Bengali Tola Intermediate College
In ancient India Varanasi was considered to be the most revered seat of learning Great scholars of Vedit philosophies such as Vedenta, Meemansa, Nyaya etc. used to teach their disciples here. Lord Buddha and Parsawanatha established the roots of Scholars of different thoughts and ideologies established their schools and centers in this city and thus the city gained a reputation as a center of education over the ages. During the regime of East India Company, the Queen’s College was established in 1791. After a few years in 1814 Maharaja Jay Narayan Ghosal established the Jaynarayan Pathshala which later on transformed to Jaynarayan Intermediate College.
To provide modern education to the masses Late Kesab Chandra Mitra established a Primary English School in the Ramapura area of the city. The school was inaugurated on the auspicious occasion of Vasanta Panchami 1854. During those days there were many schools in Varanasi where subjects like Sanskrit, Hindi and Urdu were being taught but there was no plae for English and Bengali languages in those schools. Keeping this fact in view, Mir. Mitra made arrangements to teach both English and Bengali languages in his school. The school began with only tweleve students, The number of students went on increasing with time and in 1856 Late Mr. Mahesh C. Sarkar provided space for the school in his own house at Madanpura area which has a larger space. The name of the school was changed to Anglo Vernacular School and upgraded to the level of middle school. During those days no fees were charged from the students and some scholarships were also given to the meritorious students at Jaynarayan Pathshala. In spite of that the number of students in the Anglo Vernacular School went on increasing. The then manager of the school Late (Dr.) Girish C. Chatterjee put a lot of efforts selflessly for the development of the school and as a result the educated people of Varanasi got attracted towards the school and donated about six thousand rupees which were used to purchase a piece of land at Pandey Haveli, Varanasi (where the school is presently situated). One hall and four classrooms were built at that time.
In 1865 the school started running in tis own building and in 1867 the students of this school appreared in the middle school examination conducted by the then North Western Province. One of the successful students of that batch was Late Ray Bahadur Abhay Charan Sanyal, M.A.., F.C.S. who later on served the Queens College as a science teacher. Late Mr. Nityagopal Chatterjee who was a graduate from Calcutta University was the Headmaster of the school those days. The school received a grant of Rs. 451 form the Government for the first time in 1865 which made a very good impact on the local people and students of the school. In 1871 Lord William Moure visited the school and praised the arrangements and expressed his good wishes. This was a milestone in the history of development of the school.
With time fame of the school went on increasing and financial grants were obtained from the Varanasi municipality and later from the state government. With the help of local people of Varanasi the land adjacent to the school premises was purchased by Rs. 8000 and during 1914-15 more rooms were constructed spending Rs. 36000 out of which Rs. 31459 was received as a grant from the Government. Further constructions were made in 1921 and 1935 and the main entrance was shifted to the eastern side. In 1949 Late N.N. Biswas constructed a gymnasium in the southern part of the school in the memory of his brother. In view of the increasing number of students the school and constructed six rooms in the ground floor (and later six rooms in the first floor).
As mentioned earlier the first headmaster of the school Mr. Nityagopal chatterjee took charge in 1867 and the same year first batch of students appreared in the middle school examination. After the retirement of Mr. Chatterjee Late Mr. Manmatha Nath Choudhary, took charge of the school followed by Late Madhusudan Choudhari and Late Annada Charan Dutta successively.
In 1886 Late Bholanath Banerjee became the Headmaster of the school and he took all the efforts to upgrade the school to high school level and also changed the name to Bengali Tola School. Students of this school appeared in the Entrance Examinaiton (of Calcutta University) in 1873 for the first time and consequently the name of the school was also changed to Bengali Tola High School in 1896. The school got an affiliation form the Allahabad University after the later was established and the students appeared in the Entrance Exmination conducted by the Allahabad University until 1924 after which the UP board of secondary education started conducting high school examination. Late Bholanath Banerjee continued till 1931 and during his tenure as Headmaster Science laboratory and Lecture theaters were constructed.
Bengali Tola High School did not stayed untouched by the freedom movement. A number of teachers and students actively took part in the struggle for freedom; some of them sacrificed their lives, some were exiled and imprisoned. Among the teachers Late Sushil Kumar Lahiri, Bijay Nath Chakraborty, Ramesh Chandra Joyardar and among the students Late Shacheendra Nath Sanyal, Suresh Chandra Bhattacharya, Jitendra Nath Sanyal, Priyanath Bhattacharya, Rabindra Nath Sanyal, Surendra Nath Mukherjee, Bibhuti Bhusan Ganguly and Rajendra Nath Lahiri are to name a few. As a result of these activities the School had to sufer anger of the British government for sometime, however, the quality of education and excellent results in the board exmination slowly reduced the ire.
Late Upendra Nath Ghosh became headmaster in 1931 who was succeeded by Late Khsiteesh Bakshi. In 1931 Late Raghunath Bhattacharya became the Headmaster of the school. He was a very disciplined but popular person. He used to pay personal attention to each and every student. In view of the increasing number of students the school started running in two shifts. During his tenure as the headmaster the school was upgraded to intermediate (arts stream) level and the name of the school became Bengali Tola Intermediate College in 1952. Very soon the secondary education board extended affiliation for the science stream (physics, chemistry and mathematics) (1953) and commerce stream (1955) at the intermediate level. Late Raghunath Bhattacharya was succeeded by Late Haripada Banerjee, Late Priyanath Bhattacharya, Late Ahibhushan Bhattacharya and Late Jagadish Chandra Chakraborty.
