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POLITICAL ACTIVITIES
89

statements, which the party concerned has had no opportunity of explaining. But perhaps I am anticipating events that will receive fuller consideration later on.

I go back to the mass meetings, and to my friends who were associated with them. Babu Kali Sunkar Sukul was another worker. He was a brilliant student of the Calcutta University and was the Cobden Scholar of his year. He was not a Bengalee, but came from the United Provinces, from somewhere near Cawnpore. He was, however, thoroughly acclimatized, if I may use that word. He was a Bengalee to all intents and purposes; he was married to a Bengalee lady and spoke Bengalee with the easy familiarity of one born to the language. I rather think that he spoke Hindi, which was his mother-tongue, somewhat indifferently, and at a meeting at Cawnpore, at which he addressed the audience in Hindi, he said to me afterwards that he had made many grammatical mistakes. I first came in contact with him at a meeting in 1876, when I delivered an address on Indian Unity. He rose up from among the crowd of students and spoke. It was an effective little speech, which made an impression on the audience. I thought the young man had stuff in him, and I was right. Our acquaintance, which thus began, ripened into a warm friendship. He took part in the Outstill agitation, and accompanied me to Upper India, along with Babu Krishna Kumar Mittra, in one of my visits to that part of the country in connexion with the Civil Service movement. Latterly business prevented him from close association with our work; but we continued to be friends to the last.

Babu Barada Prosanna Roy was an inhabitant of Barisal. Private circumstances soon compelled him to give up public work. It is a pity that there should be no public fund to ensure the continued services of men like him. We held quite a number of meetings in the Hughli district. There was then no C.I.D. to shadow our steps and to interfere with our work. There was no unpleasant sensation of being secretly espied, while we were doing this good work alike in the interests of the Government and of the people. I believe our public meetings now no longer suffer, except on special occasions, from the embarrassing presence of the police official.

We followed up our public meetings with an appeal to the Government to abolish the Outstill System. The appeal was successful; for it had behind it the voice of the country; and we were fortunate enough to enlist the sympathies of the Temperance