Bhupendranath Datta (4 September 1880 – 25 December 1961)[1] was an Indian communist revolutionary and later a noted sociologist and anthropologist.

The Asiatic Society today holds the Dr. Bhupendranath Datta memorial lecture in his honour.

Datta was born on 4 September 1880 in the town of Calcutta, the capital of Bengal Presidency, the largest province of British India at that time.

Vishwanath Datta was an attorney of Calcutta High Court and Bhuvaneshwari Devi was a housewife.

[3] Datta was enrolled in Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's Metropolitan Institution from where he passed entrance examination.

In his youth, he joined Brahmo Samaj led by Keshub Chandra Sen and Debendranath Tagore.

[5] In 1907, Datta was arrested by British police with the charge of sedition and was sentenced to one year's imprisonment.

During the visit Datta presented Vladimir Lenin a research paper on political condition of contemporary India.

Bhupendranath as chairman of reception committee drew attention of youth to Marxism and suggested formation of study circles.

All Bengal Youth Association was formed at the beginning of 1928, with Bhupendranath as the president of the organization and as the main speaker at its conference.

Famous Communist leader Benoy Krishna Choudhury remembers that his acquaintance with Bhupenda began in Hooghly district students’ conference in 1928.

[citation needed] He along with Hiren Mukherjee and Humayun Kabir attended BPSF conference on October 12, 1936.

In Calcutta, an ‘Indian Proletarian Revolutionary Party’ was formed, with Panchu Gopal Bhaduri, Kali Ghosh, Bankim Mukherjee and others.

Bhupendranath Dutta was the first president of Friends of Soviet Union (FSU), formed in 1941 at the initiative of Prof Hiren Mukherjee and others.

Dr Bhupen Dutta was never a formal member of CPI, but for all practical purposes he functioned as one.

He brought to light the social and mass aspects of Swami Vivekanand and Ramakrishna Mission, who advocated and worked for the well-being of people.