The managing committee in 1957 decided to split the school into two sections: The Primary section (from class I to V) used to run during morning shift and the secondary section (from class VI to XII) during the day shift. Late Haricharan Banerjee took the chair of Headmaster of the primary section who was succeeded by Late Mrs. Sudhanshubala Sengupta, Mrs. Saraswati Mitra, Ms. Ibha Choudhury, Ms. Gayatri Chakraborty, Ms. Chhanda Chakraborty, Ms. Mitali Chatterjee and presently Mrs. Lipika Bhattacharya.
In 1960 an aluminous of the school Anil Chandra Banerjee became principal (of the intermediate college section) and continued till 1980. In 1972 the family members of Late Ranendra Nath Moitra (Ex. president of the managing committee) donated Rs. 10,000 for establishing a biology laboratory for the intermediate level Rs. 10000 was obtained from the government and the new laboratory was established by spending Rs. 30000 and due to the efforts of the then Principal Late Anil Chandra Banerjee the affiliation for biology subject from the board was obtained. Mr. Banerjee contributed a lot to the development of the college. The hall was renovated, 13 new classrooms were built, number of students increased considerably and new teachers were appointed.
After the retirement of Late Mr. Banerjee, Late Manindra Nath Bhattacharya became principal. He was succeeded by Late (Dr.) Ganesh Shankar Mishra who was a recipient of national teacher’s award. In 1994 Mr. Annapurna Pd. Mishra became principal. Though he chaired for only four years yet he made sincere efforts for the development of the college. He arranged to renovate old classrooms, the boundary wall and stoppted the entry of undesireable elements in the school premises. Teacher-Guardian association was formed through which a few teachers were appointed at a fixed monthly honorarium and the school got the services of these teachers in addition to those appointed by the department.
Though regular grants are being received from the government from which the salaries of teachers and staff are disbursed, yet a lot of money is required for running the college.The tireless efforts by the managing committee made it possible to maintain and improve ithe infrastucture of the college. Dr. Sandeep Kumar Sen (Ex. president of managing committee) took all the expenses to modernize the hall, stage for cultural programmes and restuctured the main gate of the school. During the 150th year, a new hall was constructed in the north side of the school by the generous support from the vidhayak nidhi (MLA’s fund), sansad nidhi (MPs fund). This could be made possible due to this kind attitude of Respected Shyam Dev Roy Choudhury, Ex. M.L.A. and Shri Kalraj Mishraji, the then M.P. of Rajyasabha. Today, there are electricity generators, computer laboratory, modern science laboratories, stage for cultural programs and facilities for indoor and outdoor games.
After the retirement of Shri Annapurna Prasad Mishra as Principal - Late S.S. Lal, Late Khudiram Chattopadhayay, Shri R.P. Chourosia and presently Dr. Jai Prakash Pandey became the Principal of this college.
During the above period the committee of management headed by Late (Dr.) R.N. Moitra, Late B.G. Verma, Late (Dr.) S.R. Choudhury, Late R.N. Bose, Late Prof. K.K. Dey, Late (Dr.) S.K. Sen, Prof. Dr. Sujit Kumar Bhattacharya and prsently Prof. Dr. J.K. Roy has been serving this institution as its Presidents and as Secretary/ Managers of the committee Late (Adv.) B.C. Gupta, Late J.C. Bhattacharya, Late (Adv.) S.C. Dey, Late (Dr.) Lalit Kumar, Late P. Bose, Shri Purnendu Bhattacharya and presently Shri Ashok Kanti Chakravarty has been serving this institution. The committee of which Shri Purnendu Bhattacharya was the Secretary/ Manager celebrated both 125 years and 150 years jubillee celebration of the college. Shri Bhattacharya's committee was one of the pillars for the construction of northen side building and extra class-rooms of the college.
Amongst our further plan -
The need of this time is to construct a multipurpose hall at his southern side of the college and also to have few more class-rooms on its 1st and 2nd floor of Pandey Haveli road side and its present principals’ room.
The present Secretary/ Manager Shri Ashok Kanti Chakravarty could manage to collect two lakhs of rupees for the award of various scholarships from the endowment reserev. The present hall which was last renovated during the early regime of Late A.C. Banerjee Principal has now gone highly dilapidated. Shri Saurav Srivastava, the present M.L.A. of Varanasi Cantt. area had very kindly sanctioned Rs. 13.71 few lakhs for its renovation including ceiling, painting and tiles.
The present committee of management has completly renovated the Primary Section building including the colouring of its outer walls. The rooms of both LKG and UKG have been painted in different drawings arts made by the teachers.
In view of the execellent performance of he sutdents in the board examiniations a large number of students seek admission in the college every year. The college is situated in highly populated area at the heart of the city and there is no possibility of expansion as no land is available in the nearby area. The only option is to construct some new structures above the first and second floors so that more classrooms and laboratories are made available. All these are possible with the help of generous donations form the people who are willing to promote quality education to the students belonging to middle and lower middle classes.
