<P> The nationalists in the freedom struggle of India dubbed the Calcutta University, another pillar of India's education movement, as "Goldighir Ghulamkhana", or the slave house of Goldighi, with reference to the lake adjacent to Calcutta University, and the number of graduates it churned out who were used in the British era as ICS officers . Hence, the need for setting up an institution which would impart education along nationalist lines was strongly felt by the luminaries of the period . The real impetus though was provided by the partition of Bengal by Lord Curzon, the then Governor - General of India, into East Bengal on the one hand (the area that was eventually to become Bangladesh in 1971) and West Bengal and Odisha on the other . The young men of Bengal were amongst the most active in the Swadeshi movement, and the participation of university students drew the ire of the Raj . R.W. Carlyle prohibited the participation of students in political meetings on the threat of withdrawal of funding and grants . The decade preceding these decrees had seen Bengali intellectuals increasingly calling for indigenous schools and colleges to replace British institutions . </P> <P> On 16 November 1905, the Landholders Society organized a meeting at Park Street, attended by around 1500 delegates, including Rabindranath Tagore, Aurobindo Ghosh, Raja Subodh Chandra Mullick and Brajendra Kishore Roychowdhury . The idea of the National Council of Education was mooted here . While in a meeting held on 9 November 1905 at the Field and Academic Club, Subodh Chandra Mullick pledged Rupees one lakh for the foundation of a National University in Bengal . The objective in setting up the institution that was to challenge the British rule over education by offering education to the masses' on national lines and under national control' . </P> <P> Generous sums of money were also donated by Brojendra Kishore Roy Choudhury, Maharaja Suryya Kanto Acharya Choudhury and Rashbihari Ghosh, who was appointed the first president of the university . Aurobindo served as the first principal of the college . The organisation in its early days was intricately associated with the nascent revolutionary nationalism in Bengal at the time . It was during his time as principal that Aurobindo started his nationalist publications Jugantar, Karmayogin and Bande Mataram . </P> <P> The students' mess at the college was frequented by students of East Bengal who belonged to the Dhaka branch of the Anushilan Samiti, and was known to be hotbed of revolutionary nationalism, which was uncontrolled or even encouraged by the college . </P>

Who was the first principal of bengal national school and college