Panchanan Barma

Who is Panchanan Barma?

Panchanan Barma, also known as Thakur Panchanan and Roy Saheb, was a Rajbanshi leader and reformer from Cooch Behar. He established Kshatriya Sabha in order to inculcate Brahminical values and practices among the people from Rajbanshi community.

Panchanan Barma originally came from a jotedar family of Cooch Behar. He was born at Khalisamari village in erstwhile Cooch Behar State. He graduated from Victoria College, Cooch Behar which was then affiliated with the University of Calcutta with an honours in Sanskrit in 1893. Later passed MA and LLB in 1897 and 1898 respectively from the same university. In the early years of his career, he started practicing law at Rangpur court. In Rangpur he was shocked by the refusal of a high caste lawyer to use a toga, previously used by him. In the following years, he led a kshatriyazation movement among Rajbanshi community of Bengal. In order to be respected and accepted by the upper caste Bengalis Panchanan felt the Rajbanshis must get organized and educated, which he tried to achieve through the ‘Kshatriya Samity’. Understandably, the samity tried to prove that Rajbanshis were Kshatriyas with a royal lineage, suggesting a historical link with Bhaskarvarman, the king of Kamarupa. Based on Sanskrit literature and Brahmin pundits they also claimed to be Kshatriyas hiding their true identity for centuries. In support of this claim the movement involved a ceremonial kshatriyaization process - brahminical rituals were performed to convert thousands of Rajbanshis to ‘Kshatriya Rajbanshi’ in the villages of North Bengal. In 1921, Panchanan was selected to the Bengal Legislative Assembly after winning the general election. Panchanan died in Kolkata on September 9, 1935.