RAIPUR (1864-1928), Indian statesman, was born of an ancient family of the Kayashta or writer caste in the village of Raipur, Birbhum district, Bengal, in June 1864. From the Presidency college, Calcutta, he went to London in 1881 to join Lincoln's Inn, where he won many prizes and scholarships, and was called to the bar in 1886. On his return to India he at once began to plead be fore the high court in Calcutta. In 5903 he became standing counsel to the Government. He was the first Indian to be ap pointed advocate-general of Bengal (1908), and the first to be come a member of the Government of India. He held the law portfolio from April 5909 to Nov. 1910. He then resumed his lucrative practice at the bar. He presided at the Indian National Congress session at Bombay in 1915; in his presidential speech he begged the British Government to declare their policy with regard to the development of constitutional government. He and the Maharaja of Bikaner were the first Indians to participate in Empire deliberations in London, for in 1917 they jointly assisted the secretary of State at the meetings of the Imperial War Cabi net, and were members of the Imperial War Conference. Sinha joined the Bengal executive council in the same year, but re turned to England in 1918 as a member of the Imperial War Cabinet and Imperial War Conference, subsequently becoming a representative of India at the Peace Conference.
Knighted in 1914, in 1918 he was made K.C., a distinction not previously conferred upon a barrister of Indian birth or practice. At the beginning of 1919 he joined the Lloyd George ministry as under-secretary for India, being raised to the peerage as Baron Sinha of Raipur and made a member of the privy council. He skilfully conducted the Government of India act, 1919, through the House of Lords. At the close of 1920 he was appointed gov ernor of Behar and Orissa, being the first Indian to preside over a British province. III-health prevented him from serving his full term in that office, and in 1921 he resigned. In 1926 Sinha was appointed a member of the judicial committee of the privy council. He was opposed to the setting up of the statutory com mission on the Government of India at an earlier date than that indicated in the Government of India act, 1919, in view of the divided state of India; but, the decision once taken, he supported the Simon Commission, and entertained its members at Calcutta. He died on Mar. 5, 1928.
Sinha is remembered by Indians as the first to break down all the barriers against Indians, and by lawyers as a learned, patient and courteous judge. Circumstances drove him into politics but his real interests, which he served whenever opportunity offered, lay in the progress of education.