Azimullah Khan Yusufzai
Azimullah Khan Yusufzai was born to a poor family in India. When he was seven, he and his mother found shelter at a British Christian mission (like a community center) during a famine (lack of food). Azimullah was educated at the mission school, where he learned English and French, but he refused to convert to Christianity because he was a Muslim. After he left the mission school, he went to work as a secretary to several British military officers.
Azimullah became the secretary and advisor to Nana Sihib, an Indian noble whose family had given up its land to the British East India Company in return for a yearly payment. Nana Sihib was involved in a conflict with the British East India Company because the Company had decided to stop making the annual payment to his family. In 1853, Nana Sihib sent Azimullah to England to directly ask the officers of the British East India Company to start making the payments again.
Azimullah’s trip to England had a deep impact on him. He saw the dirty and polluted industrial cities full of poor British workers. He realized that, in contrast to the British in India who lived in large houses with servants, most people in Britain did not live much better than people in India. Azimullah was upset and offended when the Company refused to change its decision about paying Nana Sihib. On his return to India, Azimullah traveled to see the fighting in the Crimean War between England and Russia. He saw the sick British soldiers suffering under poor leadership. Though he failed to get the money for Nana Sihib's family, Azimullah returned India knowing that the British had no special ability that the Indians lacked and that it was possible to militarily defeat the British.
When he returned to India, Azimullah encouraged Nana Sihib to turn against the British. He also began to produce anti-British writings with a printing press he had brought back from Europe. In 1857, when the Sopoy soldiers (Indian soldiers working for British East India Company) rebelled against the British, Azimullah convinced Nana Sihib to support the rebellion. Nana Sihib became a leader in the rebellion – including ordering the massacre of British women and children when the British surrendered at Cawnpore. While it is unknown what happened to Azimullah after the British crushed the rebellion, he most likely died of a fever in 1859 on the run from the British in the north of India.
Surendranath Banerjee
Surendranath Banerjee was born to a wealthy and noble family in India in 1848. His father was a doctor and made sure that Banerjeee received a liberal education. After graduating from university, Banerjee travelled to England to take the Indian Civil Service Exam. This exam was given once a year in England and it was necessary to pass the exam to get a position in the British colonial government in India. The British set up the exam in England to make it very difficult for any Indian person to take and pass the exam. Banerjee was the first Indian to pass the exam in 1869. The British government still made it hard to him to get a job and it took him two years to get a position as an assistant to a judge. However, Banerjee was soon fired from his job because of British racism toward Indians.
In 1875, Banerjee became a professor of English in India and began to organize the Indian National Association, the first political organizations for Indians. He travelled across India giving speeches attacking the British for their racial discrimination against Indians. This made him very popular across India. Four years later, he founded a newspaper to support his political movement. Using his organization as a base, in 1885 he participated in the founding of the Indian National Congress and became its president in 1895. Banerjee believed that it was important for Indian leaders to work slowly with the British to win political power for the Indians.
As the leader of the Indian National Congress, Banerjee argued that they should work with the British and was against Indian leaders who wanted to have revolution against the British to win independence from Britain. However, in the early twentieth century, British rule became more unpopular with the Indian population and Banerjee, with his moderate views, lost the support of many in India. In 1921, Banerjee was knighted for his support for the British Empire. In the last years of his life, he was the prime minister of a self-governing region in northeast India.