Utkal Divas: The one man we ought to recall is Dinabandhu Pattanayak

Subhas Chandra Pattanayak

For resurrection of Orissa comprising the Oriya speaking tracks, the one man that had taken the first initiative is Dinabandhu Pattanayak of Ghumusar.

He was a government official. Yet, he had organized the first meeting of Oriyas of his area for collective application of mind on how to save the language, literature, culture and properties of the Oriyas from the evil grip of non-Oriyas to whose provinces the British had arbitrarily tagged the Oriya speaking tracks taking advantage of a compromise with Buxi Jagabandhu that had given it a status of a government in the eyes of the people of Orissa.

The meeting he had convened and guided, resolved to seek amalgamation of the Oriya speaking areas for resurrection of the divided Orissa.

Dinabandhu had attracted attention of the Oriya brethren living in Cuttack and Puri to this mass thinking, through Utkal Dipika, the most famous mainstream periodical of the time. His appeal woke up the lion from slumber and Kula Gourav Madhusudan Das took the lead in building up a very unique movement for resurrection of Orissa. Oriya authors, scholars, and statesmen got united with the media in making this movement an epoch making success.

When we celebrate Utkal Divas, the day of birth of modern Orissa, we ought to recall Dinabandhu Pattanayak, the first man who had dreamt of this Orissa and had given birth to the movement that made it come true.

You may visit this link to know of him.