On this day, at the initiative of H.H. Wilson, who had become secretary to the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1811, a number of Indians were elected for the first time as members of the society.
Among them were Dwarakanath Tagore, Sivchandra Das, Maharaja Bunwari Govind Roy, Raja Kalikrishna Bahadur, Ram Kamal Sen and Prasanna Coomar Tagore.
On December 12, 1832, Ram Kamal Sen was elected the first “Native Secretary” of the society. Rajendralal Mitra was to become its first Indian president in 1885.
Wilson, an eminent Orientalist who was appointed the first Boden professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University on his return to England, had opposed the proposal of stressing English as the medium of education for Indians.
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