The universal tribute

THE universal tribute that has been paid to the memory of the departed leader (CR Das), both by friends and foes, both by those “who had done stout battle against him” and by those “who had sat with him in council and stood by his side in frowning hours,” by the highest of officials in the land and the greatest of national leaders, by all sections of the Press and all orders of public men, irrespective of party, community or religion, is most grateful to the heart of his comrades, lieutenants and followers. It also must be a matter of some gratification to “the solitary and pathetic figure,” he has left behind, of whom it can be said with perfect truth, as was once said of another, that for years “she had shared all the sorrows and all the joys of life, received his confidence and aspirations, shared his triumphs and cheered him under his defeats,” and by her tender vigilance and single-minded devotion sustained and prolonged his life, not alas, by years but by months after his health had more or less broken down. To Basanti Devi, indeed, the sympathy and condolence of all that is good and true in the country have gone forth in an abundant measure, and if anything can comfort and console her in the hour of her unequalled and irreparable loss, it is the knowledge that a whole nation shares her sorrow and weeps with her. The tributes themselves naturally fall under several categories. There is the formal and purely official tribute paid by the Viceroy in his message of condolence to Mrs Das and the less formal but equally official tribute paid by the Chief Justice of Bengal in his speech at the Calcutta High Court.