His father was a son of the zamindar of Birasri village in Karimganj sub-division of Sylhet district, in eastern Bengal.

examination (prior to Graduate studies) from Presidency College, Calcutta in 1901 and was awarded the Scindia Gold Medal.

Despite objection from his jyathamashai, who refused to pay for his further education, he went on a scholarship raised by the Sylhet Union to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in the United Kingdom.

He served in various capacities in the districts of Arrah, Hooghly, Pabna, Bogra, Jessore, Faridpur, Comilla, Dacca, Barisal, Khulna, Birbhum, Bankura, Howrah and Mymensingh, before coming to Calcutta.

From his youth, Gurusaday started to take active interest in social service and participated in helping fire-fighters and assisting in relief work during floods and other natural disasters.

He was one of the social reformers of the first half of the nineteenth century who thought independently about various avenues of service to the rural poor.

His pioneering work was started when most women in India were still behind the purdah (veil), and would not dare to come out in the world to create a future for themselves.

He studied the origins of the dance and discovered its rich cultural past and its connection with the army of Raja Man Singh of Rajasthan.

Subsequently, he also revived the Kaathi, Dhamail, Baul, Jhumur, Brata and Dhali dances from different parts of un-divided Bengal.

This inspired him to set up the Bangiya Palli Sampad Raksha Samiti (translated as Cultural Heritage Protection Society of Bengal) on his return.

In his words in The Bratachari Synthesis, first published in 1937, the Movement is to bring back to humanity, in all countries, the ideal and practice of the wholeness of life which, alike in the individual, the national and the international sphere has been so grievously shattered in the modern world in every country by the fragmentary outlook on, and treatment of, life in education, science, work, play and social functioning.In its aim to re-establish life on its fundamental unity, while preserving the inherent values of the individual and regional diversities, the Bratachari movement relies on a system of simultaneous physical, moral and spiritual culture with the threefold objectives of i) shaping of life in accordance with a fully balanced ideal comprising the five Bratas or ultimate ideals which are of universal application, and adopting a course for their pursuit for the integration of the culture of the body and the soul, and of the thought, speech, and behaviour; ii) the pursuit of rhythmic discipline for bringing about unification, harmony and joy as well as inner transformation; and iii) bringing men and women of every country in touch with the regional culture of their own soil and with the arts and crafts, dances and songs, and customs and manners of their own region, thus providing a natural cultural medium for their healthy all-round growth.

By this threefold sadhana (devotion), the Bratachari system seeks to enable men and women in each land to become, simultaneously, truly national and truly international.

He wrote in different journals about the wealth and beauty of folk art and left his collection on his death to The Bengal Bratachari Society.

He spent a lifetime collecting and studying art objects and handiwork from the remotest corners of undivided rural Bengal collecting items of folk art such as Kalighat paintings, patuas' scrolls, embroidered kanthas, terracotta panels, stone sculptures, wooden carvings, dolls and toys, moulds used for making patterns on sweets or mango-paste etc.

The latest book to be published is "Banglar Lokashilpa o Lokanritya" (in Bengali), which is a collection of his essays and articles on Folk Art and Folk Dances of Bengal in various magazines between 1928 and 1941(his death), that were painstakingly obtained from the old magazines at Bangiya Sahitya Parishad's library by his grandson Devsaday Dutt and granddaughter-in-law Priyadarshini Dutt.

After he died, his son, Birendrasaday Dutt, took the initiative in renaming Ballygunge Store Road, where he had built himself a house, after him.

Biographies have been written on his life and works in Bangladesh by Shankar Prasad De, Amitabha Chowdhury, Shaikat Azgar and Naresh Banerjee.

Gurusaday Dutt Scholarships are also being awarded by the Sylhet Union (Srihatta Sammilani), Kolkata for brilliant students pursuing post-graduate studies.