George Baker

George Baker (born 28 October 1946) is an Indian actor and politician. He is primarily known for his works in Bengali and Assamese language films. He is one of the two members of parliament appointed by the president under Article 331 (Anglo-Indian) of the Indian Constitution. He joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2014 and contested and lost the Lok Sabha elections from the Howrah constituency during the 2014 Indian general election.

Early life and education George Baker was born into a Greek family. His parents migrated to India via Britain shortly before he was born. His initial education was in Lucknow at La Martiniere College. He was a National level junior in Boxing and Swimming during this period. He later joined the Assam Engineering College but had to leave midway since his father died. He completed a two-year course in Permanent Way Engineering and joined the Northeast Frontier Railway zone in the Engineering Department. He served there for two years and then quit to start his own business.

Acting career Baker made his first foray into Assamese cinema in 1974. He played the protagonist in the Assamese film Chameli Memsaab. This film went on to win the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Assamese at the 23rd National Film Awards. He played the role of Berkeley, a British planter who falls for a native girl, Chameli, (played by Binita Borgohain) and is later accused for her murder. Baker later played the same role in the Bengali version of the same movie.

He went on to act in numerous Bengali movies, Jatra, television films, serials mostly playing parts of British Expatriates. He has also been part of roving theatre groups.

Over the years he has acted in films of five languages – Assamese, Bengali, English, Hindi and Santhali.

More recently he played the role of Sir William Eckhardt in Parineeta and Mr. Ramsey in Bhooter Bhabishyat.

Political career

On 27 February 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party announced Baker as their candidate for the 2014 Indian general election from the Howrah (Lok Sabha constituency).

On 23 July 2015, he was appointed to the 16th Lok Sabha as one of the two appointed members representing the Anglo-Indian community along with Richard Hay.

On 24 June 2017, he was attacked by a mob, allegedly composed of Trinamool Congress members, and then hospitalised.

Filmography Year Film Role Language Director Co-Actor 1975 Chameli Memsaab Berkeley Assamese Abdul Majid Binita Borgohain 1976 Adalat Assamese Dilip Deka Dinesh Das 1979 Chameli Memsaheb Berkeley Bengali Indor Sen Anil ChatterjeeRakhee Gulzar 1982 Amrita Kumbher Sandhaney Bengali Dilip Roy Aparna SenBhanu Bannerjee Anup Kumar 1983 Amar Geeti Bengali Tarun Majumdar Satya Bannerjee Biswajeet Soumitra Chatterjee Rabi Ghosh Anup Kumar Chinmoy Roy 1984 Devi Assamese Sambhu Gupta and Dara Ahmed Biju PhukanDolly Gupta 1988 Pratipaksha Bengali Rathish Dey Sarker Prasenjit Chatterjee Rameshwari Utpal Dutt 1988 Boba Sanai Bengali Ajit Ganguly Rameshwari Chiranjit 1988 Anjali Bengali Anjan Choudhury Ranjit Mallick Moon Moon SenKali Bannerjee Madhabi Mukherjee 1993 Priyojon Assamese Wisekurni Bora Mridula Baruah 2002 Desh Bengali Raja Sen Jaya BhaduriSabyasachi ChakrabortySubhendu ChatterjeeAbhishek BachchanNayana Das 2004 Bow Barracks Forever English Anjan Dutt Victor Banerjee Roopali Ganguly Sohini Pal Moon Moon Sen Sabyasachi Chakraborty Arindam Sil 2005 Parineeta Sir William Eckhardt Hindi Pradeep Sarkar Saif Ali Khan Vidya Balan Sanjay Dutt Dia Mirza 2007 Minister Fatakeshto Raj Burman Bengali Swapan Saha Mithun Chakraborty Deepankar DeKoel Mallick Soumitra Chatterjee 2008 Love Bengali Riingo Banerjee Koyel Mallick Jisshu Sengupta 2012 Bhooter Bhabishyat Mr. Ramsey Bengali Anik Dutta Swastika Mukherjee Parambrata Chatterjee Sabyasachi Chakraborty