Madhusudan_Das

56 Madhusudan Das :
he spent with me at Patna, the new work on which he was engrossed
was his chief subject. He was lost in admiration of the work of his
Secretary and staff generally. My apprehension was that he was
attempting to go too deeply into subjects of all degrees of importance,
traversing huge files from bottom to stop when he might with perfect
safety have confined himself to the Secretary's note and the flagged
papers. He certainly took the work of his Department extremely
seriously, specially the new Municipal and Local Self-Government Acts
with which his name will always be associated.
Writing in 1927 when I was confined in the High Court, he said
: "I do not wish to congratulate you. I congratulate Orissa on the
new appointment. You know Orissa. We have suffered much in the
past owing to the ignorance of the real state of things here on the
part of those at the head of the administration." Orissa was ever
foremost in his thoughts, his dreams, his words and actions.
As an exponent of the rights and difficulties of Orissa, M.S. Das
was not to be suppressed, and in his early days the Government of
Bengal was constrained to give serious attention to his views and
suggestions. In some instances he had to revise his opinions, and that
he did without hesitation, but in the main, his original views cannot but
commend themselves as sound, and strong expression of them was
necessary and was as is usual in such cases, discounted. No one could
say that he lacked courage. He had much to contend with enmity such a
man could not fail to arouse and the opponents who hampered his
statesmanship most were at times his own people, but he held on his
course, determined that Orissa should rise again and that the Oriyas
should advance and attain self-sufficiency. In this connection the
schools and especially the Ravenshaw College were important
auxiliaries. Mr. Das was deeply interested in education and took up
with excellent effect the lectureship in law when he saw that most
Oriya students had been unsuccessful. Time fails to set out his wide
interests. He was an Examiner of the Calcutta University in Oriya,
Secretary to the Freemasons' Lodge at Cuttack, a prominent member of
the Indian Christian community and a stalwart supporter of the of the
Ravenshaw Girl's School, while on behalf of Miss Hazra he organised
the attack in the Patna High Court on the exclusion of women from the
legal profession. Indeed he helped to advance every good cause. If he
had done nothing more than start his business in silver work and the