Mookerjee served as a lecturer of mathematics and mathematical physics at the Indian Association for the Cultivation for Science from 1887 to 1889. He presided over the first Indian Science Congress in 1914; was elected President of the Asiatic Society four times, a record in the annals of the Society up to his time. He also excelled as an eminent legal luminary of pre-independent India and his judgements as a Judge of the Calcutta High Court is still quoted as masterpieces of judgment.
Mookerjee’s long association with Calcutta University started in 1889 as a Fellow and the same year he became a Member of the Syndicate of the University at the age of 25. He served as President of the Board of Studies in Mathematics. In 1906, Mookerjee was invited by the Viceroy of India, Lord Minto, to be the Vice Chancellor of the University. He remained as Vice Chancellor for four consecutive two-year terms till 1914. He was again appointed as Vice Chancellor in 1921 and remained in the post till 1923. He did not continue further as Lord Lytton tried to impose conditions on his appointment. He is best known for his pioneering role in broadening the scope of higher education in the country. As Vice Chancellor of Calcutta University, he started postgraduate studies and research in the University and integrated teaching and research at the university level for the first time in the country. Before Mookerjee became the Vice-Chancellor, Calcutta University was merely an examining body. Mookerjee started some post-graduate departments in science. He also played an instrumental role in strengthening the teaching of arts subjects. Mookerjee was responsible for the foundation of the Bengal Technical Institute.
As Vice Chancellor, hispriority was to establish post-graduate teaching departments,both in science and arts. Hismove was strongly opposed bythe British Government. He could not expect any additional financial support for his move. However, Mookerjee achieved his goal against all odds. He could achieve his goal because of the spontaneous support from TaraknathPalit and Rash BehariGhosh. TaraknathPalit made an initial donation of Rs.13.66 lakh to the University for two Professorships−one each in chemistry and physics. Palit also donated to the University a plot of land and a residential building. The first Palit Professorship was offered to Prafulla Chandra Ray who took up the assignment in 1916 after his retirement from the Presidency College.
Mookerjee invited Chandrasekhar Venkata Raman to become the first Palit Professor of Physics. Raman joined the University in 1917. Rash BehariGhosh made an initial donation of Rs.10.46 lakh, out of which four Professorships were created, one each in applied mathematics, physics, chemistry and botany. The first incumbents to these four Ghosh Professorships were: Ganesh Prasad, D.M. Bose, P.C. Mitter and S.P. Agharkar. During 1919-21, Rash BehariGhosh made another donation of Rs. 14 lakh, out of which the technology faculty with a department each in physics and chemistry was established.
Mookerjee appointed MeghnadSaha, S.N. Bose, and S.K. Mitra as lecturers in the Physics Department. Saha and Bose were first appointed in the Department of Applied Mathematics, but they were transferred to the Physics Department at the instance of Mookerjee. The persons who were hand-picked by Mookerjee in various positions in the science and art faculty of the Calcutta University earned international fame. It was Mookerjee who brought S. Radhakrishnan, then a lecturer in Mysore University, to Calcutta University.
Asutosh was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata) on 28 June 1864 to Gangaprasad Mukhopadhyay and Jagattarini Devi. His father was a well-known physician, and his mother was known to be a woman of courage and considerable strength of character. He was highly devoted to his mother and never went against the wishes of his mother. So when he was personally nominated by Lord Curzon, the then Viceroy and Governor General of British India, as the representative of the citizens of Kolkata to attend the coronation of King Edward VII, he declined the offer as his mother did not want his son to go abroad. It has been reported that Lord Lytton told Asutosh: “Tell your mother the Viceroy and Governor General of India commands her son to go.” To this Mookerjee replied: “Then I will say that AsutoshMookerjee refuses to be commanded by any other person except his mother, be he Viceroy or somebody higher still.”
Mookerjee studied at the South Suburban School from where he passed the Matriculation examination from Calcutta University in 1879. He then joined Presidency College. He passed the FA examination in 1881 and joined the BA course. While an undergraduate student, he published a research paper in mathematics in the journal Messenger of Mathematics. The paper was titled “Some extension of a theorem of Salmons”. In 1884, he passed the BA examination, standing first in the university. H.G. Reynolds, the then Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University, in his Convocation Address referred to Mookerjee’s achievement: “The senior wrangler of the year, if I may borrow the phrase from Cambridge, is AsutoshMookerjee of the Presidency College who stands first in the list of BA graduates and is in receipt of the Ishan and Vizianagram Scholarships and HurrishChander Prize.” The same year, in which he passed his BA examination, Mookerjee was elected a member of the London Mathematical Society. The Statesman in its12 February 1884 issue wrote: “We understand that BabuAsutoshMookerjee, who stood first in the last BA examination, has been elected a member of the London Mathematical Society. He is the first Indian on whom the Society has conferred this honour.”
Mookerjee passed his MA examination in mathematics, securing the first position in the order of merit in 1885. C.P. Ilbert, the then Vice Chancellor of Calcutta University mentioned Mookerjee’s outstanding performance in his Convocation Address: “In the MA examination Mr. AsutoshMookerjee to whose achievements my predecessor referred to in 1884 retains his pre-eminence as a mathematician, and for the sake of the profession to which I belong, I am glad to see that he has devoted himself to the study of law and has carried off the gold medal recently offered for competition among law students by my friend Maharaja Sir JyotindraMohun Tagore.” He received his MA degree in Natural Science too from Calcutta University in 1886. The same year he qualified in the special competitive examination for the award of the prestigious PremchandRoychand Scholarship. He also studied law at the City College and stood first in all the three examinations of law. Consent from his mother. For a brief period, he served as the Chief Justice of the Calcutta High Court.
Asutosh Mookerjee died on 25 May 1924 in Patna, Bihar where he had gone in connection with his legal practice. Remembering Mookerjee, Michael Sadler, who was Chairman of Calcutta University Commission during 1917-1919, wrote: “In Asutosh Mookerjee India has lost one of her greatest men; the world one of its outstanding personalities. He was mighty in battle. He could have ruled an empire. But he gave the best of his powers to education because he believed that in education rightly lie the secret of human welfare and the key to every empire’s moral strength.”