Chandra Kumar Agarwala - Pratimar Khonikor

Chandra Kumar Agarwala was a noted writer, journalist and poet of Assam. He was the pioneer of the Jonaki era of Assamese literature, which was the age of romanticism. He was the brother of writer and poet Ananda Chandra Agarwala and uncle of Jyoti Prasad Agarwala. Chandra Kumar Agarwala was the founder member of Oxomiya Bhaxa Unnati Xadhini Xobha, a literary organization of Assam. This organization was founded by him along with his friends Hemchandra Goswami and Lakshminath Bezbarua. The three together were called "Trimurti of Assamese literature" for their contribution towards modern Assamese literature.

Known as Pratimar Khonikor, Chandra Kumar Agarwala was born on 28th November 1867 at Brahmajan near Gohpur in Sonitpur district to Haribilash Agarwala, who was an affluent business man. He started his initial education at Tezpur and after completion of matriculation from Tezpur Government High School; he went to Calcutta to study at Presidency College. After successful completion of FA, he enrolled himself in BA course but owing to some unknown reasons he did not complete it and returned back to Assam. On returning to his home town, he started an Assamese weekly by the name of Axomiya in the year 1918, which was published from Dibrugarh but very soon shifted to Guwahati and started its publication from there.

While he was studying at Kolkata, he became intimate friends with Hemchandra Goswami and Lakshminath Bezbarua and together founded the literary organization named Oxomiya Bhaxa Unnati Xadhini Xobha in the year 1888. This organization was established for the upliftment of Assamese language and literature as well as had an intention to collect and publish old manuscripts, introduce Assamese at all levels of school education, prepare a correct and reliable grammar and homogenize the Assamese spelling structure, arrange textbooks, etc. The organization also published a literary journal named Jonaki, which was first published in the year 1889 and Chandra Kumar Agarwala was its first editor. Besides being one of the ground-breakers of Jonaki Era, he was also the pioneer of journalism movement of Assam by publishing the first ever Assamese weekly Axomiya. This weekly became very popular among the people as a number of articles on important events, issues pertaining to the state and incidents were published. He also wrote a number of poetry and was capable of grabbing a noteworthy position in the Assamese literary world by bringing romanticism in Assamese poetry. His uncomplicated expressions in lyrical form beautifully illustrated the undying love of human, mysticism of soul, nature and magnanimity of life.

Although, Chandra Kumar Agarwala never actively participated in politics or even in the freedom struggle, he was highly influenced by the ideology and philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. When in the year 1921 Gandhiji came to Assam, he stayed at Agarwala’s house, which gave him an opportunity to meet Gandhiji in person and it influenced him so much so that he gave up the western style of living and started wearing hand woven khaddar dress and cap. Ruling the literary world of Assam from the later half of 19th century to the first half of the 20th century, this great writer, poet and journalist died on March 2, 1938 at his residence at Uzanbazar in Guwahati and his death brought an end to a magnificent and splendid period of Assamese literature.