Debendranath Tagore's third son, is notable for being the first ever Brahmo as he was the first child born in 1844 to any of the 21 Brahmos who swore the first Brahmo Covenant on 21st Dec 1843 at Kolkata.
An intesely private person, he was also known by his three qualities.
1. A strict disciplinarian entrusted with responsibility of looking after the education of his younger brothers,
2. As the administrator of the large family estates of Debendranath's branch of the Tagore family, and
3. While alive, he was also the constant spiritual companion to his father, Debendranath Tagore, who founded Brahmoism, and despite his extreme youth, acted as the channel between his father and the seniors of the Tattwabodhini Sabha.
Educational career :
Like most of Debendranath's children, he had varied interest in different fields and was a polymath. He had much interest in science and attended the Calcutta Medical College (established by his grand father Dwarakanath Tagore). He wrote articles on Physical Science which he planned to compile and edit into a text book for school students. If his early death had not prevented him from completing the project, this would certainly had been the first science text book to be written in Bengali.
From 1867 Hemendranath Tagore began conducting his first experiments into radio waves and electromagnetic propagations. Between 1872-1873 he wrote several articles on the results of his research, these were transcribed by another Brahmin, Ramendra Sundar Trivedi. In 1874, he compiled the first scholarly Asian work on physics entitled Prakritik Vijnaner Sthulamarma which was updated in 1878-79.
Since the knowledge contained within was potentially explosive, its circulation was restricted only to Brahmins of the Adi Brahmo Samaj.
Built like a bull, he was known for his extraordinary physical strength and prowess in wrestling contests - described as being a "renowned wrestler", as also his expertise in martial arts like judo and ninjitsu. He was also an adept of ancient Raj Yoga at the highest levels with control over time and space.
Exceptionally modern for the times, after siring three sons, he sired only daughters thereafter and insisted on formal education for all of them. He not only put them through schools but trained them in music, arts, and European Languages such as German and French. It was another mark of his forward looking mentality that he actively sought out eligible grooms from different parts of India for his daughters.
He arranged marriages for his daughters in UP and Assam. A staunch modernist, he instituted various financial trusts for the womenfolk of Tagore family (specially his sisters) and was responsible for settling the Santiniketan estate near Bolpur which later evolved into Viswa Bharati.
A practical and scientific humanist, he was deeply loved by the peasants of his estates in India and Bangladesh. After his death in 1884, his brothers especially Rabindranath Tagore and Satyendranath Tagore revoked all the trusts, destroyed the papers of Dwarakanath Tagore, cheated their sisters from their patrimony, squandered the family money, and rack-rented the peasantry who rose up in revolt ( Ref: Hemendranath Tagore encyclopedia topcs/ Reference.com, http://www.ask.com/, http://en.wikipedia.org/).
