Surendra Kumar Datta

Surendra Kumar Datta MBE (1878–1948), also spelt as Surendra Kumar Dutta or S. K. Dutta, was an Indian Christian delegate to the Second Round Table Conference in London, a prominent YMCA leader, and a member of Central Legislative Assembly – also called Imperial Legislative Assembly before Indian independence – a lower house of a bicameral parliament synonymous to the current Lok Sabha after Indian independence.

He was born in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1878, and got educated in Lahore. He did Medicine from University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh. He married Rena Carswell, a Scottish Irish woman and secretary in the World Student Christian Federation(WSCF) in Geneva. He served as the lecturer teaching history and biology between 1909 and 1914 in Foreman Christian College, Lahore. He served as principal between 1932 and 1942, and later became the president of the same college.

He succeeded K. T. Paul as general secretary of Young Men's Christian Association(YMCA) and eventually became president of the Indian YMCA. He worked as national secretary of the YMCAs of India, Burma, and Ceylon(present Sri Lanka) from 1919 to 1927. He along with K.T. Paul and V.S. Azariah were the prominent YMCA leaders, though, YMCA didn't directly involve in politics as it was run by the financial support of foreign donors beside an evangelistic agency, formed under the initiatives of missionaries; however, under the leadership of K.T. Paul and S.K. Datta, they made the YMCA known and respected not only in India but also in Europe and North America. He served as president of the All India Conference of Indian Christians in 1925, 1933, and 1934. After a lengthy service with YMCA, S.K. Datta was also associated with WSCF along with his wife Rena Datta. In June 1918, he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services in the YMCA during the First World War.

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