S. K. Rudra
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Susil Kumar Rudra (7 January 1861 – 29 June 1925) was an Indian educationalist and associate of Mahatma Gandhi and C F Andrews who served as the first Indian principal of St Stephen's College, Delhi.
Rudra was a second generation Bengali Christian from a large land holding family of Bansberia in the Hooghly District of Bengal. His father Pyari Mohun Rudra converted to Christianity in 1860 under the influence of the Scottish missionary Alexander Duff and his mother followed suit the following year. His father subsequently became a missionary working with the Church Mission Society in Calcutta and in rural Bengal. Rudra graduated from the University of Calcutta and left for Punjab where he became a member of staff of St Stephen's College in 1886.[1]
Rudra married Priyobala Singh in 1889 who died of typhoid in 1897. The couple had three sons, the youngest of whom, Ajit Anil Rudra, was one of the first Indians to receive the King's Commission in the Punjab Regiment, going on to become a Major General in the Indian Army.[2]
At St Stephen's College
Rudra worked at St Stephen's College from 1886 until his retirement in 1923 where he variously taught English, economics and logic. In 1906, he became its fourth, and first Indian, principal and served in that post until his retirement in 1923. It is thought that Rudra might have been the first Indian to hold that post in any missionary institution in India. Under Rudra, the college grew both in size and reputation and became a largely residential college. Along with C F Andrews, Rudra drew up a constitution for the college that helped Indianise it, gradually moving administrative control away from its founders, the Cambridge Brotherhood. It was also under him that a policy of equal pay for staff irrespective of race was adopted at the college.[2][3]