Famous People

Perhaps the most remembered Bengalis among the Bangla speaking people are the two great poets, Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam. Tagore's 2,000+ Rabindrasangeets and Nazrul's 3,000+ Nazrulgeetis play a pivotal part in defining Bengali culture, both in Bangladesh and West Bengal.

Many Bengalis hold Rabindranath, who was also highly revered by Nazrul, as the greatest Bengali of all time. However, a 2004 listeners survey conducted by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Bangla Service, which has about 12 million listeners in Bangladesh and West Bengal, produced Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh, also belovedly called Bangabandhu (friend of Bengal), as the greatest Bengali of all time. Porshi , a Bangla magazine published from San Francisco Bay Area, reached the same conclusion through an independent, but much smaller scale, survey conducted in March 20004.

Click on the links on the right panel to read more about these famous Bengalis.

During independence movement of India, Bengal took a leading and especially militant role. Subhash Chandra Bose, who was belovedly called "Netaji", is still considered an exemplar of courage for Indian youth. Jagadish Chandra Bose, born in East Bengal (now Bangladesh), performed pioneering research on radio waves which actually predates that of Guglielmo Marconi who is most often associated with the development of radio. Satyendra Nath Bose , from whom the boson particle and Bose-Einstein theory got their names, was also a Bengali.

Rabindranath Tagore was the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize for his masterpiece "Gitanjali" in 1913. Amartya Sen, who won Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998, is a Bengali. Satyajit Ray is considered one of the greatest film makers in the history of the world.

Fazlur Rahman Khan of Bangladesh, was a world famous engineer, known for his efficient designs of Chicago's 100-story John Hancock Center and 110-story Sears Tower, the tallest building in the United States since its completion in 1974. In 1998, the city of Chicago named the intersection of Jackson and Franklin Streets (located at the foot of the Sears Tower) "Fazlur R. Khan Way" in honor of the designer of the Sears Tower.


In August 2001, Irene Khan, from Bangladesh, became the first women, the first Asian and the first Muslim to head Amnesty International's million person strong human rights movement.

The founder and President of Grameen Bank Professor Muhammad Yunus is from Bangladesh; he has pioneered the idea of microcredit. His microcredit ideas are now in practice in more than 60 countries in the world, including the United States. In California, microcredit programs exist in the city of Los Angeles and in Pomona, Pasadena and Orange County. An authentic hero, Yunus has been described as the person who has done "more than anyone in history to empower the poor." Professor Yunus was widely praised by many, including luminaries such as President Bill Clinton in his autobiography; and by Stephen Covey, one of the 25 most influential people in the world according to Time magazine, in his latest book "The 8th Habit", a sequel to the best-seller "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People".

Fazle Hasan Abed, also from Bangladesh, has built the largest Non Governmental Organization (NGO) in the world, which raised the standard of international developmental organizations. Abed has received many international awards for his pioneering approach to poverty eradication.

In the religious realm, Bengal gave birth to great Hindu sages and saints like Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (15th century major Vaishnava figure), Ramprasad Sen (a famous Kali Bhakta and poet) and Ramakrishna Paramhansa; others include Swami Vivekananda (the most renowned of Shri Ramakrishna's disciples), and Sri Aurobindo Ghosh.

Famous athletes from West Bengal include the current Indian Cricket Captain, Sourav Ganguly and tennis star Arpon Ray. The first chess grandmaster of the Indian subcontinent was Niaz Murshed, who hails from Bangladesh. Also from West Bengal is the famous Indian singer in films, Kishore Kumar ( a Bengali by lineage but born in Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh, India), as well as the world-famous sitarist Ravi Shankar.