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Bankimchandra Chatterjee (1838-1894) was born in the village of

Kanthalpara in the district of 24-Parganas on 27 June, 1838. Bankimchandra
was one of the two students of the first B.A. batch of the University of
Calcutta. Following in his father's footsteps, Bankimchandra joined the
Subordinate Executive Service and became a deputy magistrate and deputy
collector. As an officer of the colonial government, he did his job well, and, in
recognition of his service, received the titles of Rai Bahadur in 1891 and
Companion of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire (CMEOIE) in
1894. Though Bankimchandra gained from his career the necessary
experience, he made a place for himself in history not as an executive officer
but as a writer and an intellectual.

While a deputy magistrate at Baruipur in the district of 24-Parganas,

Bankimchandra wrote his first two celebrated novels: Durgeshnandini (1865)
and Kapalkundala (1866). Others followed in quick succession, till, by 1887,
all fourteen of Bankim's novels had been published, along with other prose
works. Anandamath (1882) is possibly Bankim's last notable literary work.
Anandamath (The Mission House of Felicity, 1882) is a political novel. The
novel also contains the song "Vande Mataram" (Hail the Mother) which was
set to music by Rabindranath Tagore.