Madhusudan_Das

58 Madhusudan Das :
Bahadur Janaki Nath Bose on behalf of the Cuttack Bar, in the Circuit
Court at Cuttack. Mr. Justice James on that occasion referred in the
bar extremely well-chosen words to Mr. Das's great versatility as
educationist, industrialist, advocate, statesman, and that with
distinction in each sphere. He also said that he could not remember
a time when Mr. Das was not known as the Grand Old Man of Orissa.
I came to know Mr. Das a little later than Mr. Justice James, and
shortly after my first posting to the district to officiate as Collector,
and a couple of months afterwards as District and Sessions Judge.
Mr. Das was then twice my age and had already made his mark in
so many spheres of life, and was well known not only in Orissa and
Bengal but, I believe, all over the country. When, some years afterwards
he became our first Minister under the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms,
my work as Secretary to the new Legislative Council brought me into
closer contact with in the earlier years of his public life, and of many
a talk he had with the late Mr. G.K. Gokhale, with whom he had
worked in the Imperial Legislative Council. Mr. Das's talks were
remarkable for the selfless patriotism and faith that permeated his
whole being and were enlivened by a rare humour. I have heard him
give more than one happy quotation from Persian and recite not only
Oriya but also Bengali poetry composed by himself. No task, however
novel, seemed to deter him and the representation that he drew up
in order to show that there was nothing in our law to prevent a lady
graduate in Law from being allowed to join the profession, gave
unmistakable evidence of his lifelong habits of research and his
adoption of the motto of being thorough. He was a man of a large
heart; not only was his charity in the shape of doles to the needy
unbounded but the many battles that he had to fight in public life
left no bitter memories, and it was easy to see that his practical
Christianity made an essentially forgiving man of him. His vision was
wide, and if he was well ahead of the times in which he had to live,
he was determined to carry the people with him instead of selfishly
devoting himself to the work of amassing wealth, or lazily dreaming
dreams —political dreams for the future— without stirring his little
finger to make realities of them. He was a pioneer in many fields
and at a public meeting in the Town Hall in Cuttack referred to himself
as a "back number " because he had taken his Degree at the Calcutta
University over 50 years previously. Mr. Justice Sadasiva Ayyar, who