Madhusudan_Das

VIII
MADHUSUDAN AND THE GROWTH OF
ECONOMIC NATIONALISM IN ORISSA
A.K.MISHRA
Down the centuries India has been a land of unity in diversity. And
it is more true in case of Orissa, a daughter province of India than elsewhere,
who has become "through ages an extremely interesting melting pot of
races, languages and cultures and may be regarded as an excellent example
of national integration." But if we look back to the conditions through
which this land of rich legacy had to pass through, during the colonial
rule, since her occupation in the year 1803. very naturally severings run
through our spines. A fertile age-old and peaceful land was being
systematically sacrificed at the altar of the Colonial Slate only to satisfy
quench the hunger of a handful of bureaucrats whose whole motto was
'Dividend-first and last'.
At this critical juncture of a dying nationality. Madhusudan arrived
in the socio-politico-eccmomic scene of Orissa, as a lavish response of
nature to the exacting requirements of the land. He came as messiah for
the thousands of his countrymen who where rolling in abject poverty,
hunger and humiliation. Soon he was seen leading an unarmed struggle
against an tinned power, by and by, becoming the living symbol of a new
nationalism,
In fact. Madhusudan belonged to the first generation of Indian
nationalist leadership, that appeared during the start of the nationalist
struggle in India. Like Ranade. Naoraji. R.C.Dutt and may others, his
conceptions on me burning economic topics of the day were as clear as
the sky. Born in 1848 to a middle class family, Madhusudan become a
successful lawyer but he dedicated his entire life and wealth to the great
cause of upliftment of the teeming millions of his countrymen, who till
recent times cherish him as "The Grand Old Man of Orissa". His greatest
contribution came in his economic analysis of British rule, whose constant
critic he remained till the last breath of his life. He showed it to a success,
the immense poverty and backwardness of India in general and Orissa in
particular were not something inherent in local conditions but were caused
by colonial rule which was draining the land of its wealth and capital. All
his life Madhusudan kept in touch with youth and continuously developed
his thought and politics in a more radical direction: so to say. he become