Madhusudan_Das

His Life and Achievements 211
separate province. Madhusudan passed away before Orissa was on the
map of India but he died not before he had secured a provincial status
for Orissa in the Government of India Act, 1935.
The dreams of Madhusudan seem to have died with him. A
maimed unit with vast outlying areas, still struggling to keep up their
ancient culture, would never had satisfied his patriotic urge. In the
absence of dedicated leadership of his character and calibre completely
identifying the self with the people and their problems, Orissa had
remained a limping State with hardly anything to be proud of except
her poverty in the midst of plenty of resources. Madhusudan's great
efforts brought Utkal to life but she lacks blood and vigour for building
up a healthy life. She has been too anaemic even to evaluate the services
of Madhusudan for her resurrection. There has not yet been a Complete
Works of Madhusudan putting together his speeches and writings.
There has been no proper biography of this great leader's life and
achievements. No museum has been erected in his memory. The High
Court of Orissa or the Orissa Secretariat does not have a monument to
tell the people that these institutions owe their existence due to his
dynamic personality and dedicated leadership. His services to Orissa
were not of any lesser degree than those of Mahatma Gandhi to India.
It Gandhiji directed himself to free the Indian people from British
Imperialism, Madhusudan's efforts were to liberate the people of Orissa
from the domination of the underdogs of the imperialists — the
underdogs that while taking the trance of carrying on an anti-imperialist
struggle and established a colony in this region after defiling and
destroying one of the most developed cultures of the land and suppressing
the growth of the people of a vast tract by denying them all economic
and educational facilities, socially castrating them as underdeveloped.
Their exploitation was no less oppressive and killing to the people of
this land than the imperialist yoke to India. Madhusudan's methods
were as non-violent as Gandhiji's. It was by convincing the enemy of
the justice of the claim and appealing to their good sense. He led the
oppressed people to struggle unflinchingly for their rights to live with
all the dignities that a human being is entitled to. In carrying on this
liberation movement, he had to encounter similar resistance that
Gandhiji had to face. Yet he did not bear grudge against his neighbours