ekhane theke gechhi premer dai,? which appeared in the Sandhya of
the 13th August, 1907, being one of the articles forming the
subject-?matter of this prosecution. But I do not want to take any part in
this trial, because I do not believe that in carrying out my humble share
of the God-?appointed mission of Swaraj, I am in any way accountable to the
alien ? people who happen to rule over us, and whose interest is and must
necessarily be in the way of our true national development.

This was a remarkable statement. To his contemporaries, both the young
Bengali revolutionaries and the intelligent?sia, Brahmabandhab?s supreme
defiance of the colonial law of sedition was a personal and national
declaration of? independence. For Brahmabandhab, au?then?tic nationalism,
and the creation of an ethical vision of swaraj(self-? government) and
swadesh (one?s own country), depended on discrediting an alternate vision
of colonial modernity?s superiority. By refusing to be judged on racial and
civilizational criteria thinly veiled as? legal discourse, Brahmabandhab
sought to delegitimize the ideological foundations of Anglo-? Indian law
and the politics of imperial liberalism that made British rule in India
pos?si?ble.

Brahmabandhab?s alternate vision was for a modern, ?free nation that was
strong in the power of arms to keep itself secure from foreign depredation,
a nation where the dignity and self-?respect of its ?people was
unassailable. He recognised, as Elizabeth Kolsky has pointed out, that ?the
rule in India must be understood from its inception as integrally linked to
a princi?ple of racial inequality and to a practice of legal
exceptionalism.?

His statement before Kingsford at the trial, read out by Chittaranjan on
September 23, 1907, is in many ways a ?political declaration of his
patriotic ideology: we get a glimpse of the intellectual basis of his
opposition to colonial rule through his comments before the ?Butcher
Judge.? But it is also a glimpse into the soul of this enigmatic man. He
defined his purpose in terms of love for his country, his patriotism,
rather than the Brahminical Hindu faith of his birth or the Catholic
Chris?tian?ity that he had embraced.

*Mou Banerjee is a historian. Banerjee received their Ph.D. from the
Department of History at Harvard in 2018.*
*Copyright ? 2025 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.*


End of Goanet Digest, Vol 21, Issue 59
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