42 SOCIAL SCIENTIST , areas and indulge in social repression in the countryside. They were not for a complete break with their feudal inheritance; they would combine that inheritance with urban privileges. Their commitment to any values was distorted. They suffered from ^a latent dependency complex."12 This has been defined by the famous story-writer Vikari Praharaj as a ^split personality9' with ^two legs in two boats."18 This middle class with its dual culture and social position was unable to confront the aristocracy.14 As a result, as leaders of the national movement they directed it along passive, non-violent means, which often meant preventing the masses from intervening actively. Historically the peasant masses would not create their own intellectuals. They needed intellectuals from other classes. During the movement for national freedom they looked to the urban middle class for intellectual leadership, but the latter failed them. Then they turned to their old leaders,'to those who had been ruling them for centuries. This was why no peasant rebellion in India took a formidable turn.15 In some pockets here and there, the peasants rebelled under the leadership of Communist intellectuals, but they were ruthlessly put down by the State.16 In Orissa there were several peasant movements directed against feudal exploitation, but they were crushed, as elsewhere, by the colonial State. Gopabandhu and the Political Movement in Orissa There are three distinct political levels relevant to any study of Orissa's politics in the twentieth century.17 First, at the village level, the rural elite monopolized political power, occasionally, to serve their interests, the members of this elite group led the peasants against the colonial bureaucracy. Secondly at the provincial level, there was the ^middle class" dominating the national movement. Finally, at the national level, all the hegemonic social groups (the rural elite,the middle classes, and the Indian national bourgeoisie) played a dominant role. There was no organic unity between the three levels. Gopabandhu belonged to the middle class in Orissa, which had a definite structural relationship with the landed gentry. The latter organised itself in the Utkal Sammilani, and Gopabandhu entered the national movement through this association.18 The leader of the Utkal Sammilani was the Grand Old Man of Orissa, Madhusudan Das, who wanted to industrialise Orissa but failed for want of financial help from the colonial State. ^ He belonged to the first generation of Indian nationalist leaders whose definite aim was to industrialize India and who attacked the ^Un-British rule" of the Britishers.20 Madhusudan Das was also committed to making Orissa an ^Independent nationality." The Nationality Question and the Freedom Movement The Indian national movement to a certain extent incorporated the struggle of the different nationalities for the right of self-detenmnation