Madhusudan_Das

His Life and Achievements 153
when he would earn higher income: in a word, to him swaraj
means an improved economic condition. The peasant's hands
are his assets in life. He earns his bread by manual labour.
The peasant's assets are his hands. The Zamindar's assets
are his lands. Culture of land is agriculture. Culture of hand is
industry. I am aware that agriculture has been called an industry
but differentiation on the basis of their essentials should not
place agriculture in the category of industries. A branch of manual
labour which affords facilities for a progressive culture of the
hand securing higher wages at successive stages should be
properly called industry. This is not the case with the hand working
on land.
We had in the past and have now a section of population
which is landless. They have no occupation assigned to them by
the custom of the province and most of these people belong to
the untouchable class... Their isolated position has driven them
to earn their livelihood as criminals. 15
In his presidential address to the Bihar Students Conference in
1912, he said:
As long as we do not increase the value of the hands of our
nation, we cannot increase the wealth of the nation. The artisan
cannot have an increase in the value of his hand unless his social
status improves. Unless this is done the educated people cannot
give up their scorn for manual work. The hand-work of the artisan
finds a place in the drawing rooms of the Emperors. Rajas and
Maharajahs but the artisan himself has no access there. 16
Elsewhere he said:
We have to compete with Europe and manufacture the same goods
as Europe does. It cannot be said that there is no capital in Orissa
but people are eager to invest capital on land. People are unwilling
to invest capital in industry with the fear that because of want of
industrial know-how. they may sustain losses but they do not
understand that agriculture like industry may be a losing concern:
rather losses in agriculture may be of much greater magnitude.
For. losses due to lack of knowledge and discretion do not occur
twice. If knowing full well about the uncertain results of litigation,
people are ready to start any number of cases, why are they
unwilling to incur a little loss through industry ? There is no
reason other than misunderstanding behind all these.