Madhubabu

On the occasion of his Birthday on 28 April.

” Over 98 per cent of our population works on land. Land does not grow in area. But hands grow in number with the growth of population.
So, extra-agricultural engagement was needed for people to earn their livelihood and proceed to prosperity.”

Madhu babu had observed in a speech to the ‘Bihar Young Men’s Institute’ in 1924. He was the education minister of Bihar-Odisha government then.

He proceeded to establish the Odisha Tannery and make Cuttack a hub of filigree works in the 1920s. He believed that cottage industry is the only alternative to the poor farmers as crops here fail regularly.

Young Mohandas Karam Chand Gandhi was deeply influenced by this speech. He had noted it with a reminder to meet him soon.

Two years later, on 9-9-1926, he wrote in Young India, “I have kept that speech by me so as to be able to deal with the essential part of it on a suitable occasion”.

That suitable occasion arose when Gandhiji met Madhubabu on his visit to Odisha to discuss about Industrialization as part of his famous Swadeshi Movement. This ultimately led to the foundation of his Charakha movement.

Madhusudan Das preceded MK Gandhi by 2 decades.

He was an orator more powerful than the Subhas Bose and a more accomplished advocate in the 1920s. He had become an icon for his legendary skills in legal intricacy.

He had single handedly fought the case of Rajah of Puri vs East India Company to retain the super-in-tendence of the Puri temple with the Gajapati. It still remains with him.

He was the first Odia to become a central minister in the Bihar-Orissa government.

In fact, in 1919 he was politically taller than Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah.

….

But post-1919, Madhu babu parted himself away from the National Congress leadership in favour of a separate state for Orissa.

When Congress boycotted Simon Commission, he welcomed them to discuss separate state hood for Odisha. In the Round table Baithak in London his priority was a separate Odisha.

As a result of his untiring efforts, Orissa separated from Bihar in 1936 to become the first Indian state carved out on linguistic basis, but he was sidelined by the tall congress leaders from Bihar.

In 1934, two years before separate state hood for Odisha could become a reality, he died and was conveniently forgotten in the political squabble that followed.

Thus Madhubabu lost in both accounts, from the central congress leadership because of his Odisha centric attitude and from local recognition because of his early death.

He had lost his wife just 3 years after marriage.

He had always been denied access into the Puri temple because he had adopted Christianity though he was instrumental in it’s sovereignty pre Independence.

He had spent the last penny on the Odia Swabhiman, the Utkal Tannery and died insolvent despite a lucrative law practice.

His last days were spent in a solitary room of the house he had built, the Sailabala Women’s College. Half of Tulsipur which belonged to him was auctioned to pay off the debts incurred by the Utkal Tannery.

( Why the Tannery went bankrupt is another story.)

Today, he had become a statue in the assembly only to be garlanded twice in a year.