Madhusudan_Das

182 Madhusudan Das:
Moreover question arises regarding Mr. Das's nature of innovation —
whether it is 'Subjective innovation' 39 or 'Schumpeterian innovation'. No
doubt Mr. Das was innovative but elusive and enigmatic. He was a social
deviant and a pathfinder. In the thirty years bridging the nineteenth century
and the twentieth century he himself did not become dynamo for
industrialisation but laid the foundations for it and left a rich legacy to
the successors. As A.N.Whitehead said —
The behaviour of the community is largely dominated by the
business mind. A great society is a society in which its men of
business think greatly of their functions. Low thoughts mean
low behaviour, and after a brief orgy of exploitation, low
behaviour means a descending standard of life. The general
greatness of the community qualitatively as well as quantitavely
is the first condition for steady prosperity — byoyant. selfsustained
and commanding credit... 40
The last words of the epitaph on his tomb read :
"I found in Him a resting place
And He has made me glad".
But the tributes befitting a leader in economic and social arena can as
well be written in letters of gold:
" To set the cause above renown.
To love the game beyond the prize.
To count the life of battle good.
And dear the land that gave you birth.
And dearer yet the brotherhood
That binds the brave of all the earth"
(Adapted from 'Clifton Chapel' of Captain —Francis Newbold.
in "Poems New and Old".)
References Cited:
1. The Rhythm of History quoted by Arthur H. Cole in An
approach to the study of emrepreneurship :A Tribute to Edwin
F. Gay. Sec: Aidcenl Hugh. G.5,(Ed.)-Explorationsin Enterprise
(Harvard University Press. I965)p.31.
2. The Climate of Enterprise in The American Economic Review,
Vol-XXXIX 1949 May. p.325.
3. Late Madhusudan in Utkal Gaurab Souveneir. 1971. Ed. S.
Mahapatra. Cuttack, p. 1.