Satyendra Prasanno Sinha, 1st Baron Sinha of Raipur (24 March 1863 – 5 March 1928) was a prominent lawyer and statesman in British India. He was of Indian ancestry, and set many "first"s:
- in 1908, he became the first Indian to be appointed as Advocate-General of Bengal ;
- in 1909, he became the first Indian member of the Governor-General of India's Executive Council ;
- in 1919, he became the first Indian to be appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for India ;
- also in 1919, he became the first Indian member of the British House of Lords;
- he was appointed Governor of the Province of Bihar and Orissa in 1920, becoming the first Indian to be appointed governor of an Indian province, but retired on grounds of health in 1921.
Early life
Sinha was born in Raipur, Calcutta, Bengal, India into a wealthy family of the Hindu Kayastha caste. He was the youngest son of Sitikantha Sinha, zamindar of Raipur. He married Gobinda Mohini Mitter on 15 May 1880 at Mahata , Burdwan, Bengal and studied law in England from 1881 to 1886 at Lincoln's Inn, returning to Calcutta as a barrister.
From 1886, he and his wife became followers of Sadharan Brahmo Samaj , becoming leading members of the Brahmo Samaj faith community. He had three sons (Aroon Kumar Sinha , Sirsir Kumar Sinha and Sushil Kumar Sinha , born on 22 August 1887, 22 September 1890, and 9 June 1894 respectively) and four daughters (Tarun Kumar Sinha , born 9 February 1899, and three others).
Career
After returning to India in 1886, Sinha established has a successful legal practice in Calcutta. He was a member of the Indian National Congress from 1896 to 1919, when, along with other moderates, he left the organisation. He was elected to preside over the Bombay session of the Congress in 1915.
Sinha became Standing Counsel of the Government of India in 1903. He was the first Indian to be appointed as Advocate-General of Bengal in 1908, and the first Indian member of the Governor-General's Executive Council in 1909. He went to England in 1914 as a member of the War Conference following the outbreak of the First World War, and represented India in the Peace Conference in Europe in 1919.
He was knighted in the New Year's Honours List on 1 January 1915. He was the first Indian to be appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Indian Office in 1919. In the same year, was elevated to the Peerage, created Baron Sinha of Raipur in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, becoming the first Indian member of the British House of Lords, taking his seat in February 1919. After his ennoblement, he navigated a bill regulating the Government of India through the House of Lords, which became the Government of India Act 1919, which transferred legislative power from the Governor-General of India to an Indian Legslature as a step towards self-government. Sinha also became a member of the Privy Council.
He became Governor of the Province of Bihar and Orissa in 1920, the first Indian to be appointed governor of an Indian province, but retired on grounds of health in 1921. He became a member of the judicial committee of the Privy Council in 1926.
Controversy over succession
When the first Baron Sinha died in 1928, he ought to have been succeeded in his title by his first son, Aroon Kumar Sinha . However, Aroon Sinha had been born at a time when there was no system of registration of births and marriages in India, so he was unable to prove his claim to the title to the satisfaction of the House of Lords.
In 1936, Aroon Sinha presented petition for a Writ of Summons to Parliament, but objections were raised that Aroon's father was a Hindu (and so could have lawfully taken more than one wife, although in fact he had not) and so Aroon was the offspring of a "potentially polygamous marriage", and that Aroon, as an Indian, was not entitled to inherit the title. The petition which was referred to the Committee for Privileges on 27 June 1938, and a Commission was appointed to take evidence in Calcutta. Ultimately, on 25 July 1939, the Viscount Maugham in the Committee for Privileges decided that Aroon had made good his claim.
More controversy followed in the 1950s, when Lord Sinha was refused a British passport: eventually, he was issued a passport in 1955 which described him as a British subject.
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