Madhusudan_Das

XII
MADHUSUDAN DAS : THE FATHER OF
ORIYA NATIONALISM
PRABODH KUMAR MISHRA
The nineteenth century was period of renaissance which not only
witnessed an unprecedented awakening for cultural revival but also a
search for identity in those people who had been politically dismembered
in course of territorial conquest by the British. For the Oriya speaking
people it was a century of suffering and seed time. The Orissa Division
consisting of the coastal districts of Balasore, Cuttack and Puri had
formed a part of Bengal province, Sambalpur and the adjacent tracts
were ruled from Nagpur by the Chief Commissioner of the Central
Provinces, and Ganjam was being administered as a district of the
Madras province. This was an unenviable state of affairs in which Oriya
language and culture had been ruthlessly suppressed, jeopardising the
identity of the people, besides subjecting them to economic miseries.
As minorities they had no say in the administration; devoid of leadership
they had none to champion their cause or plead for redressal of their
various grievances. Lack of adequate educational facilities and
communication had adversely affected their moral and material progress.
The vernacular press in Cuttack was set up as late as 1866 after the
great famine. The Oriya speaking people were languishing under terrible
socio-economic and political disadvantages created by the accidents of
history.
The emergence of Madhusudan Das (1848-1934) slowly brought
a material change in the situation finally culminating in the creation of
a separate province for the Oriyas. Madhusudan had his College and
University education in Calcutta where he stayed for about 15 years to
complete M. A. and B.L. examinations and to practise law in the Alipore
Court. In 1881 he returned to Cuttack and started practising at the' Bar
amidst stiff opposition and competition of the Bengal lawyers. It did
not take him much time to establish himself as a successful lawyer,